New bill bans Oregon cities from limiting residence occupancy based on family relation

OREGON — A bill that has passed through the Oregon House and Senate and is now awaiting signature from Gov. Kate Brown, would prohibit cities from enforcing ordinances that would limit the occupancy of a residence based on familial relations.

"What we found--and I was surprised that this still existed--is that a number of cities had on their books simple restrictions on unrelated people living together that have no connection with the size of the house, the number of bedrooms the amount of square footage or anything else," said one of the measure's sponsors, Rep. Pam Marsh (D-Ashland).

The measure would not prohibit landlords from having limits on the occupancy of their homes nor would it stop cities from enforcing fire safety occupancy codes.

Marsh said many of those restrictions were based on outdated concepts of who should be allowed to live together in a home.

"We know that unrelated people live together for lots of important reasons and there is simply no reason for cities to be regulating that," she said. "So it seemed appropriate to those out."

A fact sheet supporting the bill notes that a 1977 Supreme Court Ruling prohibited occupancy limits on those considered under the law to be related to each other.

"Because of this ruling, occupancy limits are only applicable to people considered unrelated under the law," the fact sheet noted. "This arbitrary distinction relies on definitions of “related” that are often outdated and do not reflect all the reasons people may choose to live together today."

One example cited is for the City of Ashland that limits occupancy to no more than 5 unrelated individuals with the definition of related as "blood, marriage, legal adoption or guardianship."

It's a code type that LGBTQ advocates say reflects a mentality that is both outdated and discriminatory towards certain classes of individuals such as those in domestic partnerships.

"They particularly harm Oregonians interested in living in households that wouldn't have been recognized as legitimate "family" by politicians in the 1920s, when these rules began to be written into local zoning codes," Basic Rights Oregon wrote in a letter submitted for public hearing on the bill. "We are the leading LGBTQ advocacy group in Oregon, and recognize how our community members are impacted when definitions of “family” in statute exclude the many, diverse ways that people make their own families."

Marsh agreed, noting that though she believes for the most part those codes are not actively enforced they could be used in discriminatory ways if they were to be.

"I think whenever you have a rule on the books there is no point in having it there unless it is enforced occasionally so I think there is a risk of it being enforced there is certainly a risk of people wanting it to be enforced," she said.

Though the bill would not require that cities strike ordinances out of the books, Marsh said she believes that prohibiting enforcement of those codes would encourage cities to do away with them altogether.

"I think it's a throwback to a day and age when we thought that only related people should be living together or that unrelated people could cause some health and safety issues within a neighborhood," she said. "Hopefully we've moved past that kind of old thinking and so it was time to clean up the books."