The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to move forward with an ordinance to prohibit “living suites” in Rowland Heights.
A living suite in a single-family home typically includes a separate living room, kitchen, bathroom and one or more bedrooms. It is accessed through a door that leads to the rest of the house and may also have a separate exterior entrance.
Last September, the board indicated its intent to allow the development of living suites in new planned communities in unincorporated areas of the county, citing demographic trends and the demand for multi-generational housing.
Rowland Heights residents raised concerns at that time that units would be rented out, increasing noise and traffic in a community that is almost exclusively made up of single-family homes.
Tuesday, some residents reiterated those concerns and also fretted that the units would attract non-U.S. citizens wishing to have their children born in the U.S.
“Birthing houses, parachute kids, human trafficking and boarding house homes are already a problem in Rowland Heights like nowhere else,” resident and local school board member Lynne Ebenkamp said. “Living suites will compound the problem.”
Tim Shaw, government affairs director with the Tri-Counties Association of Realtors, said a blanket ban was unwarranted.
“Many of the issues that we’ve heard … from maternity homes, illegal conversions, traffic, crime, parking, noise, short-term rentals, all these issues can be addressed short of banning these living suites,” Shaw said.
He suggested mandating three-car garages as a way to head off parking problems, among other solutions.
Other residents with elderly parents, or newly married and hoping to build on their parents’ property, spoke against the ban.
County planners said the prohibition would apply only to new residential subdivisions and would not prevent a homeowner from adding rooms to an existing house or building a guest house or second unit for a relative.
Supervisor Don Knabe told his colleagues, “Adoption of the ordinance before us today will help Rowland Heights retain its single-family residential character.”
The board directed county attorneys to finalize the ordinance and bring it back to the board for approval.
–City News Service