COUNTYWIDE : Overcrowding Law Ruling Postponed

The judge hearing the lawsuit challenging Santa Ana’s ordinance that prohibits residential overcrowding appeared to be leaning in favor of the city during a hearing Tuesday but postponed a final decision for one day to give opponents of the new ordinance time to further research the law.

In a case which legal experts say could determine the authority of California cities to set strict occupancy limits, an attorney representing the immigrant rights group Hermandad Mexicana Nacional argued that the ordinance is invalid because the city did not follow state guidelines before approving the new regulations. The lawsuit is before Orange County Superior Court Judge Floyd H. Schenk.

But City Atty. Edward J. Cooper maintained that the state housing code is unconstitutional, leaving it up to cities to limit the number of people who can live under one roof.

“He (the judge) is zeroing in right on what I am saying,” an elated Cooper said after the hearing Tuesday.

Immigrant rights attorney Richard L. Spix conceded that unless he could come up with a compelling argument, the judge seemed to be agreeing with Cooper.

“It looks like he’s going to declare the state law unconstitutional,” Spix said.

During the legal debate before the judge, Cooper focused his argument on a 1980 Santa Barbara case in which the court found unconstitutional an occupancy ordinance that defined a “family” per dwelling unit as “either related persons living together as a single household unit in a dwelling unit” or a group “not to exceed five persons.”

Because the state housing code has continued to use that same definition, Cooper said the entire state housing code was invalid.

Spix suggested that the judge correct that particular section without throwing out the entire state housing code.

“If we throw out all of these babies with a little bit of bath water,” Spix told the judge, “I think we are going to be proceeding precariously without standards in the state of California.”

But the judge also acknowledged that his final ruling may not be the last word on the issue. “I am fully aware,” Schenk said, “that whoever wins this . . . there will be an appeal. I understand that.”