ANAHEIM : City OKs SRO Units With Low Rents

Single-room-occupancy apartments, which proponents say will provide affordable housing for low-income residents, will be allowed in Anaheim after the City Council on Tuesday unanimously passed the permitting ordinance.

The vote came after a public hearing during which members of Anaheim’s Unitarian Church expressed concerns that the council was erecting too many barriers to successful operation of the apartments. The church plans to build a nonprofit single-room-occupancy complex on its grounds.

Nonetheless, Councilman Irv Pickler said the city is “setting a shining example by allowing single-room-occupancy apartments, or SROs, to be built. Orange County has been talking about these for a long time and when the first one is built it will set a precedent.”

Anaheim joins Costa Mesa, Santa Ana and Huntington Beach as Orange County cities that allow SROs, and the county, which allows such housing in unincorporated areas. None has been built, but Anaheim officials say several potential developers have contacted them.

The city’s ordinance requires that each SRO complex have a minimum of 100 rooms. It sets room sizes from a minimum of 160 square feet to a maximum of 400 square feet and places rent controls on 49% of the rooms in each complex.

The maximum rent for 20% of the rooms in a complex rooms would be $250 a month, while the maximum rent for another 29% of the rooms would be $456. Those rents could be raised if the state’s minimum wage and the county’s median income increase.

The ordinance requires each room to be furnished with a bed, color television, refrigerator, sink and garbage disposal, and a bathroom with a toilet and a shower or bathtub.

The number of tenants in each room would be limited to two, and a renter could be evicted for violating any of a number of rules, including drug possession, drinking in a public area of a complex, failure to keep a room clean or having overnight visitors.

The complexes can be built only in an industrial or commercial area and must be within 1,000 feet of a bus stop. The council could reject a complex’s construction permit if it is to be built within 1,000 feet of a liquor store or bar.

Unitarian Church members were concerned mostly about the bus stop requirement. The church, at 120 W. Santa Ana Street, is 1,500 feet from the nearest bus stop.

“Obviously a great many people are in need of low-income housing in this economic marketplace of Orange County when some people are spending 80% of their revenue for rent,” said church member Maury Abrams. “But none will be built if the council sets up too many barriers.”