Last month, Town of Mansfield officials agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Brian Triglione, a landlord who accused the town of arbitrarily enforcing housing ordinances “that are expressly intended to target university students.” While Mansfield landlords argue the suit highlights one of several policies enforced by the town that unfairly punish students and the landlords who rent to them, Mayor Toni Moran argues that the policy is essential to ensure the safety and satisfaction of Mansfield residents.
“The Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment protects against arbitrary enforcement of laws,” reads the suit. “The housing official is enforcing a rule that is not formally part of the Town’s regulations and was applied selectively, inconsistently, and without proper legal authority.”
Triglione’s suit challenged the town’s overcrowding rules, which dictate that no more than three to four unrelated people can occupy a single apartment, depending upon when the property became a rental. The town’s ordinances explicitly define what constitutes a family for its overcrowding rules, which specifically exclude students. Triglione argued that, while the town does not have any rules prohibiting tenants from hosting overnight guests or visitors, the Town’s methods of enforcing its overcrowding rules, by counting cars in driveways, essentially bar residents from doing so.
Triglione argued that the town’s allegedly selective enforcement of its rental rules discriminates against college students, who are “predominantly under the age of 24, including minorities and economically disadvantaged students,” and attempted to claim them as a protected class under the state and federal versions of the Fair Housing Act. He also argued that the town’s allegedly selective enforcement violates the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause, that the town’s de facto ban on students having overnight guests violates their 1st Amendment rights to freedom of association, and that its inspections conducted to enforce the overcrowding rules violate students’ rights to privacy. In his exhibits, Triglione included signed testimony from the college student tenants of his property, each in support of his suit.
“During my residency, the Town of Mansfield patrolled the area, counting cars in our driveway and included guests, such as my girlfriend of the time, as residents, resulting in inspections of the house I was leasing and even ticketing of cars in our own driveway,” reads the testimony. “These actions impacted me personally due to not being able to have guests over due to concerns of prosecution and fines from the town. It also led to a feeling of a lack of privacy knowing the town was constantly monitoring the property I was leasing.”
Tolland Superior Court Judge Josephine Graff ultimately dismissed Triglione’s 1st and 14th Amendment claims due to lack of standing, as well as Triglione’s federal and state Fair Housing Act claims as they pertained to “the alleged protected class of university students and income,” but allowed the claim for age discrimination under the state’s Fair Housing Act to proceed. On June 22, 2026, the Town Council approved a motion to authorize a settlement in the case, which would pay $12,500 to Triglione and make changes to the town’s enforcement policies. At that meeting, Deputy Mayor Ben Shaiken said he thought the agreed-upon changes to the town’s enforcement policies “make a little bit of sense regardless of this legal case.”
“This is a very advantageous settlement to the town,” said Shaiken after introducing the motion. “Those fees will be paid by our insurance company, most likely. This is a covered case, and we’ve been responsible for a deductible in that policy, but we’ve already exhausted it with our legal representation. So, I think this is a good settlement, and certainly takes what might be a substantial financial risk for the town if we went to trial off the table.”
Per the complaint, Triglione said he was issued a notice of violation for overcrowding on Nov. 15, 2023. In a report contained alongside the ticket, the Mansfield housing inspector explained that he issued the violation after conducting three inspections of Triglione’s rental property, one per day from Nov. 13 to Nov. 15, and found anywhere from five to six cars in the driveway. On Nov. 28, an inspector re-inspected the property and failed it again. Triglione filed an appeal on Dec. 4, 2023, and pleaded his case before Mansfield’s Housing Code Board of Appeals at a Dec. 19 hearing. At the hearing, housing officials “testified that it was the Town of Mansfield’s policy that car counting identified overnight guests in the dwelling, which were considered tenants, and therefore there was an overcrowding violation.” The Mansfield Housing Code Board of Appeals agreed and denied the appeal.
On Dec. 20, a housing inspector issued a citation and certificate revocation letter and issued Triglione a $2,000 fine, $100 per day they claimed the house was in violation. On Jan. 16, 2024, he inspected the property again. Entering it for the first time since the ordeal began, he found the property to contain only four bedrooms, in compliance with the town’s overcrowding rules, and thus reinstated the property’s rental certificate on Jan. 18. Despite this, he refused to release the fines that had already been imposed.
“The plaintiffs allege that the housing official’s finding that there was a fifth bedroom was based on speculation, and the Mansfield Housing Code Board of Appeals’ decision to rely on that finding was arbitrary and capricious and based on discrimination,” reads the complaint.
Brian Coleman and Lowry DeBoer, two Mansfield landlords, believe the policy, as well as other town regulations regarding rental properties, started as a response to residential tensions with students and snowballed into municipal moneymakers. Mansfield encompasses the village of Storrs, which is home to UConn’s main campus.
“It started with the complaints from residents about students, mostly in the single-family houses in the neighborhoods,” said Coleman. “So, I think the town was overzealous in trying to appease the residents — and the complaints were legitimate, you know, it’s just how they went about them, I think.”
Coleman noted the town requires landlords to pay a $25 fee to receive a rental license and conducts a rental inspection every two years, which costs landlords $150 per unit. When inspections are due, landlords must provide their tenants with right-to-entry forms to sign, indicating their consent for the inspection, and then provide them to the town’s housing and building inspector, Michael Ninteau. If violations are noticed during an inspection, the landlord can request an additional 15 days to bring their property into compliance before a re-inspection. Coleman complained that receiving the permissions from tenants can be burdensome for landlords and tenants alike.
“I have to go in and say, ‘Well, you have to sign this permission to come in for inspection every two years, where they come into your bedroom and look at your things and walk around the house, inspect it,” said Coleman. “I think that might be a little invasive as well.”
While Coleman hasn’t had any serious issues with these rules, his brother-in-law, DeBoer, has. DeBoer said he owes the town $16,500 because he never received his right-to-entry forms despite requesting them from the town, and despite preparing his house for the inspection beforehand. DeBoer said his rental registration expired on Feb. 8, 2025, and that he eventually “got a form from someone else, went down to Staples, copied it,” and brought it to the town’s building department on Feb. 25 after his previous requests for the forms proved fruitless.
“I went up there pursuing the inspection, went to give my inspection form to this Michael Ninteau, that’s the head of it, and the guy is just playing belligerent and miserable,” said DeBoer. “Starting in with me, that I was being hostile with him and all this and that, I said, ‘When can you come inspect the house apartments? I am pursuing the inspection.'”
DeBoer said that his inspection was conducted on March 3 and that he rectified the minor violations he was cited for by March 20.
“The next thing I know, I turned around and [saw that] he started a fine going on me from the ninth of February for renting without a certificate on the building,” said DeBoer. “It’s a five-family building, the fine is $100 per unit, so the fine is excessive, it’s $500 a day. I paid the inspection fee and all of that stuff, and it’s like they held onto the certificate and let the fine get bigger and all that stuff, and so that’s pretty much the stage I’m in with them.”
DeBoer will also have to pay additional money in legal fees to contest the town in court. Having been a landlord since 2004, DeBoer said the rental inspections began shortly after, in “late ’04, ’05,” after the town discovered that a rental house that burned down lacked a proper fire escape.
“At first, they only took in the area where people were buying single-family houses up around UConn, and renting them out, packing them full of kids, and that’s where the problem started,” said DeBoer. “And then once the town got involved with it, and went in and started doing these rental inspections, I think they saw how much money was in it, and then they kept expanding the rental district until they took in all the rental properties in town.”
DeBoer said the town’s practice of using car counts to determine compliance with the town’s overcrowding policy has even led to a person he knows, who isn’t a landlord, being told by town officials that he needs to register his home as a rental.
“He says, ‘I’m not renting my house: My wife has two cars, I have three vehicles, I have three kids that actually have one and two vehicles, I’m not a landlord,'” said DeBoer. “They’re driving around, snooping in everybody’s driveway!”
Moran confirmed the rental inspections began due to a fire in which “if the tenant was home, he could have been killed,” but said they began around 2009-2010.
“It was very clear to us that there are rental units around town that had unsafe conditions, and so we put a rental registration into effect that required that any rental unit meet building codes, health and safety codes, etc,” said Moran. “And the inspections cost the town money, so we charge the landlords, who are making money off of these rentals, a fee for the license.”
The overcrowding rules were drafted because “a very large number of single-family homes” were bought by landlords who were “packing as many people into these houses as they could,” said Moran, leading to some being unsafe. The measures also intend to preserve the town’s housing stock for long-term residents.
“They were charging $1,000 a bed a month or more, and that is often more, which meant that they could outbid any family who wanted to buy a house in a residential neighborhood, and so we were really trying to limit the numbers of residential housing converted into rental apartments and to preserve neighborhoods for families, particularly families with children, and also for seniors,” said Moran.
While town officials have heard complaints about “rental homes that have rented to students who have been disruptive,” Moran said she’s rented an apartment out of her home for over 50 years and has never had any issues with students.
“I often say to people, these are the best young people in our state, and most of them behave that way,” said Moran. “Some of them don’t — they get into trouble other ways, if they’re drinking too much, or whatever — so there have always been people who complain, and there were concerns, but our concern was about safety, and about [having] some form of monitoring what was going on in these rental places.”
Included in Triglione’s exhibits are several town meeting minutes from 2016, when the town voted to strengthen its rental ordinances. The minutes, as well as countless pieces of written testimony, reflect that long-term residents overwhelmingly supported the town’s amended ordinances on the basis that unconstrained growth in the student rental market was hampering residents’ quality of life, ability to secure affordable housing, and altering the character of the town they called their home.
“The increasing number of rentals is a major threat to residents’ quality of life and property values,” reads the July 24, 2016 testimony of Kathryn Strother Ratcliff, a then-30-year resident. “We must have good regulations and enforcement that will protect both. My husband and I, as well as most of my neighbors, moved here for the rural community, the quiet, the stable neighborhoods. The growth in non-owner occupied homes threatens all of those to the core. DO SOMETHING! Save our town, our quality of life, our investment.”
Moran said there has been a “minority” of landlords who have complained that the town’s ordinances violate their privacy rights, but that the “vast majority” cooperate with the town. She acknowledged the legitimacy of residents’ complaints and stood by the use of car-counting as a means to enforce the town’s overcrowding policy.
“The number of houses owned by non-resident landlords has grown dramatically,” said Moran. “Of course, people complain about bad behavior (mostly committed by students since they are the vast majority of tenants). People complain that they can’t afford to buy a home in Mansfield because these absentee landlords can outbid them. So we respond by trying to find ways to monitor overcrowding. And by using our nuisance ordinance. When does a girlfriend become a tenant? Obviously not a single overnight but when? How can we tell? Can’t break in to count beds. So we watch cars. And make inferences. And landlords who want to make more money challenge our efforts.”
Coleman and DeBoer offered their own suggestions as to what they would like to see changed.
“I think the town really should shouldn’t be so invasive, especially when it comes to the parking plans, and the definitions of family are ridiculous,” said Coleman. “They could hopefully ax all of that, and also, if the town wants to act for somebody’s apartment, I think they should be the responsible ones for gaining the permission, not the landlord.”
DeBoer said he would “like to see this rental inspection abolished.”
Moran declined to share what exact changes have been made to the town’s enforcement policies, saying they were made in executive session and still require a judge’s approval. Keith Yagaloff, Triglione’s lawyer in the suit, also declined to comment on specifics, saying the settlement was still under negotiation, but provided a written statement.
“This case is about whether a college town can use housing enforcement to police students, landlords, guests, and private relationships,” said Yagaloff. “Mansfield has every right to address real nuisances and real safety hazards. It does not have the right to turn ordinary guests into tenants, to surveil private homes through vehicle counts, or to pressure landlords simply because they rent to students and young adults.”
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