Similar to the way mini-dorms have invaded their neighborhoods, residents from Pacific Beach, the College Area and El Cerrito communities ” mostly clad in red
T-shirts with anti mini-dorm logos ” overran City Council chambers Thursday, May 10, to hear officials’ plans to halt the transformation of their communities.
The public forum on mini-dorms ” homes in single-family residential zones that are occupied by multiple adults ” was held to present a possible new rooming-house ordinance. The plan limits three or more bedroom dwelling units rented through separate leases to multi-family residential and commercial zones only.
City Attorney Michael Aguirre led a panel of representatives from three local universities, as well as law enforcement and City Council members, in a discussion that centered on the lack of housing for college students and its increasing impact on surrounding areas.
“The universities have a fundamental moral obligation to find and provide housing for their students ” I truly believe that,” Aguirre said to residents and panel members. “We have a group of people taking advantage of the problem. We want to send the word to all of these predatory developers that it’s better to quit now then to have us find out later and have to deal with it in court.”
City Council is tentatively scheduled to hear the proposed rooming-house ordinance July 9. In addition, the city is proposing land-use amendments that would require property owners to provide additional parking spaces for rentals with more than four bedrooms and two parking spaces per garage. The amendments are intended to deter home expansions and garage conversions.
The changes would also reduce the percentage of front yard space that can be used for parking and would increase the number of required off-street parking spaces.
District 7 Councilmember Jim Madaffer also announced the launch of a non-profit organization, Stabilizing College Neighborhoods, that would buy houses in the College Area and offer them to San Diego State University faculty and staff to prevent developers and other prospective buyers have the chance to purchase the homes in order to prevent mini-dorm conversions, he said.
At the same time, Madaffer and Aguirre said city efforts would have to be met by residents and university officials in order to be successful. Using statistics provided by SDSU, the University of California, San Diego and the University of San Diego, Aguirre calculated that the three campuses combined do not provide housing for more than 50,000 students.
The greatest shortfall of student housing is generated from SDSU, which has 34,000 students enrolled this year and houses only 4,000. At UCSD, approximately 17,000 of the 26,000 students enrolled do not live on campus and USD provides about 2,300 of the campus’ 7,500 students with on-site housing.Madaffer took a strong position on generating additional on-campus housing designed to provide similar amenities as private developments in an effort to bring students back on site.
Residents holding “PB says no mini-dorms” signs told the panel that the main problem was absentee landlords who were not taking responsibility for their tenants. Pacific Beach resident Paul Martin suggested that police issue heftier fines under its Community Assisted Party Plan (CAPP) program, which allows a residence to be sanctioned if police receive two or more disturbance calls within 30 days or respond to the same home twice in a 24-hour period.
The program allows officers to $1,000 citations for tenants at houses that have already been CAPPed and to notify the landlord of the situation. If the problem persists after the property owner has been warned, officers can write them a citation and take them to court, according to San Diego police Capt. Boyd Long of the Northern Division.