City Council Considers Solutions to "Mini-Dorm" Problems

By Ed Joyce / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published November 29, 2006 at 12:36 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

A San Diego City Council committee spent more than two hours talking about ways of regulating "mini-dorms" Wednesday. Mini-dorms are single-family homes rented to multiple college students. KPBS repo

City Council Considers Solutions to "Mini-Dorm" Problems

A San Diego City Council committee spent more than two hours talking about ways of regulating "mini-dorms" Wednesday. Mini-dorms are single-family homes rented to multiple college students. KPBS reporter Ed Joyce has details.

The council's Land Use and Housing Committee considered several options, including parking restrictions, to cut down on rowdy behavior by some college students living near San Diego State University. Residents near SDSU say loud parties, late-night yelling and parking problems are changing the quality of their family neighborhoods. The residents blame it on "mini-dorms" which are typically homes owned by absentee landlords and rented to college students. City Councilman Jim Madaffer says the homes are often modified to pack in more students.

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Jim Madaffer: It's just when these enterprising people decide to take a den and make it a bedroom. Take a garage and separate it with dividing walls and turn that into three or four bedrooms. Clearly uses which are against health and safety codes.

Madaffer's district includes the College Area. The council committee takes up the issue again in February. Ed Joyce, KPBS News.

(Photo: Students' cars fill the driveway and a paved-over yard at a "mini-dorm" in the College area. Tobin Vaughn/KPBS. )

Ed Joyce

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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