2022 Review: Housing, landlords and tenant rights
The Laramie Reporter takes a look at the past year, reflecting on the good, the bad and the ugly. Part two of three.
The last 12 months constituted perhaps the most eventful year for housing in Laramie in a long time.
On the fourth day of 2022, the Laramie City Council passed long-awaited and long-debated rental regulations in the form of a new City Rental Housing Code. That move inspired a high-profile lawsuit that ended with a district court judge declaring unequivocally that Wyoming municipalities have the right to establish rental regulations.
In the meantime, this city of renters continued to weather and confront injustices — alleged or concrete — carried out by landlords, property owners and out-of-state investors.
The city took further action to address the general housing shortage, approving denser developments in multi-family zones and legalizing small apartments in single-family zones.
The fight for tenant rights
For years, the issue of tenant rights and landlord abuses has been bubbling to the surface of local discourse. More than half of city residents rent the home they live in thanks to Laramie’s relative poverty and its large student population. Through the years, Laramie developed a reputation as a city where naive students were cheated by opportunist landlords and where poor residents found themselves at the mercy of tyrannical property owners.
Not all landlords behaved in such a way, but there were few safeguards in place to stop those that would. So the city — both its government and its people — started discussing the possibility of regulating the rental market.
Early efforts were squashed in 2019 when landlords showed out in force to crush a city council proposal. One prominent line of criticism levied during the 2019 meeting pointed to the lack of verifiable stories highlighting any such landlord problem in Laramie.
The same criticism could not be raised in 2021 and 2022 when the issue came back before council.
An expose originally published by the Laramie Boomerang in 2021 (and republished to the Laramie Reporter this year) highlighted the business practices, rental conditions, threatening behavior and summons-dodging skills of Max Bossarei. (At the 2019 meeting, he warned council that he and other landlords or “investors” would raise rents if they were required to meet new health and safety standards.)
The investigation mirrored a growing awareness that all was not well.
When rental regulations came up again in 2021, the city council heard from a wider scope of residents. Landlords once again showed out in force to oppose the newly proposed City Rental Housing Code, but tenants, students, nonprofit directors and other community activists turned out to speak in their favor.
Several tenants shared their own renting horror stories. Nonprofit directors, such as Laramie Interfaith’s Josh Watanabe, said their clients often put up with substandard housing because they have no other choice.
City councilors passed the rental housing code with a 7-2 vote. The code outlines minimum health and safety requirements for rental units — such as professionally installed heating, plumbing and electrical work, living spaces free of pests or mold and the presence of mandatory smoke detectors and fire escape windows.
The rental regulations also create a complaint system for tenants and a mandatory registration system for landlords.
In subsequent votes, the council decided on a minimal fee for landlord registration and no fee for tenants wishing to lodge a complaint. The code was set to go into effect Jan. 1, 2023.
But the landlords opposed to it didn’t give up the fight then. Bell Leasing, a company owning more than 60 units across the city, immediately sued the city, arguing in Albany County District Court that the new regulations would violate the constitutional rights of landlords and interfere with private contracts.
The lawsuit was decided largely in the city’s favor. District Court Judge Tori Kricken ruled Laramie has a right to pass rental regulations because the rental housing code, as written, doesn’t interfere with existing state statute and the state of Wyoming has not claimed an exclusive right to set laws in the particular area of rental regulation.
She also ruled the code was “unconstitutionally vague” in its wording — for example, failing to declare whether penalties for landlord non-compliance were criminal or civil in nature. The council shored up that language during a meeting this month, clearly stating the potential penalties are criminal.
But even as landlords started registering their units with the city this summer, tenants continued to face landlord difficulties. In May, a lawsuit about bed bugs demonstrated the uphill battle poor tenants face when trying to hold landlords accountable. Bell Leasing’s own tenants faced an arbitrary rent hike this summer — a hike the company partially blamed on the rental regulations it was suing to stop. Residents of Laramie Mobile Home Park were told to evict their dogs and make costly renovations to their lots by the park’s out-of-state owners. The investors were seeking to increase the park’s value. Laramie MHP residents have seen their own rent skyrocket since the park came under the management of the Texas-based Pathway Communities and several residents have decided to move out — even when they have no other place to go in Laramie.
Max Bossarei’s former tenants continue to struggle — for the return of their deposits, their double-charged rent and even their stolen furniture — as the notorious landlord continues to evade court summons. This year, Bossarei sold his most visible property — the motel on Third Street formerly called the Xenion — and bought a small mansion 20 miles outside of Laramie, nestled in a gated community.
The rental regulations officially go into effect Sunday, but the fight for tenant rights is likely to continue.
Housing reform and its discontents
The city also approved a number of changes to its zoning requirements. The goal was to address Laramie’s housing shortage and the end result was expanding what developers and homeowners could do in multi-family and single-family zones.
Again wrapping up work from 2021, the city council voted in January to allow denser housing in multi-family zones by allowing more housing units to be built per lot.
Council’s argument was this: if developers are only allowed to put so many units on a given lot, those units will be bigger and therefore more expensive. Allowing more units on a lot — by decreasing space, parking or other requirements — could, in theory, encourage developers to invest in smaller residential units that can be sold or rented more cheaply.
The council also approved changes to single-family zones, although these changes were less drastic. Homeowners in single-family zones are now free to build, set-up or operate accessory dwelling units — such a renovated garage or standalone structure — that can be rented or provided to family members.
These zoning changes were celebrated by housing reform advocates and developers. But they were opposed by others. Some landlords said denser housing in multi-family neighborhoods would result in “urbanized” residential areas, while some homeowners in single-family zones said allowing ADUs in their neighborhood would change its “character.”
Ultimately, the changes proposed by staff for multi- and single-family zones were approved by the city council. Now, the council is turning its attention to urban renewal and complex tools like tax increment financing — both of which could have impacts on housing in Laramie.
Ultimately, the housing issues faced by Laramie are not unique to the Gem City. Nationwide, construction projects face significant delays and most communities face housing shortages. Albany County’s relative poverty is exacerbated by these housing challenges, but local nonprofits are doing what they can to stave off hunger and homelessness.