Orange City, Iowa — A judge has ruled against the City of Orange City and for a group of citizens that claimed the City’s rental inspections ordinance was unconstitutional.
The citizens — Orange City tenants, Amanda Wink, Bryan Singer, and Erika Nordyke, and their landlords, Bev Van Dam and Josh Dykstra — not only claimed that the mandatory inspection requirements of the ordinance were unconstitutional, but they wanted Orange City to be unable to seek warrants to conduct inspections with less than traditional, individualized probable cause.
The citizens said that the City should not be allowed to enter a dwelling without evidence that a code violation exists, has existed, or will exist in or outside a targeted rental home. They also didn’t think it was fair that tenants don’t receive notice of, or opportunity to contest the City’s application for an administrative search warrant.
The City said the requirements of an administrative warrant do not require evidence of a specific violation and any administrative search warrants that the City might seek in the future under the ordinance would be based on the reasonable legislative or administrative standards, making specific evidence of an existing violation unnecessary.
The court did find that there need to be more safeguards or protective measures put in place as there are none currently in Iowa for the court to use when considering a request or application for an administrative search warrant.
They also found that without safeguards in place, the administrative warrant violates the citizens’ rights, and is therefore unconstitutional. The suit was filed in the spring of 2021.
