Bill to Curb Housing Ills Retooled

Supporters of an Assembly bill to reduce residential overcrowding said Monday the bill will likely be gutted over the next two weeks as legislators rewrite it to reflect a focus on fire safety.

With the measure, written by state Assemblyman Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside), headed for defeat in a Senate committee, Morrow agreed to change course and consider a bill calling for a study on whether overcrowded homes and apartments pose fire hazards, said Morrow legislative aide George Plescia.

The bill, sponsored by the California State Firefighters’ Assn., was scheduled for a vote in the Senate’s Housing and Land Use Committee on Monday.

Citing 13 fire deaths in Santa Ana from 1991 to 1993 and test fires conducted by Santa Ana firefighters in vacant homes, the bill sought to reform what its backers consider unsafe conditions allowed under current state housing laws.

State law now allows about 10 people to live in a 600-square-foot apartment with a 120-square-foot bedroom. Such conditions, bill supporters say, make it difficult for people to flee residential fires and burden city services ranging from sewers to schools.

Morrow’s bill, AB-616, would have limited sleeping areas to bedrooms only, cutting the number of legal inhabitants in a 600-square-foot unit with a 120-square-foot bedroom to two.

Opponents say such bills discriminate against low-income residents who are forced to squeeze larger numbers of people into their homes. Bill opponents also point out that homes and apartments stuffed with furniture and other belongings may create similar fire hazards.

The committee vote was the bill’s first test in the Senate. It passed the Assembly in January by a 41-35 vote along party lines.

Similar bills have been introduced in the Legislature in years past but have failed to become law.