Agenda - Planning Commission - 05/03/2018

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March 25, 2018 I Volume 12 I Issue 6 Zoning Bulletin the Act; and (2) was expressly and field preempted by the MHBC. The district court ruled that the enforcement of the City code in manufac- tured home parks was preempted and that the City was permanently enjoined form enforcing any City code within Rambush estates. The City appealed, seeking the ability to enforce its City code within Rambush Estates. On appeal, the City argued that it was expressly au- thorized by state law to enforce its codes within manufactured home parks when the codes were not inconsistent with federal or state laws. The Court's DECISION: Judgment of district court reversed. Reversing the district court, and agreeing with the City, the Court of Appeals of Minnesota held that neither federal nor state laws (i.e., the Act and the MHBC) preempted the City zoning code within Rambush Estates. In so holding, the appellate court explained that federal or state laws may preempt local laws in three ways: "(1) express preemption, where a federal or state statute explicitly defines the extent to which it preempts local law; (2) field preemption, where a local law attempts to regulate conduct in a field that the federal or state legislature intended federal or state law to exclusively occupy; and (3) conflict preemption, where a local law permits what a federal or state statute forbids or vice versa." Here, the appellate court found that the district court had failed to explain why particular City code provisions were found to be inconsis- tent with the federal Act. The appellate court noted that the district court had stated that the City's "code enforcement conflicts . . . [by] imposing fines inconsistent with Congress's objective to maintain af- fordability of this vital form of housing as expressed in [the Act] and adopted by the State of Minnesota." The appellate court disagreed, finding the district court "erred in its interpretation of the Act." The ap- pellate court noted that the federal Act did not preempt enforcement of all codes, but only preempted enforcement of codes that attempted to regulate construction or safety standards that were inconsistent with the Act's standards. In other words, the appellate court found that the Act did "not preempt the [C]ity from enforcing its [C]ity code within Rambush Estates because the Act [was] limited to consumer protec- tion, and the [C]ity code [did] not purport to regulate within that construction or safety standards context." In fact, the appellate court found that none of the City's regulated items —of carports, awnings, zoning setbacks, trash screening, and exterior storage —within a manufactured home park related to the construction or safety of the manufactured home itself. Therefore, the appellate court concluded that the Act did not expressly preempt the relevant City code provi- sions, of which Eich had challenged enforcement. Since the MHBC adopted the identical federal standards of the Act, 10 © 2018 Thomson Reuters