Residents of San Diego's college area think they have a better shot at cracking down on problem "mini-dorms" now that the city has tightened its rooming house ordinance.
Mini-dorms are single family homes that are rented out to multiple students. Many of them have become nuisance properties due to loud parties and poor maintenance.
One of the laws, aimed at shutting down problem mini-dorms, is the rooming-house ordinance, which makes it illegal for a single-family home to be turned into a rooming house.
But Jose Reynoso, president of the College Area Community Council, said the law has been virtually unenforceable because it included conflicting definitions of a "rooming house."
"That was eliminated through the modification that we recently had approved," Reynoso said. "It eliminated the duplicate definitions into one. Now code enforcement will have the tools they need to actually enforce the ordinance. Simple as that."
In San Diego, a single family home that rents more than two rooms individually to different tenants is a rooming house and is therefore illegal. Another law meant to crack down on mini-dorms allows police to levy $1,000 fines for every resident of the house when neighbors complain about loud parties.
