Cobb County restricts occupancy in homes

By TOM OPDYKE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 07/24/07

After hearing charges that they were targeting illegal immigrants, the Cobb County Commissioners Tuesday night toughened laws governing how many people can live in a home if they are not a family.

Under the new law, approved unanimously, each adult living in a house must have 390-square feet of space. Under that guideline no more than four adults could live in a 1,600 square foot home, for example, without getting county permission.

The updated law also limits cars regularly parked at a home, using the same 390-square-foot measure for each car visible from the street.

The law allows up to six adults, including two who are not related, to live in a home, provided the home is large enough. The law defines family as adults and their children or grandchildren.

It changes the square footage required for a person in a home from a 50-foot "sleeping space" to 390 feet of "total square footage."

After the vote, immigrant advocate Elise Shore said the homeowners who spoke in support of the law seemed to reflect their frustration with the federal government's inability to settle on a policy.

"They relate to the context of local government reacting to the federal government's failure to react to the immigration issue," said Shore, who is regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The Cobb decision comes against a backdrop of actions by other metro Atlanta governments. Cherokee County voted to sanction landlords who rent to illegal immigrants. Gwinnett County requires companies seeking county contracts to verify all their employees are legal residents.

Immigration activists had come to the Cobb meeting because of the housing limitations vote and a plan by the county to ban day laborers from seeking work by standing in public areas or parking lots.

A vote on that measure was delayed, but lawyer Jamie Hernan said the two laws suggested a viewpoint among the commissioners.

"Some of these are certainly dealing with immigration issues in Cobb County," said Hernan, whose firm practices immigration law, among other specialties.

Cobb officials have said the housing restrictions apply to all residents, including college students, and that it is the boarding houses the county wants to limit.

"We have white boarding houses, black boarding houses and Hispanic boarding houses," Commission Chairman Sam Olens said before the meeting began.

The county used outside legal counsel to help frame the housing occupancy law.

"Are we proposing tonight an ordinance that is perfect in the real world? Certainly not," Olens said before the vote. "I have been to neighborhoods where you have a boarding house and you have "For Sale" signs on either side, and that is unacceptable."

To have more than six adults in a home if the square footage allowed it, homeowners would have to seek a county permit. As part of the law, commissioners agreed to drop the typical $100 permit fee to $25.

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