Shared housing ordinance

7,018 Views | 45 Replies | Last: 1 yr ago by Stucco
Chrundle the Great
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AG
Exactly, the location relative to a growing university is causing the property value climb. The AgShacks are a more of a symptom than a cause.
MeKnowNot
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Brian Alg said:

[Edit: I probably misunderstood what you were saying] If you built AgShacks in the outskirts of Hearne the property values would not climb to $500k per acre.
Exactly. I believe that the underlying cause of the property values increasing is the proximity to Campus.

The City should fully encourage the development of high density student housing close to campus. Doing so will help alleviate many other issues including traffic problems and slow the spread of students to neighborhoods that are farther away from campus.

Obviously many Council members disagree, but I do not believe that it is a benefit to the City as a whole to attempt to preserve a few "single family" neighborhoods close to campus when the real estate market is pushing that property toward a higher value land use.

After they enact this ordinance and find it is not effective, the next thing the City will go after is how many "unrelated" persons reside under one roof. After the Council arbitrarily picks a number that's allowed, they will need to either need enlist neighborhood watch-dogs or send out midnight bed-checkers to enforce the "unrelated" ordinance.
Stucco
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The city is considering the amended ordinance at today's meeting.

See page 279 for the redlines Agenda

I had to OCR the text, so I apologize in advance for typos.

Quote:

A residential dwelling unit providing complete, independent living facilities designed to exceed occupancy levels of more than one (1) family, including permanent provisions for living, sleeping, cooking, eating, and sanitation. Such use may be identified and differentiated from other residential uses by considering a combination of structure or property characteristics that may be used to increase occupancy to more than one (1) family, such as:

1. A residential dwelling unit containing more than four bedrooms or able to house more than four people using other rooms such as dens, offices, game rooms, or similar spaces that have the potential to be used for sleeping purposes in accordance with the International Residential Code (IRC) definition of habitable space;

2. A residential dwelling unit containing a similar bedroom to bathroom parity in excess of four;

3. A residential dwelling unit containing a high quantity of bathrooms, usually in excess of four, of which most can only be accessed through a bedroom or other room such as a den, office, game room, or similar space;

4. A residential dwelling unit that is in excess of one story for the purpose of limiting the building footprint on the lot to meet impervious cover requirements;

5. The property where the residential dwelling unit is located does not contain a garage, or if it contains a garage, has the ability to support additional living space; and/or

6. The property where the residential dwelling unit is located contains a parking area that will allow parking in excess of four vehicles.


CS78
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That still includes a lot of very normal single family homes.
IWannaGoFast1
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AG
Don't live in CS, have little skin in the game, but man that is stupid.
Brian Alg
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This language is even worse than what they had before.

They added this "characteristics that may be used to increase occupancy to more than one (1) family, such as" phrase.

Which appears to indicate they could block a permit citing to other, unlisted characteristics.

Unless there is somewhere a family is defined as many people, I suspect the unlisted characteristics "that may be used to increase occupancy to more than one (1) family" are any that would allow occupancy to increase to [edit: 5] unrelated people. 2 bedrooms? That could be used to increase occupancy to more than 1 family. 2 bathrooms? Definitely makes it easier for more than 1 family to live in a house. Unless I am reading this wrong, this appears to give the city the ability to block anything that is 2/2 or larger.

Even the listed characteristics indicate they could block anything with more than 4 bedrooms and enough room to park more than 4 cars (which I believe is a requirement when you have more than 4 bedrooms).

At the builders' breakfast, Mr. Ostrowski seemed to indicate he is intentionally making the definition vague and expansive. But he indicated that he will not be blocking everything this ordinance would allow him to block.

Given it is his intention to block some permits that run afoul of the ordinance and not others, this opens up the city to disparate treatment lawsuits. Undoubtedly, they will decide to arbitrarily block permits of a certain former NFL player turned real-estate entrepreneur who happens to be black.

They could have just written down what they didn't want people to build. But instead they are doing this goofy technically-we-can-block-just-about-anything nonsense. It makes it needlessly difficult to plan around. It opens up the city to needless litigation risk. I don't understand the motivation.
Brian Alg

Brazos Coalition for Responsible Government
CS78
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Brian Alg said:

I don't understand the motivation.


Their motivation is to be able to do whatever they want.
duffelpud
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AG
woodiewood1 said:

What moron came up with those guidelines?

The same wizards of smart that bought a vacant department store in order to keep out undesirable tenants.

eeny meeny miny moe...

"What's this button do?"
Brian Alg
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Edit: made a mistake here I think. There is "or no more than four persons" which would mean that four unrelated would count. So 5 people with at least one unrelated is where you get more than one family. But in Texas you can have 3 adults per bedroom so that's still a 2 bedroom house they could block.

https://www.cstx.gov/departments___city_hall/commserv/code/detailed_code_violations

I have low expectations. But they've managed to surprise me with this one. Inanity
Brian Alg

Brazos Coalition for Responsible Government
AG81
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AG
Glad I don't live in College Station and glad my youngest daughter will soon graduate from A&M. This will have unintended consequences, not the least of which is increasing the cost of an education at A&M. Many students share a room because they can't afford college any other way. Really stupid ordinance.
Stucco
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The new vague version is much worse. It doesn't matter what they intend to do, just what they enable their successors to do.
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