ANAHEIM : Single-Occupancy Plan to Be Studied

An ordinance that would allow construction of single-room occupancy apartments by reducing the city’s current requirement for minimum living space will be considered tonight by the City Council.

The ordinance would require that each single-room occupancy, or SRO, complex have a minimum of 100 rooms, set minimum rents on 49% of the rooms in each SRO complex and allow the rooms to be as small as 160 square feet. The city’s current minimum living space per apartment is 550 square feet.

Under the ordinance, 20% of the rooms in each complex would have a maximum monthly rent of $250, while another 29% would have a maximum monthly rent of $456.

Those limits could be adjusted upward if the minimum wage and the county’s median income increase. Rents would be paid in advance on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, but only 10% of a complex’s units could be rented on a daily basis.

The ordinance would require management to furnish each room with a bed, a microwave oven, a color television, a sink with hot and cold water and a garbage disposal, a small refrigerator and an enclosed bathroom that would have a toilet and a shower or bathtub. Around-the-clock security and management would have to be provided.

Occupancy would be restricted to one person in rooms of 220 square feet or less, while two people would be allowed in bigger rooms. The maximum room size would be 400 square feet.

Managers would be required to conduct an extensive background check on each prospective long-term resident and turn away anyone who was found to have a violent or abusive background.

All residents would be required to sign a set of house rules placing strict limits on their conduct in the complex. For example, renters would not be allowed to have overnight visitors, make loud noises or drink alcoholic beverages in the public areas of the complex; drug use or possession in the complex would result in immediate eviction.

The proposal would restrict the areas in which the complexes could be built to the city’s commercial and industrial zones.

Each complex would have to be located within 1,000 feet of a bus stop, and the council could deny a permit to any complex proposed for construction within 1,000 feet of a bar or liquor store.

“SRO housing will offer local minimum-wage employees and possibly senior citizens safe, sanitary and well-managed living space,” Eric Nicoll, the city’s housing development director, wrote in a report to the council.

The council will conduct a public hearing before voting on the ordinance. The council meeting is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 200 S. Anaheim Blvd.

If the ordinance is approved, Anaheim would join Santa Ana, Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa as Orange County cities that allow single-room occupancy apartments.

The county also allows such complexes to be built in unincorporated areas, but none have been constructed yet.

Richard Bruckner, the city’s redevelopment manager, said the city has been approached by a number of developers who would like to build SRO complexes.

“The city has a need for very-low-income housing,” he said, adding that the ordinance is necessary because SRO complexes don’t qualify as motels or apartments.

“This is a completely new type of housing and there are no city standards. The developers want to know what the rules are.”