Key Points

  • The Idaho Supreme Court unanimously affirmed dismissal without prejudice of as-applied substantive due process challenges to Meridian's rules barring mobile tiny homes as secondary dwelling units.
  • The court held the claims unripe, rather than moot as the district court had ruled, because the challengers never filed a secondary dwelling unit permit application and the city's review process never ran.
  • The court held that administrative exhaustion did not apply because no administrative process ever began.
  • The court affirmed judgment for the city on the selective-enforcement equal protection claim, finding substantial and competent evidence that a neighbor's formal complaint, not the code officer's mistaken view of nonconforming-use rights, prompted the investigation.
  • Costs on appeal were awarded to the city under Idaho Appellate Rule 40(a).

The Idaho Supreme Court on Monday rejected a constitutional challenge to Meridian's ban on living in mobile tiny homes on residential lots, holding that a homeowner and a tiny-home owner could not sue over the rules because they never applied for the city permit those rules govern.

Justice Moeller, writing for a unanimous court, affirmed a judgment for the City of Meridian and Mayor Robert Simison. The court upheld the dismissal of substantive due process claims brought by homeowner Robert Calacal and tiny-home owner Chasidy Decker, who argued the rules were invalid as applied to them. It also upheld a finding that a city code officer had not selectively enforced the code against the pair.

The decision rests on ripeness, the doctrine that asks whether a suit was filed too early. The court held that the pair's as-applied challenge could not proceed before the city reviewed an actual application. The trial judge had reached the same result on a different ground, mootness.

Calacal bought a Meridian home with water, power and sewer hookups in 2022, planning to rent the hookups to offset his mortgage, according to the opinion. On May 18, 2022, Decker moved her 252-square-foot tiny home, which is built on a chassis and certified as a recreational vehicle, onto the lot under a lease. A neighbor complained to the city's code enforcement office the next day.

Code Enforcement Officer Anthony Negrete sent both owners notices of criminal violation and orders to abate on June 14, 2022. The notices cited a rule that "[n]o motor vehicle or trailer including, but not limited to . . . mobile tiny houses . . . , shall be used as a residence or as living quarters except within an approved recreational vehicle park." The pair sued on Aug. 15, 2022.

The suit also challenged a ban on mobile homes and recreational vehicles as secondary dwelling units. It further challenged a rule requiring the owner to live on the lot and barring a secondary unit from being "segregated in ownership" from the main house. After a six-day bench trial in April 2024, Ada County District Judge Jason D. Scott dismissed the due process claims as moot, reasoning that the lease arrangement would violate the ownership rule even if the tiny-home bans fell.

The Supreme Court took a different path. "While the Unified Ownership Requirement might have barred relief had the Property Owners filed an application, they never did," Justice Moeller wrote.

At oral argument, the challengers said they sought "the ability to actually apply for a permit and not have it rejected." The court said their challenge sounded like "a not-so-veiled request for this Court to 'pre-approve' an unfiled application." It held that the relief "is not only extraordinary, it is also improper under ordinary principles of ripeness because it would judicially bypass the role of local government."

The challengers put great emphasis on city officials' testimony that an application would be rejected, and the court acknowledged the city's stipulation that it "does not perform (or allow its consultants to perform) the inspections and plan reviews necessary to issue [an SDU] permit for any mobile tiny house." The court called the testimony "contradictory and based upon lay interpretations of regulations and code provisions that this Court can read and discern for itself."

The court noted that the parties agree the building code allows foundation modifications that could remove a home's "mobile" character. That, it wrote, offers "a plausible route whereby two of the code provisions at issue may be resolved upon the filing of an application."

Nor would the court assume, as the challengers suggested at argument, that Decker might add Calacal to her home's title to satisfy the ownership rule. Making that assumption, Justice Moeller wrote, "is a speculative leap of faith that we are not willing to make."

The court also rejected the city's alternative argument based on administrative exhaustion, the rule that a party must complete an agency's process before going to court. "Because no process ever commenced, there was nothing to exhaust; however, that same absence of an application is precisely what renders this dispute unripe," the court held.

On the equal protection claim, the challengers argued that the city's "enforcement against Decker and Calacal was shot through with an unequal—and arbitrary—classification." Negrete had told Calacal he inspected the property because Calacal was a recent purchaser. He told Decker her tiny home could not be a valid nonconforming use because the property had recently sold.

The trial judge found that Negrete "espoused a mistaken view" of nonconforming-use rights, which are not lost when property changes hands, but concluded that the neighbor's complaint prompted the inspection. The Supreme Court held that substantial and competent evidence supported that finding. Negrete inspected Calacal's lot and a second tiny-home property the same day, which the court said "showed the investigation was in response to the neighbor's formal complaint—not because he was singling out new owners for selective enforcement."

A footnote states that Meridian amended both the ownership rule and the mobile-home ban effective Nov. 18, 2025. Neither party raised an argument based on the amendments.

Chief Justice Brody and Justices Bevan, Zahn and Meyer joined the opinion. It states that the case was decided before Justice Bevan's retirement and that he participated fully.

Daniel L. Alban argued for Calacal and Decker, who were represented by Runft Dindinger Kohler PLLC of Boise and the Institute for Justice of Arlington, Virginia. Peter Thomas argued for the city, which was represented by Moore Elia Kraft & Stacey, LLP of Boise.

The due process claims remain dismissed without prejudice, while the equal protection claim stays dismissed with prejudice. The court awarded the city its costs on appeal as the prevailing party under Idaho Appellate Rule 40(a).