Belle Terre Controls: Unrelated-Occupancy Zoning Limits Do Not Trigger Intimate-Association Strict Scrutiny

1. Introduction

Homeroom, Inc. v. City of Shawnee, Kansas (10th Cir. Apr. 6, 2026) concerns a constitutional challenge to Shawnee, Kansas Ordinance No. 3419, which prohibits “Co-Living Groups”—defined as four or more unrelated adults living together in a single dwelling unit—from residing in any residential-use zone. The ordinance places no occupancy limit on “related persons” (defined by blood, marriage, adoption, guardianship, or specified custody relationships).

The plaintiffs were (1) HomeRoom, Inc., a property-management startup operating a co-living “master tenant” model, and (2) Val French, a homeowner who alleged the ordinance forced her adult son and his girlfriend (unrelated under the ordinance) to move out and prevented her from renting a spare room to an unrelated tenant.

The suit, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, asserted facial violations of the Fourteenth Amendment: a substantive due process claim framed as an infringement of the right to intimate association, and an equal protection claim challenging the ordinance’s related/unrelated classification. The district court dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6), and declined supplemental jurisdiction over a Kansas-law claim. The Tenth Circuit affirmed.

The key appellate issues were: (a) whether HomeRoom could litigate based on tenants’ rights (third-party/prudential standing), and (b) whether the ordinance burdens a fundamental right so as to require heightened scrutiny, or instead is governed by Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas and reviewed only for a rational basis.

2. Summary of the Opinion

  • Standing (HomeRoom): The court did not decide whether HomeRoom had prudential (third-party) standing to assert would-be tenants’ rights, because Ms. French “undisputedly has standing” and the case could proceed on her claims.
  • Merits (Ms. French): The court held Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas remains dispositive: zoning rules limiting the number of unrelated persons who may live together do not implicate a fundamental right and are subject to rational-basis review. The Shawnee ordinance survives that deferential standard.
  • Later developments: The court rejected arguments that Moore v. City of East Cleveland, City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, or Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees undermined Belle Terre in this context, and found Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommate.com, LLC inapposite.
  • State claim: With federal claims dismissed, affirmance followed as to the district court’s choice to decline supplemental jurisdiction.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

A. Zoning and household-composition limits

Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U.S. 1 (1974), is the opinion’s cornerstone. Belle Terre upheld a zoning ordinance restricting “family” dwellings to related persons (or no more than two unrelated people), emphasizing deference to legislative line-drawing in land-use regulation and applying rational-basis scrutiny because the ordinance implicated no suspect classification and no fundamental right. The Tenth Circuit treated the Shawnee ordinance as “almost identical” in the constitutionally relevant way: it limits cohabitation by unrelated adults while leaving related households unrestricted.

Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977), was addressed primarily to show its limits: Moore involved an ordinance that restricted which relatives could live together—an “intrusive regulation of the family.” The panel relied on Moore’s own distinction that Belle Terre “affected only unrelated individuals,” and therefore Moore did not erode Belle Terre’s force where (as here) the ordinance targets unrelated cohabitation rather than narrowing the definition of family.

Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926), appears in Moore’s discussion (and indirectly here) as part of the traditional zoning jurisprudence emphasizing municipal authority under the police power. The panel used it mainly to reinforce that Moore carved out a family-integrity context that Belle Terre still governs outside of.

B. Equal protection and rational-basis “intensity”

City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432 (1985), was invoked by plaintiffs to argue for a “more searching” rational-basis review. The panel rejected that framing, relying on: Powers v. Harris, 379 F.3d 1208 (10th Cir. 2004), which states that no Supreme Court majority has declared that Cleburne’s rational-basis analysis differs from the traditional standard.

The panel also found Cleburne factually inapposite: Cleburne involved differential treatment among types of unrelated group homes, whereas Shawnee’s ordinance does not differentiate among unrelated persons based on disability or other traits; it applies the same unrelated-person cap across the board.

To demonstrate Belle Terre’s continuing force post-Cleburne, the panel cited federal decisions applying Belle Terre: Doe v. City of Butler, 892 F.2d 315 (3d Cir. 1989), and Jones v. Wildgen, 320 F. Supp. 2d 1116 (D. Kan. 2004), both upholding unrelated-occupancy limits under rational-basis review.

C. Intimate association doctrine

Plaintiffs argued that Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609 (1984), “explicitly” recognized the right of intimate association and therefore required strict scrutiny for household-selection restrictions. The panel rejected the attempt to transplant Roberts into zoning-occupancy doctrine, emphasizing:

  • Roberts did not mention Belle Terre, did not involve zoning, and focused on associational claims by a large membership organization.
  • The Third Circuit in Doe v. City of Butler explicitly concluded that nothing in Roberts displaced Belle Terre’s zoning holding.
  • The Tenth Circuit also noted its own associational-doctrine discussion in Trujillo v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm'rs, 768 F.2d 1186 (10th Cir. 1985), but did not treat that line of cases as altering Belle Terre’s standard for unrelated-occupancy zoning.

Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommate.com, LLC, 666 F.3d 1216 (9th Cir. 2012), overruled in part on other grounds by FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U.S. 367 (2024), was deemed inapposite. Roommate.com used constitutional-avoidance principles to narrow the Fair Housing Act’s application to roommate matching because roommate choice implicates privacy and autonomy; it did not address municipal zoning power to cap unrelated occupants or apply Belle Terre.

D. Standing and justiciability

The opinion provides a clean roadmap of standing doctrine—both Article III and prudential limits—through: Kowalski v. Tesmer, 543 U.S. 125 (2004); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490 (1975); and Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992).

Critically, the panel relied on Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252 (1977) (MHDC), for the proposition that where multiple plaintiffs sue, a court may reach the merits once at least one plaintiff has standing, without deciding whether other plaintiffs can proceed (including whether exceptions to prudential third-party standing apply). That is the mechanism by which the court avoided deciding HomeRoom’s prudential-standing argument.

E. Method and standard of review; vertical stare decisis; supplemental jurisdiction

  • StreetMediaGroup, LLC v. Stockinger, 79 F.4th 1243 (10th Cir. 2023): de novo review of Rule 12(b)(6) dismissals.
  • Matney v. Barrick Gold of N. Am., 80 F.4th 1136 (10th Cir. 2023): accept well-pleaded facts as true on a motion to dismiss.
  • Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477 (1989): lower courts must follow directly controlling Supreme Court precedent even if later doctrinal developments arguably undermine it.
  • Seegmiller v. LaVerkin City, 528 F.3d 762 (10th Cir. 2008), and Copelin-Brown v. N.M. State Pers. Off., 399 F.3d 1248 (10th Cir. 2005): rational-basis review is highly deferential; any reasonably conceivable facts may suffice.
  • Nielander v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm'rs, 582 F.3d 1155 (10th Cir. 2009): affirming discretionary отказ of supplemental jurisdiction after dismissal of all claims within original federal jurisdiction.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. How the court avoided HomeRoom’s prudential-standing dispute

The panel’s standing discussion is structured and strategic. It recited black-letter doctrine that a litigant generally must assert its own rights (Warth; Kowalski), identified the possibility of exceptions, but then declined to decide whether HomeRoom qualified. Invoking Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp. (MHDC), it held that because Ms. French “unquestionably has standing,” the court could proceed to the merits without resolving whether HomeRoom could assert tenants’ rights. This is a pragmatic application of multi-plaintiff standing principles: if one plaintiff can litigate the same merits question, the court can avoid difficult third-party standing issues that would not change the remedial outcome (a declaration/injunction as to the ordinance).

B. Framing the constitutional claims as controlled by Belle Terre

Although the complaint pleaded substantive due process (intimate association) and equal protection as distinct theories, the panel followed the parties’ litigation choice to treat the “substantive thrust” as overlapping and analyzed them together. The controlling move was to classify the ordinance under the Belle Terre category: a line drawing between related households and groups of unrelated adults, justified by traditional land-use goals. Under Belle Terre, the classification:

  • does not employ a suspect class (e.g., race);
  • does not burden a recognized fundamental right (in Belle Terre’s majority view); and
  • therefore triggers only rational-basis review.

Once that categorization is accepted, the burden shifts heavily to the challenger. Under the court’s cited rational-basis precedents (Seegmiller; Copelin-Brown), the ordinance must be upheld if any conceivable rational justification exists. Belle Terre supplies the archetypal justification: preserving “single-family character,” quiet residential neighborhoods, and related land-use objectives.

C. Rejecting “doctrinal drift” arguments (Roberts, Moore, Cleburne, Roommate.com)

The panel’s doctrinal approach is explicitly “vertical”: lower courts must apply directly controlling Supreme Court precedent unless the Supreme Court itself overrules it (Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, Inc.). Within that framework, the court treated plaintiffs’ reliance on later cases as insufficient because none directly displaced Belle Terre on its facts:

  • Moore v. City of East Cleveland distinguished Belle Terre (family-member restrictions), not undermined it.
  • City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center did not create heightened rational-basis review and involved different treatment among categories of unrelated occupants.
  • Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees recognized intimate association in a different setting and did not signal that occupancy caps for unrelated persons are fundamental-right burdens.
  • Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommate.com, LLC was about statutory interpretation and constitutional avoidance in the FHA context, not the constitutionality of zoning occupancy caps.

3.3 Impact

Although designated as nonprecedential, the opinion is likely to have meaningful persuasive effects in at least three ways:

  1. Reinforcement of Belle Terre as the controlling template for challenges to municipal restrictions on the number of unrelated adults who may share a home. Plaintiffs who frame such caps as “intimate association” infringements will confront the court’s statement that Belle Terre remains “dispositive.”
  2. Litigation strategy for multi-plaintiff challenges: the court’s reliance on MHDC signals that including an individual resident with direct injury can allow courts to bypass thorny questions about corporate plaintiffs’ ability to assert tenants’ rights. This could shape how co-living platforms and property managers structure future test cases.
  3. Limits on “modernization” arguments: the court declined to treat modern associational-rights language or roommate privacy concerns as sufficient to reclassify unrelated cohabitation as a fundamental right in zoning doctrine. Unless and until the Supreme Court revisits Belle Terre, the rational-basis frame remains the path of least resistance for municipalities defending similar ordinances.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Facial vs. as-applied challenge: A facial challenge argues a law is unconstitutional in all its applications; an as-applied challenge argues it is unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiff’s specific circumstances. The plaintiffs brought a facial challenge, raising the bar for invalidation.
  • Substantive due process (intimate association): A doctrine under the Fourteenth Amendment that can protect certain personal decisions and relationships from government interference. The key question is whether the relationship/choice at issue is treated as “fundamental,” which would trigger strict scrutiny.
  • Equal protection: Requires the government to treat similarly situated people alike unless a sufficient justification exists. The level of scrutiny depends on whether the law uses a suspect class or burdens a fundamental right.
  • Rational-basis review: The most deferential constitutional test. A law is upheld if there is any reasonably conceivable legitimate purpose and the law is rationally related to that purpose. Courts do not require the government’s best reasons—only a plausible one.
  • Suspect classification / fundamental right: If a law classifies by race (suspect class) or burdens rights like marriage (fundamental), courts apply heightened scrutiny. Under Belle Terre, unrelated cohabitation limits do not fall into those categories.
  • Article III standing vs. prudential standing: Article III standing requires injury, causation, and redressability (Lujan). Prudential standing generally bars a litigant from raising someone else’s rights (Warth; Kowalski), subject to narrow exceptions. The court avoided deciding prudential standing for HomeRoom because Ms. French had standing.
  • Supplemental jurisdiction: Federal courts may hear related state-law claims, but can decline once all federal claims are dismissed (affirmed here under Nielander).

5. Conclusion

The Tenth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a facial constitutional attack on Shawnee’s co-living occupancy ban by treating Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas as directly controlling: a municipal cap on the number of unrelated adults who may live together does not trigger strict scrutiny and survives rational-basis review. The court declined to treat Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, Moore v. City of East Cleveland, City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, or Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommate.com, LLC as doctrinally displacing Belle Terre in the zoning context. Procedurally, the opinion also underscores a practical pathway around third-party standing disputes in multi-plaintiff cases: where one plaintiff has clear standing, courts may reach the merits without resolving whether another plaintiff may assert others’ rights (Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp.).