The Case of the Illegal Bedroom
Oftentimes, there are regulations proposed or already in place that advance important environmental or public health concerns. Other times there are stories like this:
Camargo, a grandmother of six, has run afoul of La Quinta’s code enforcement in a big way, big enough to put her behind bars.
The city near Palm Springs insists that one of her three bedrooms is really an illegally converted garage. She insists it’s just a bedroom.
“What right do they have to call this a garage?” she asked, walking around the room with its cabinets, sink, bathroom and refrigerator. “I never called it a garage. How do they know it’s not a bedroom? If this is a garage, then they owe me a bedroom.” [...] Her resistance crumbled last week when a local judge ordered her to comply or face possible jail time.
This seems to be at the intersection of unwise regulatory policy aimed at increasing the supply of parking and unwise regulatory policy aimed at decreasing the number of people permitted to live on any given parcel of land. The upshot is, at the margin, bad for the environment and bad for public health while also restricting the availability of affordable housing. Not good. That’s via Radley Balko.
38 Responses to “The Case of the Illegal Bedroom”
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October 21st, 2008 at 9:52 am
You know what else is awful? Trial Lawyers! And to prove it, I got a story about a woman who got $10 million dollars ’cause her McDonald’s coffee was too hot! Yuck yuck yuck!
October 21st, 2008 at 9:57 am
I’ll bet immigration worries are behind the whole thing. Converted garages = room that can be rented to immigrants.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:57 am
This seems to be at the intersection of unwise regulatory policy aimed at increasing the supply of parking and unwise regulatory policy aimed at decreasing the number of people permitted to live on any given parcel of land.
If one thinks building codes need to be simplified, that’s fine–but Mrs. Camargo’s situation has abso-f*cking-lutely nothing to do with “the number of people permitted to live on any given parcel of land” or “the supply of parking.”
There might be a case to be made for more lenient housing codes in the town of La Quinta, but a single irrelevant anecdote isn’t doing it.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:01 am
This seems to be at the intersection of unwise regulatory policy aimed at increasing the supply of parking and unwise regulatory policy aimed at decreasing the number of people permitted to live on any given parcel of land.
Nobody is against garage conversions in general. The issue at stake is that this was done without a building permit.
I think Matt is missing the real story here, however. The issue is that she was not the one who did the conversion. She bought the house this way. The government knows this and still are after her instead of the person who fraudulently sold an illegal structure to this woman. That’s the real crime here.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:02 am
Um, isn’t that a kitchen? I’ve never heard of a bedroom (other than a bedsit) with tiled floors, a sink and a fridge.
Regardless, this town really needs to lighten up:
“Her troubles began when a code enforcement officer spotted a light shining from her garage into the street, a code violation. He noticed her trash cans in front of the house (another violation) and weeds poking through the concrete (yet another one).”
That sounds almost as bad as an overzealous homeowners’ association, and it’s the government.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:03 am
Oh, and it doesn’t have a bed either.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:04 am
I’ll bet immigration worries are behind the whole thing. Converted garages = room that can be rented to immigrants.
Not sure if you’re kidding with this or not, but it was a real issue, at least when I lived in California. There were instances of twenty or thirty people (immigrants) living barracks-style in a single house.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:05 am
I hate stories like this that obviously leave out critical facts. There is clearly something, legitimate or otherwise, motivating the city to pursue this. There is some suggestion that this house is generally ill-maintained (weeds, trash cans), but this isn’t pursued. Maybe the 29 yr old son is some kind of troublemaker. Maybe some politically connected developer is trying to force her out. In any case, it just doesn’t seem possible that there isn’t some kind of back story.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:34 am
This is entirely unrelated to expanding available parking. It is nothing more than a homeowner–or previous homeowner–failing to obtain a building permit. One can, however, object to the requirement of securing a building permit for something as anodyne as a garage conversion–Joe the Garage Converter, anyone?–since the requirement has as much to do with ensuring the home is properly valued after the living space expansion as it does with guaranteeing the quality and stability of the construction.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:43 am
What do you have against municipal bylaws regulating land density? It is their land and every one consensually (by buying into the municipality) agrees on how that land must be used. It seems to me like this attack on bylaws is reflective of Matt’s (and the lefts) general hatred towards private property rights. But instead of explicity claiming this as an issue of property rights versus the welfare of the collective Matt makes it sound as if the big mean government is interfering in citizens private decisions. Anyways I feel no sympathy for people who bought property under certain terms (e.g. garages must be garages) and then after the fact complain that the conditions they agreed to are unfair.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:46 am
A little bit to breezy with the analysis. In general, the zoning regulations and the building code go hand in hand. I think your analysis that someone should be able, without getting the proper variances etc., to construct a living area out of what most certainly was originally designed as a garage is a bit misguided. Throwing this woman in jail for such a violation is ridiculous, but that is a different issue. To make a blanket statement that the zoning law and building code promote car use to the detriment of providing living space is laughable and extremely myopic.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:03 am
Christ, Matt. What happened to you? This lady didn’t follow building codes.
What, are you against building codes too? Are we going full propeller-headed libertarian here now?! Let the market decide about building codes, based on whom is crushed to death by substandard construction?
You’re making a clown of yourself.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:10 am
Ok, if she bought the house that way, that’s too bad, but that’s life. The city will never go after the previous owner -this isn’t a criminal issue, it’s a compliance issue. The city – any city in the country – will force the current owner into compliance. The current owner can then sue the previous owner if she wants.
Apparently the Reason Foundation has taken over Think Progress and somebody’s forcing Matt to write ridiculous libertarian tripe he must surely know is tripe.
Matt, you’re against building codes and permits? You don’t see a public safety argument here? You’re not concerned about the impacts on other homeowners’ property values? No worries about unscrupulous contractors? None of the core issues here concern you except parking and housing density?
October 21st, 2008 at 11:30 am
What do you have against municipal bylaws regulating land density? It is their land and every one consensually (by buying into the municipality) agrees on how that land must be used. It seems to me like this attack on bylaws is reflective of Matt’s (and the lefts) general hatred towards private property rights.
That is either a cleverish parody of Rawlsian social contract theory or one of the most amazing triple-reverse leaps of logic I’ve ever seen.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:34 am
You know, it’s funny– reading Gekko’s comments, he fancies himself a supporter of “capitalism” and the “free market,” but he’s really just another entitlement junkie thinking it’s the job of government to preserve and enforce the upper middle class lifestyle he believes he is owed.
For those wonder about the kitchen and sink, that’s typical of “in-law” apartments: that extra bedroom is acting as a suite to give the resident enough space and privacy while not being a completely separate unit.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:52 am
Mitch Hedberg (God Rest his mumbly soul)had a great riff on this topic: “So the real estate agent told me my house had 3 bedrooms and I was like: ‘Fuck you. I’ll tell you how many bedrooms my house has. See that bedroom over there? It has a sink and a refrigerator. See that bedroom? Sometimes I park my car there. This bedroom has a shower.’”
October 21st, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I have relatives that live in La Quinta. It’s a beautiful little town, but they are hard-ass about your yard, maintenance, etc. And then they’re the private HOA’s. They’re downright fascists. The garage/bedroom poses two issues that the LATimes reporter doesn’t really explain clearly. First, as some have already mentioned, is safety. In an earthquake, for example (La Quinta’s about 25 miles as-the-crow-flies from the San Andreas fault), a converted garage may not have the structural integrity of a dwelling and pose a risk to someone living in it. Second, cities in SoCal are wary of converted dwellings that frequently house migrant workers. This isn’t so much a discrimination thing (though that’s not entirely absent sometimes) as a fire/sanitation issue. Six guys living and cooking, etc. in a converted garage is a recipe for disaster; every year in the LA area, a couple of these things burn down and a lot of people die.
I wonder if the city of La Quinta has a process by which this woman could apply for a variance. In a small town like that, the city council should be able to take a look at her situation and grant an exception.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:42 pm
D’oh! Why isn’t there a preview feature here? It should read “And then there are the private HOA’s…”
October 21st, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Matt is in fact right that this is a density issue, though both he and the LA Times reporter have missed the point by a wide margin.
It seems likely that this is not just a permit issue. If this town is like most, it wouldn’t have issued this lady’s predecessor a permit regardless of code compliance, because this is (as others have pointed out) a “mother-in-law unit,” and most municipalities forbid these outright in single-family neighborhoods, or severely restrict them. What the building officials look do is count kitchens; one stove and one sink per building, or you’re illegal.
The long-standing sentiment behind this is that rental units lower property values by letting in “transients” a/k/a poor people. This long predates the current immigration anxiety.
The fun part of the thread is of course the comment by J. Gary, which exemplifies the attitude of faux-libertarians to government regulations that promote their financial interests.
October 21st, 2008 at 1:29 pm
As the comments make clear, this just isn’t a fruitful way to do policy analysis. Every regulation is both underinclusive and overinclusive. So finding one story where regulation led to an unjust result isn’t much cop. (It also doesn’t appear to be the case here, but nevermind that now.) Yes, there will be unjust results, because governments do not have infinite resources to do enforcement or proactively grant variances for every single case. You make rules with the knowledge that marginal cases won’t fit the rules — but most cases will. And it’s socially valuable to address a regular, reoccuring problem through regulation rather than through an impossible to manage case-by-case scheme.
October 21st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
i’m not sure who’s making the complaint in the cited incident (inspectors don’t just show up on their own volition to write violations) but in new york city this law is designed to prevent landlords from renting below-grade (in both senses) housing. you can argue such regulation shouldn’t exist, that someone unable or unwilling to pay market rent for a bedroom should be able to rent a room that doesn’t meet thecity’s health and housing code but it seems to me codifying a base level of habitability is a good thing.
October 21st, 2008 at 1:56 pm
The fun part of the thread is of course the comment by J. Gary, which exemplifies the attitude of faux-libertarians to government regulations that promote their financial interests.
Really? Faux-libertarian? I have no particular axe to grind here. What exactly did I write that makes you think that?
October 21st, 2008 at 2:09 pm
If I handed out the label too hastily I will apologize. But my reading of your position was that government restrictions on the use of private property are a bad thing, but zoning regulations are excluded because they are consensual.
My cynical take on this is that many people who claim to be principled opponents of regulation object in practice only to regulations that restrict the ability of well-off people to make more money. Regulations designed to maximize the resale value of their homes by keeping poor people from living anywhere nearby, not so much.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
But my reading of your position was that government restrictions on the use of private property are a bad thing, but zoning regulations are excluded because they are consensual.
roac, are you sure you aren’t thinking of G. Gekko?
October 21st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Regulations designed to maximize the resale value of their homes by keeping poor people from living anywhere nearby, not so much.
Oh, the immigrant-barracks thing. My point in bringing that up was to inquire whether the existence of such places (which I’m sure are extremely rare) was being used as a “political” talking point” to connect zoning rules with illegal immigration–not to contend such a connection actually existed.
In general, however, I think I’d probably be in favor of zoning rules that place a reasonable limit on the number of persons inhabiting a single residential building.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:01 pm
OK, so you are, in fact, in favor of some governmental restrictions on the use of private property. We’re in agreement then.
For the record: Pretty much every municipality has adopted a standard code regulating the number of people in a dwelling, proportional to its floor area. I believe the standard is one person per bedroom of 70 sq. ft. or less, two per bedroom of 70 to 100, 3 per bedroom over 100 sq. ft.
The immigrant barracks are real all right. They are in violation of the existing density codes.
The zoning regulation that does the most to stratify populations based on income level is the minimum lot size requirement.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:30 pm
This example is pretty light on the details, so its hard to do an accurate analysis, but your guess that this has to do with occupancy, parking, or land use is almost certainly wrong. If any of these issues had been the problem then the resolution would not have involved “$10,000 of work” to the space. She would have to get, at a minimum, an administrative adjustment to the zoning regulations for her land. This would likely just cost a few hundred dollars to hire a lawyer, architect, or engineer.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:08 pm
The city council in Escondido (same area code, different county) has also been obsessed with the idea that homes that were once single-family in its poorer neighborhoods are packing in Latino immigrants shoulder-to-shoulder.
After being forced to back down on immigration enforcement via a rental ban, the council is now trying to clear the streets with parking restrictions, despite little concrete evidence of a parking shortage.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Matt is cracking me up here. From 14 stories up he looks and sees “unwise regulatory policy aimed at increasing the supply of parking and unwise regulatory policy aimed at decreasing the number of people permitted to live” there.
Y’know, something tells me the city couldn’t care less here whether she provided a parking space for each car. That is, until she reached the point of having 5-10 cars parked there most of the time.
So, I’m wondering, why did Matt choose to live in a building with “regulatory policy” about parking and occupancy when he could be sharing a house with 14 workers?
It’s a fair question- I’ve done it and they were among the best tenants I’ve ever had. But I’ll cheerfully admit to usually getting along better with Hispanic workers than people who went to Harvard. Guess I’m kind of a snob that way.
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February 11th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
i know someone that live in a garage he is a racers and he build cars there and he said that he lives there but there is no bedrooms or kitchen livingroom at all all he got is cars tools and his very little office. he lives with his sister is that the law that he saying that he lives there at the garage ? he lie to gov….
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