Because Hank, a history senior at ASU, lives with four friends in a Tempe rental home, he's breaking the law.
The Tempe city code says no more than three unrelated people can legally live together in a single-family home.
A city task force had recommended changing the law, but Tempe officials last week delayed the change after residents complained.
"They felt that this was a loosening of the rental regulations," said Darlene Justus, chairwoman of the North Tempe Neighborhood Association. Justus is a longtime Tempe resident and advocate for change in the city's rental housing situation.
Hank said the law was unfair and outdated.
"It seems just like another example of Tempe locals trying to band together against the students," said Hank, who rents a five-bedroom Tempe home with four other ASU students. Hank asked that his last name not be used because his living situation violates Tempe's law.
"They are not taking into account that there are four- and five-bedroom houses in Tempe," Hank said.
The new law would have tied the maximum number of renters to the square footage of a home.
At a Development Review Commission meeting last week, homeowners said the new formula would bring more renters to their neighborhoods, said Chris Anaradian, Tempe's development services manager.
Tempe staff agreed to pull their recommendation and re-evaluate it, Anaradian said.
"We don't push laws down people's throats," he said.
The proposed change was one of nine recommendations from Tempe's Rental Housing Task Force.
The other changes have already been implemented, including hiring more code compliance inspectors, requiring adequate on-site parking and expanding the rental tax to cover all rentals.
The current tenant-limit law is unenforceable and should be changed, said Ed Hermes, an ASU student who serves on the Rental Housing Task Force along with Justus.
"I think there's a lot of homeowners and residents here in Tempe who perceive renters and students to be the source of many of the problems in Tempe," Hermes said. "They are frustrated with the problem and they used their frustration to try to kill this change."
The change isn't dead, Anaradian said. City staff decided to re-evaluate the change before forwarding it to the City Council for approval.
"Rather than ignore everyone and send it to the City Council to let them deal with it, staff decided to sharpen our pencils and see if there's a better way to do it," Anaradian said.
The revised proposal will probably take several months to be developed and approved, Anaradian said.
"With something like this you get lawyers involved, you get police involved, you get neighborhood associations involved," he said. "We're going to figure out how much we can do with the law and come back."
Reach the reporter at: jonathan.cooper@asu.edu.
