Commentary : A Solution to Mini-Dorm Dilemma : Zoning: Instead of attempting to regulate them, the city should enforce its single-family zoning ordinances.

When people buy a home in a single-family zone, they do not expect the city to allow commercial and multifamily use of the house next door. But some families find the tranquility of their once single-family neighborhoods shattered by conversion of surrounding houses to room rental operations in the areas surrounding San Diego State University, UC San Diego and other parts of the city.

The alias “mini-dorm” gives these zoning violations a false air of legitimacy. Even while the city promotes the concept of protected single-family zones, it allows mini-dorms to proliferate, destroying the very neighborhoods it seeks to preserve. Although such zoning has worked for most of this century, is working in the rest of the country, and has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, it is being eviscerated in America’s finest city.

Why has the city broken its covenant with its own people? Apparently, confusion caused by a 1980 decision of the Rose Bird court has led city officials to believe that they can no longer enforce single-family zoning to prohibit mini-dorms.

On February 9, 1978, the city of Santa Barbara sued to enjoin the Adamson household, a single-family residence where 12 unrelated adults lived together, from living in that city’s single-family zone.

Adamson appealed to the Rose Bird Court and obtained a ruling that as a single “alternate family,” her household was entitled to stay in a single-family zone. Legal scholars, including three dissenting California Supreme Court justices, have pointed out the errors made in the Santa Barbara vs. Adamson decision.

With the benefit of experience and new justices on the California Supreme Court, it is now time to challenge the Adamson ruling.

In Adamson, the court absurdly concluded that because privacy law protects people from police surveillance, households composed of unrelated adults should be treated as though they were families. Straying from the universal definition of family used in zoning ordinances (persons related by blood, marriage or adoption), the court directed cities to expand uses allowed in a single-family house to include use by an “alternate family.”

By defining “alternate family” as any group having social, economic, and psychological commitments among members, the court ensured zoning chaos. No one has figured out how zoning officers can go house to house testing for emotional commitment.

Beyond the flaws of the Adamson decision, the city of San Diego needs to recognize that the mini-dorm operations plaguing our single-family neighborhoods have no resemblance to Adamson’s household. They are not “alternate families” with the close economic and emotional ties that aroused the Bird Court’s concern for privacy. They are economic ventures profiting by de facto rezoning from low-density, single-family use to high-density, multifamily use of single-family structures.

The mere presence of so many unrelated persons each with a different schedule, car and stereo, burdens neighborhoods with cumulative noise that is incompatible with family life.

The solution to mini-dorm violations is simple. The U.S. Supreme Court determined in its 1973 Village of Belle Terre vs. Boraas decision that the Constitution permits cities to enact single-family zoning laws for the purposes of obtaining quiet, seclusion, open space, freedom from traffic, clean air and promotion of family values.

Instead of condoning mini-dorm operations with eyes shut and ears covered, the city of San Diego should enforce its existing single-family zoning ordinances. These limit the use of a single-family house to one family.

Traditionally, the city has allowed any group of up to three unrelated persons to count as a single family. It should continue to do so. This allows for more than the two unrelated persons found sufficient in the Village of Belle Terre decision. Except for this allowance for groups of three, the city should take violators to court.

Instead of acting, it appears that the city assumes that juries and trial judges will not realize the difference between an Adamson-type household and a San Diego mini-dorm. Even if the assumption is correct, the city should still take all violators to court. This is the only route to getting the California Supreme Court to correct the lawed precedent of the Adamson case. A San Diego City Council committee will consider this issue at a meeting next month.

Many ideas have been suggested for regulating mini-dorms in single-family zones. These ideas often involve requiring a permit. Under some proposals, the city would generate revenue by selling the permit. Under other proposals, neighbors would have a right to testify at a public hearing for each proposed mini-dorm.

The problem with all these ideas is that they overlook the fact that this type of high density multifamily use is prohibited in single-family zones. Attempting to regulate the very use that the single-family zone is designed to prohibit defeats the purpose of single-family zoning.

Instead of establishing an expensive new bureaucracy that allows mini-dorms by written application, we must enforce our existing zoning ordinances. Then the answer to all requests for a mini-dorm in a single-family zone will be a simple “no.”

Abolishing mini-dorms leaves the question of where students will live. UCSD has shown some creativity by buying entire condominium projects in nearby multifamily zones. It has allowed developers to build apartment-type projects on campus for student housing. It is considering how fraternity houses might be built on campus as part of an affinity group program.

The many universities in San Diego have creativity and resources that they will use if the need arises. It is the city’s responsibility to give our universities the incentive to take care of their own students. We must make it clear that we will not tolerate mini-dorms in single-family zones.