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Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

marginalrevolution.com

361–370 of 418 posts

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#361
post #197
post #43

Interesting, I knew SROs were not allowed in most places in the US, but never clumped roommates in with that. All the places I've lived I had no problem sharing apartments let alone houses with roommates. I wonder if the laws distinguish from roommates chosen by tenants, vs multiple tenants chosen by the landlord, or if the places I've lived allowed SROs, or if the law was just commonly ignored.

To answer my own question. No state prohibits subletting. Maine law gives renters the right to sublet, New York limits the reasons landlords can refuse subletting, and all other states leave it up to the landlord (with differences in details, such as the default if the lease doesn't explicitly prohibit or allow it). However, many states and/or cities do limit the number of unrelated individuals living together, and t…

I wonder how they define "related".

It's obvious what they're trying to do but if you had 12 kids with 12 women would all of them living in the same house be illegal?

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#362
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has also had extremely high immigration rates since the 1980s. Whether that's good or bad policy isn't my place to say, but it certainly places extreme pressure on the housing market. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/lo...

> Whether that's good or bad policy isn't my place to say Right, you're just dragging in migration to the discussion, which is entirely a side issue, purely out of the goodness of your heart. From your link: > The UK has experienced broadly similar levels of migration compared to other high-income countries, on average, over the past few decades That doesn't make it sound like the UK is an outlier, contrary to the im…

Which high income countries have had high immigration and low housing price increases?

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#363

> demanding every room have a private bathroom Does this mean in the US apartments have as many bathrooms as bedrooms?

No, but many will have it accidentally.

2 bedroom apartments are the most common IIRC, and those usually have 1.5 or 2 bathrooms (a "public" and a "private" where a half bath is a shitter/sink no shower/bath).

3 bedrooms usually have 2 but sometimes 3 (a public - by public I mean the one the guests would use - a "master" or ensuite one INSIDE the biggest room, and sometimes a jack-and-jill between two other rooms).

I think this regulation is specific for subletting rooms, e.g., you can't force someone to share a bathroom with someone they don't share a bedroom with.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#364
post #37

This reminds me of places where it's illegal for more than N~=3 women to share a residence, ostensibly to prevent sex work (the assumption being that any home with a significant number of unmarried women is a brothel). When I was in high school a couple decades ago visiting liberal arts colleges across the Midwest, it was a common refrain that only fraternities had houses while sororities did not because they would b…

the cool thing about that is nobody can cite a single source its just a college town urban legend across the country, and at best a misinterpretation of the exact unrelated roommate zoning this article is about which don't specify gender

My urban legend version had something about how their periods would all get in sync and then it would overthrow the government.

Fun how college bullshit becomes well-known fact over time.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#365
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has a different peeve, and they all conflict. That’s why population density correlates with regulation.

regulation itself is fine. However the details matter and all too often the regulation is in the wrong place. Writing good regulations is hard. There are always unintended concequences, and most are not even willing to ask what they might be much less debate if we can/should accept them.

That's the real underlying current in all this - most people just don't give a shit one way or the other, so nothing much is going to move.

Which is why it's easy to get everyone together and ban backyard chickens because the whole town is sick of Bob's fucking rooster - but much harder to get them to unban them decades later.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#366
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property owners absolutely are entitled to stop efforts around them to increase housing supply or density, and I say this as someone who also has done similar work to you. If a community wants to remain SFH-only, that is their right, even if other people who can't afford to live there or would just like to see higher density would really like them to change their mind.

> If a community wants to remain SFH-only, that is their right This is an opinion, not a right codified in statute, and state laws can be enacted to override local planning ability to prevent upzoning. People who live in their community are entitled to affordable housing (again, my opinion, maybe not yours). Property owners leave, property owners die; the path to success is to simply continue to grind against the nim…

It's an inherent right, otherwise CA wouldn't have to pass laws to override it (which is an overreach IMO).

No one is entitled to affordable housing in any specific location.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#367
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property owners absolutely are entitled to stop efforts around them to increase housing supply or density, and I say this as someone who also has done similar work to you. If a community wants to remain SFH-only, that is their right, even if other people who can't afford to live there or would just like to see higher density would really like them to change their mind.

No it isn't.

Well consider me convinced by your thoughtful response!

I guess that overrides centuries of precedent.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's why I moved somewhere where those were the agreed local regulations and everyone else was on the same page. That's why local governance is good. Everyone can find somewhere where they can be happy.

> everyone else was on the same page You can't know that though. Unless you hold a referendum to renew the rules every year and they pass by a 100% majority. The only honest way to do it is without invoking government power. Move to a gated community. Have a neighborhood association, funded solely by residents, whose bylaws require that it gets to have any property up for sale in the community as long as it matches a…

I don't subscribe to pure anarchism. We also have local public schools, parks, libraries, bike trails, etc. funded by "other people's" (our) pockets. It's fine. The US at least has 10 million sq km. Plenty of room for different types of communities to exist. The are cities in multiple directions a few miles away with less restrictive zoning if people like the area but want apartments, townhomes, or advertising.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#369
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I'm talking about at all. Zoning regulations should reflect the desires of a community, and there's no inherent reason they can't be more restrictive than yimbys would like.

> Zoning regulations should reflect the desires of a community The community can express its desires by building whatever kind of housing they want on their property. What you're talking about is my property having to reflect the desires of the rest of the community.

No, the existing community made decisions that already exist.

Potential new residents should have no say, and actual new residents knew what they were before they purchased the property.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#370
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't.

Well consider me convinced by your thoughtful response! I guess that overrides centuries of precedent.

There's been centuries of precedent for all sorts of things we'd recoil from now.
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