Panel on Garages Urges Use of Smoke Detectors

A city task force set up in the wake of eight recent fire-related deaths in garage apartments called Wednesday for a program to encourage the use of smoke detectors in the converted structures.

The meeting was convened by City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who set up the task force. He encouraged participants to look for creative solutions to the problem, such as working with homeowners to make garage apartments safer.

Gary Squier, the city’s housing chief, explained that the group had two basic choices: It could follow the letter of current law and order everyone in a garage apartment to move out, or it could seek ways to make the units safer and nominally legal.

It was preferable, he said, to follow the latter route.

“We would respond in such a way as not to force families out into the street,” said Squier, who chairs the task force that was meeting for the first time.

Participants decided to work immediately on a program for educating the public about smoke detectors and possibly distributing them.

The group also discussed ways to determine how many illegal garage units there are in the city. One possibility was that meter readers from the Department of Water and Power could report addresses where there seemed to be a family living in the garage.

Traditionally, the city has had a difficult time regulating such apartments because they are built illegally and it’s nearly impossible to bring them up to code.

The biggest hurdle comes from zoning laws. Typically, garage apartments are built on to single family lots in neighborhoods where it is illegal to have more than one dwelling on a piece of property.

Even though so-called guest houses remodeled from garages or outside recreation rooms are ubiquitous in middle class areas as well as poor ones, homeowners have fought vigorously against any change in the code, fearing that such a move would reduce property values.

The other obstacle is the city’s building code. It is illegal, for example, to build a house right on the property line, yet that’s where many garages are located.

In addition, the building code requires the purchase of permits, which are expensive--and often not available if the zoning does not permit an apartment.

The task force is expected to work on the problem for a month and then report back to the City Council.