North Dakota Code § 40-05-01

Powers of all municipalities
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The governing body of a municipality shall have the power:
1. Ordinances. To enact or adopt all such ordinances, resolutions, and regulations, not 
repugnant to the constitution and laws of this state, as may be proper and necessary 
to carry into effect the powers granted to such municipality or as the general welfare of 
the municipality may require, and to repeal, alter, or amend the same. The governing 
body of a municipality may adopt by ordinance the conditions, provisions, and terms of 
a building code, a fire prevention code, a plumbing code, an electrical code, a sanitary 
code, vehicle traffic code, or any other standard code which contains rules and 
regulations printed as a code in book or pamphlet form by reference to such code or 
portions thereof alone without setting forth in said ordinance the conditions, provisions, 
limitations, and terms of such code. When all or part of any such code has been 
incorporated by reference into any ordinance, it has the same force and effect as 
though it had been spread at large in such ordinance without further or additional 
posting or publication. A copy of such standard code or portion thereof shall be filed for 
use and examination by the public in the office of the city auditor of such municipality 
prior to adoption. The adoption of any such standard code by reference shall be 
construed to incorporate such amendments thereto as may be made therein from time 
to time, and such copy of such standard code so filed shall at all times be kept current 
in the office of the city auditor of such municipality. The adoption of any such code or 
codes heretofore by any municipality is hereby validated. Fines, penalties, and 
forfeitures for the violation thereof may be provided within the limits specified in this 
chapter notwithstanding that such offense may be punishable also as a public offense 
under the laws of this state.
2. Finances and property. To control the finances, to make payment of its debts and 
expenses, to contract debts and borrow money, to establish charges for any city or 
other services, and to control the property of the corporation.
3. Appropriation. To appropriate money for corporate purposes only, and to provide for 
the payment of debts and expenses of the corporation.
4. Tax levy. To levy and collect taxes on real and personal property for general and 
special purposes.
5. Borrowing money. To borrow money on the credit of the corporation for corporation 
purposes and to issue bonds therefor as limited and provided by title 21.
6. Refunding obligations. To issue bonds in place of or to supply means to meet maturing 
bonds, or for the consolidation or funding of bonds or any floating indebtedness of the 
municipality in the manner provided in title 21.
7. Certificates of indebtedness. To borrow money in anticipation of revenues to be 
derived from taxes already levied as provided and limited in title 21.
8. Streets, sidewalks, and public grounds. To lay out, establish, open, alter, repair, clean, 
widen, vacate, grade, pave, park, or otherwise improve and regulate the use of streets, 
alleys, avenues, sidewalks, crossings, and public grounds, and to acquire, construct, 
maintain, and operate parking lots and facilities for motor vehicles; to regulate or 
prevent any practice having a tendency to annoy persons frequenting the same; and to 
prevent and regulate obstructions and encroachments upon the same.
9. Powers relating to parks - Planting grass and trees - Powers respecting parks. To 
regulate the planting of trees and grass on boulevards, berms, parks, parkways, and 
public grounds, and to exercise the same powers as are granted to a board of park 
commissioners respecting the parks of the municipality, if any, until the municipality 
has been organized into a park district.
10. Lighting of public places. To provide for the lighting of streets, alleys, avenues, parks, 
and public grounds.
11. Lights to inhabitants of city. To provide for the furnishing of lights to the inhabitants of 
the city.

12. Gas and water mains - Sewers - Electric light and gas plants. To regulate the laying of 
gas or water mains and pipes, and the building, laying, or repairing of sewers, tunnels, 
and drains, and the erecting of gas and electric light plants. Any company or 
association of persons organized for the purpose of manufacturing illuminating gas or 
electricity to supply municipalities and the inhabitants thereof shall have authority, 
subject to existing rights, with the consent of the governing body of the municipality, to 
erect gas or electric light works and lay down pipes and string wires or poles in streets 
or alleys subject to such regulations as the municipality may prescribe by ordinance.
13. Structures under sidewalks - Snow and obstructions. To regulate the use of all 
structures under sidewalks and to require the owner or occupant of any premises to 
keep the sidewalks in front of or along such premises free from snow or other 
obstruction.
14. Streets - Cleanliness of and injury to. To regulate and prevent the throwing or 
depositing of ashes, offal, dirt, garbage, or any offensive matter in, and to prevent 
injury to, any street, avenue, alley, or public ground.
15. Curbs and gutters. To provide for and regulate curbs and gutters.
16. Advertising and obstructions in public places. To regulate and prevent the use of 
streets, sidewalks, and public grounds for signs, signposts, awnings, telegraph and 
telephone poles, posting handbills and advertisements, the exhibition or carrying of 
banners, placards, advertisements, or handbills, and the flying of flags, banners, or 
signs across the streets or from houses.
17. Traffic and sales in public places. To regulate traffic and sales upon the streets, 
sidewalks, and public places.
18. Speed of vehicles and locomotives. To regulate the speed of vehicles and locomotives 
within the corporate limits of the corporation, except that the speed limit for vehicles on 
those streets designated as part of any state highway shall be determined by mutual 
agreement with the director of the department of transportation.
19. Numbering lots. To regulate the numbering of houses and lots.
20. Naming streets. To name and change the name of any street, avenue, alley, or other 
public place.
21. Railroad companies - Ditches and rights of way. To require railroad companies to 
make, keep open, and repair ditches, drains, sewers, and culverts along and under 
their tracks so that filthy and stagnant pools of water cannot stand on their grounds or 
right of way and so that the natural or artificial drainage of adjacent property shall not 
be impeded. To require railroad companies to fence their respective railroads or any 
portion of the same and construct cattle guards and public roads and keep the same in 
repair within the limits of the corporation.
22. Extending ways and pipes over railroad property. To extend by condemnation, subject 
to chapter 32-15, or otherwise any street, alley, or highway over, under, or across, or to 
construct or lay any sewer, water pipe, or main under or through, any railroad track, 
right of way, or land of any railroad company within the corporate limits.
23. Culverts, drains, and cesspools. To construct and keep in repair culverts, drains, 
sewers, catch basins, manholes, cesspools, vaults, cisterns, areas, and pumps within 
the corporate limits.
24. Licenses. To fix the amount, terms, and manner of issuing and revoking licenses.
25. Plumbers and plumbing business. To adopt, by ordinance, if it has a system of 
waterworks or sewerage, rules and regulations governing plumbing, drainage, and 
ventilation of plumbing within the limits of the municipality. The standards provided for 
in such ordinance, however, shall not be lower than the minimum standards provided 
for in any state plumbing code adopted pursuant to chapter 43 -18, but may be higher 
than such standards. It may prescribe rules and regulations for all materials, 
constructions, alteration and inspection of pipes, tanks, and fixtures by which water is 
supplied to the citizens of the municipality, or by which waste or sewage is carried, and 
may provide that such pipes, tanks, and fixtures shall not be placed in any building in 
the municipality except in accordance with plans which are approved under the 
provisions of said ordinance, and that no plumbing shall be done except by plumbers 

registered and licensed under state law and under the ordinance, except by a property 
owner on that person's own premises which are occupied as that person's home or 
place of residence. The ordinance may provide that all work done by an owner upon 
that person's own premises must comply with the provisions of the state plumbing 
code or a local ordinance, whichever shall prescribe the highest standards. Before the 
municipality may require a plumber to be licensed by the municipality, it shall provide 
standards for plumbing in a municipality equal to or in excess of those provided by the 
state plumbing code. A municipality may adopt the state plumbing code as a whole as 
an ordinance of the municipality by reference without the necessity of publishing the 
text therefor.
26. Transient business and amusements. To license, tax, regulate, remove, suppress, and 
prohibit fortune-tellers, astrologers, and all persons practicing palmistry, clairvoyancy, 
mesmerism, and spiritualism, hawkers, peddlers, pawnbrokers, theatricals and other 
exhibitions, shows and amusements, ticket scalpers, and employment agencies, and 
to revoke the license at pleasure, except that the provision in this subsection with 
reference to hawkers and peddlers shall not apply to persons selling or offering for 
sale the products raised or grown on land within this state.
27. Draymen, taxi drivers, porters, and others pursuing like occupations. To license, tax, 
regulate, and prescribe the rates charged by draymen, parcel delivery men, 
busdrivers, taxi drivers, porters, expressmen, watermen, and others pursuing like 
occupations, and the operation of taxicabs. Provided, all motor vehicles used in 
ridesharing arrangements, as defined in section 8-02-07, are not taxicabs.
28. Runners for stages and other things or persons. To license, regulate, tax, and restrain 
runners for stages, buses, cars, public houses, or other things or persons.
29. Alcoholic beverages. To regulate the use and to regulate and license the sale of 
alcoholic beverages subject to the provisions contained in title 5.
30. Bowling alleys, pool, billiards, theaters, and motion picture theaters. To license, 
regulate, and tax bowling alleys, theaters, motion picture theaters, and pool or billiard 
tables, or any other tables or implements kept or used for similar purposes in any 
public place.
31. Markets, market houses, and slaughterhouses. To establish, purchase, erect, lease, 
rent, manage, maintain, regulate, and provide for the use of markets and market 
houses, municipal slaughterhouses, or abattoirs.
32. Dairy, meat, and food products - Inspection and regulation of sale. To provide for the 
inspection of milk, cream, and butter sold within the limits of the municipality, and of 
any dairy or dairy herd kept for the production of such milk, cream, and butter. To 
prescribe the terms upon which sales of such milk, cream, and butter may be made 
and to fix penalties for violations. To prescribe regulations for the slaughtering of 
animals to be sold as meat. To prescribe generally sanitary and regulatory provisions 
as applied to food products sold within the limits of the municipality and to prohibit the 
sale of impure and diseased milk or other food products.
33. Public peace in municipality. To provide for keeping and preserving the peace and 
quietude of the municipality, prevent disorderly conduct, prohibit public intoxication, 
and prevent and suppress riots, affrays, disturbances, and disorderly assemblies in 
any place.
34. Fire limits. To prescribe fire limits within which wooden buildings shall not be erected, 
placed, or repaired without permission; provide that when a building within such limits 
has been damaged by fire, decay, or otherwise to the extent of fifty percent of its 
valuation, it shall be torn down and removed; prescribe the manner of ascertaining 
such damage; provide for the removal of any structure or building erected contrary to 
the prescribed rules; declare each day's continuance of such building or structure a 
separate offense and to prescribe the penalties therefor; and define fireproof material.
35. Fire hazards. To prevent and provide for remedying any dangerous construction or 
condition of any building, enclosure, or manufactory, or any equipment used therein; 
regulate and prevent the carrying on of manufactories creating a fire hazard; prevent a 

deposit or keeping of ashes or refuse in unsafe places; and require all buildings and 
places to be put and kept in a safe condition.
36. Waterworks system. To purchase, acquire by eminent domain in accordance with 
chapter 32 -15, erect, lease, rent, manage, and maintain any system of waterworks, 
well reservoirs, pipes, machinery, buildings, and all other property comprising a 
waterworks system, such as hydrants, supply of water, fire stations, fire signals, fire 
engines, or fire apparatus that may be of use in the prevention and extinguishment of 
fires, and to fix and regulate the rates, use, and sale of water.
37. Fire equipment - Use beyond municipal limits. To use its fire department to attend to 
fires and render assistance to other municipalities within or without this state, or to 
private property, including farm buildings located outside the city limits, and the fire 
department, its members, and apparatus, when engaged outside the limits of the 
municipality, shall be deemed to be engaged in the performance of a public duty as 
fully as if serving within the limits of the municipality.
38. Storage of combustible material - Use of fireworks and open flame lights. To regulate 
and prohibit the storage of combustible or explosive material, the use of open flame 
lights, the building of bonfires, and the use or sale of firecrackers and fireworks.
39. Lumberyards. To regulate or prohibit the keeping of any lumberyard and the keeping or 
selling of any lumber or other combustible material within the fire limits.
40. Steam boilers. To provide for the inspection of steam boilers.
41. Jails. To establish, maintain, and regulate a jail and, with the consent of the board of 
county commissioners, to use the county jail for the confinement of persons charged 
with or convicted of the violation of any ordinance.
42. Cruelty to animals. To prohibit and punish cruelty to animals.
43. Vagrants and prostitutes. To restrain and punish vagrants, mendicants, and prostitutes.
44. Nuisances. To declare what shall constitute a nuisance and to prevent, abate, and 
remove the same.
45. Health regulations. To make regulations necessary or expedient for the promotion of 
health or for the suppression of disease.
46. Cemeteries. To establish, maintain, and regulate cemeteries within or without the 
municipality, acquire land therefor by purchase or otherwise, and cause cemeteries to 
be removed, and to prohibit the establishment thereof within, or within one mile [1.61 
kilometers] of, the corporate limits.
47. Animals and poultry. To regulate or prohibit the running at large of animals and poultry, 
provide for the establishment and maintenance of public pounds for the impounding of 
any animals or poultry running at large or tethered in any street in violation of 
municipal ordinances, establish procedures for the impounding and discharging of 
animals and poultry impounded, make the expenses and fines imposed a lien upon 
such stock or poultry, and provide for the sale of the stock or poultry to satisfy such 
lien.
48. Packinghouses and other offensive businesses. To control the location and regulate 
the management and construction of packinghouses, renderies, bone and soap 
factories, slaughterhouses, livery stables, and blacksmith shops, and to prohibit any 
offensive or unwholesome business within, or within one mile [1.61 kilometers] of, the 
corporate limits.
49. Unwholesome or nauseous places. To compel the owner of any cellar, stable, pigsty, 
privy, sewer, or other unwholesome or nauseous thing or place to cleanse, abate, or 
remove the same, and to regulate the location thereof.
50. Public buildings. To construct, operate, and maintain all public buildings necessary for 
the use of the municipality.
51. Auctioneers, brokers, lumberyards, and public scales. To license, tax, and regulate 
auctioneers, brokers, lumberyards, and public scales.
52. Supplies. To provide that supplies needed for the use of the city be furnished by 
contract let to the lowest responsible bidder , except the city may contract for 
cooperative purchases pursuant to a joint-powers agreement under chapter 54 -40.3. 

This section does not apply to construction of public improvement as defined in 
chapter 48-01.2.
53. Secondhand and junk stores. To license, tax, and regulate secondhand and junk 
stores and to forbid and punish the purchase and receipt by them from minors of any 
articles without the written consent of their parents or guardians.
54. Insure public property. To insure the public property of the municipality.
55. Real and personal property. To acquire by lease, purchase, gift, condemnation, or 
other lawful means and to hold in its corporate name for use and control as provided 
by law, both real and personal property and easements and rights of way within or 
without the corporate limits or outside this state for all purposes authorized by law or 
necessary to the exercise of any power granted.
56. Transfer property. To convey, sell, dispose of, or lease personal and real property of 
the municipality as provided by this title.
57. Franchises. To grant franchises or privileges to persons, associations, corporations, or 
limited liability companies, any such franchise, except when given to a railroad 
company, to extend for a period of not to exceed twenty years, and to regulate the use 
of the same, franchises granted pursuant to the provisions of this title not to be 
exclusive or irrevocable but subject to the regulatory powers of the governing body.
58. Airports. To acquire, establish, construct, expand, own, lease, control, equip, improve, 
maintain, operate, regulate, and police airports and landing fields within or without the 
geographic limits of the municipality as provided in title 2.
59. Public works project. To accept aid from, cooperate and contract with, and to comply 
with and meet the requirements of any federal or state agency for the establishment, 
construction, and maintenance of public works, including dams and reservoirs for 
municipal water supply, for water conservation, flood control, prevention of stream 
pollution, or sewage disposal. In furtherance thereof to acquire by purchase, lease, 
gift, or condemnation the necessary lands, rights of way, and easements for such 
projects, and to transfer and convey to the state or federal government, or any agency 
thereof, such lands, rights of way, and easements in consideration of the 
establishment and construction of, and the public benefits which will be derived from 
any such project. To enter into an agreement with any such government, agency, or 
municipality within or without this state, to hold such government, agency, or 
municipality harmless from any and all liability or claim of liability arising from the 
establishment, construction, and maintenance of such works, and to indemnify such 
government, agency, or municipality for any such liability sustained by it and to pay all 
costs of defending against any such claim. In furtherance thereof to acquire by 
purchase, lease, gift, or, subject to chapter 32-15, condemnation, the necessary lands, 
rights of way, and easements for such projects, and to transfer and convey to such 
government, agency, or municipality, such lands, rights of way, and easements in 
consideration of the establishment and construction of, and the public benefits which 
will be derived from any such project, or to pay the cost of the acquisition of such 
lands, rights of way, and easements by such government, agency, or municipality. All 
actions herein authorized may be taken by resolution duly adopted by the governing 
body of the municipality. Any and all actions and proceedings heretofore taken by any 
municipality which are within the authority granted by this subsection are hereby 
legalized and validated.
60. Special improvement assessments - Satisfaction. To make assessments as limited by 
the laws of this state for local improvements on property adjoining or benefited thereby, 
to collect the same in the manner provided by law, and to satisfy the tax lien on lands 
subject to special assessments.
61. Public water supply. To prevent the pollution of or injury to any water supply belonging 
to the municipality or any public water supply within, or within one mile 
[1.61 kilometers] of, the limits of the municipality.
62. Band. To levy a tax as provided in this title for the purpose of providing a fund for the 
maintenance or employment of a band for municipal purposes.

63. Radio reception. To regulate the installation and operation of motors and other 
electrical or mechanical devices so as to prevent interference with radio reception.
64. Municipal plants. To sell, convey, and dispose of the plant or equipment of any public 
utility owned by the municipality and to contract for the leasing or operation of such 
plant, equipment, or utility by others, and to grant to the lessee or operator under such 
a contract the right to purchase such plant, equipment, or utility upon such terms and 
conditions as may be expressed in the contract, after authorization as provided by this 
title.
65. Public dances. To license, tax, and regulate public dances or public dancehalls.
66. Light and power plants and gas transmission or distribution systems. To purchase, 
acquire by eminent domain in accordance with chapter 32-15, erect, lease, rent, 
manage, and maintain electric light and power plants, gasworks, steam heating plants 
and appurtenances for distribution, and to regulate and fix the rates to its patrons and 
to jointly, with other municipalities, acquire by eminent domain, erect, construct, lease, 
rent, manage, and maintain any artificial or natural gas transmission or distribution 
lines or plants.
67. Flood control projects , including floodplain management as provided under section

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