Ill-Advised Overcrowding Ordinances : * Dana Point, Santa Ana Seem Intent on Displacing the Poor, Inviting Legal Problems

Large, poor families have enough trouble trying to find housing that they can afford without cities making things even tougher for them. But that’s what is happening in Santa Ana, where the city has been wrestling with lawsuits over its legally questionable overcrowding ordinance for the last five years, and in Dana Point, where the council seems just as insensitive and intent on pursuing the similarly severe space controls.

Dana Point’s proposed overcrowding ordinance would sharply increase the required “habitable” floor space and restrict occupancy to two people per bedroom, plus one more person per residence. Dana Point is holding off final adoption until it works out a formal agreement with a sponsoring landlords’ group that would have the association pay any legal costs of defending the law against court suits.

The court suits will surely come, as they have in other communities. But what a mess in Santa Ana, as was evident Monday when a Superior Court judge delayed enforcement of a new city ordinance prohibiting overcrowded residences. While complaints about overcrowding have some merit, there are problems inherent in legislation that goes beyond state housing codes which have to be sorted out in court.

Some communities have seen the wisdom in not passing restrictions that fall so hard on large, lower-income and very often immigrant families. Dana Point’s city attorney cautioned City Council members against the approach and the legal pitfalls they faced if they pursued it.

So why, when rents are so high and the Uniform Housing Code gives the city adequate residential overcrowding controls, is the Dana Point Council so intent on ignoring the experience of many neighboring communities? Concerned about discrimination, some residents already have contacted the County Human Relations Commission for help. Why displace families when they have no money for higher rents?

The enforcement of Santa Ana’s new law was delayed by a judge last Monday pending a trial next month. Dana Point can avoid similar action if the council shows the wise restraint as other communities have by not enacting the arbitrary and unreasonable regulations in the first place.

Public health and safety require limits to control overcrowding. But those limits must be realistic, and not designed to put people out on the street. The situations in the two cities show how counterproductive it is to try to prevent residents, like teachers, clerks and resort employees, from living in the city where they work.