Peninsula-area residents could have yet another tool in the fight against mini-dorms in the form of a rooming-house ordinance penned by the City Attorney Michael Aguirre’s office that aims to prevent the commercialization of properties zoned for single-family residences.
Deputy City Attorney Marianne Greene presented a draft of the ordinance on Aug. 16, answering questions from members of the Peninsula Community Planning Board and residents about the effectiveness of the proposed document.
The event took place at the Hervey/Point Loma Branch Library.
As proposed, any landlord renting three or more rooms on three or more separate leases in a single-family residential zone would potentially violate the ordinance, Greene said. The ordinance, as written, would also set a “phase-out” period of seven years where already-established rooming houses would be terminated after seven years from the date the ordinance is approved.
The city’s Planning Commission is scheduled to hear the ordinance on Thursday, Sept. 6. The legislation could come before the City Council in October, Greene said.
But before city officials can approve the ordinance, local residents and planning board members took the opportunity to ask the deputy city attorney some tough questions.
“There’s a lot of loopholes certainly landlords can use to skirt around the issue, but how does the city attorney intend to enforce it since leases are not public record?” asked Suhail Kahlil, a Peninsula Community Planning Board member.
Greene said code enforcement officials can, in some cases, subpoena leases to investigate a potential violation.
She said investigations start with a complaint call to city officials.
However, other variations of the mini-dorm would still be allowed to exist under the ordinance.
A group of friends or students who live together under one lease would likely be immune from the ordinance because they may fit a legal definition of what constitutes a “family” ” allowing them to live in a single-family residential zone.
Greene said the ordinance was crafted specifically to address the commercialization of single-family residential zones and cannot discriminate against renters.
But landlords who specifically try to circumvent the potential ordinance could have a more difficult time.
“If an owner or operator is attempting to evade the ordinance under the guise of a common lease ” but is a operating a rooming house under every other respect ” then that would potentially violate the ordinance,” Greene said in a phone interview.
If approved by city officials, the ordinance would be the latest addition to the tools communities have to keep mini-dorm nuisances at a minimum.
Several communities in the college area and around the beach communities have implemented the CAPP program to curb chronic house parties and public behavioral problems. Under the CAPP program, residences that force police to return on a noise complaint more than twice in a night can be designated “CAPP’d,” and each resident can be fined $1,000.
Residents wanting to report potential violations can also call the Department of Neighborhood Code Compliance at (619) 236-5500.