Many students are breaking the law and aren’t even aware, according to Steve Myers, East Baton Rouge Mayor-President candidate and property manager.
Myers said the Unified Development Code, a 19-chapter document that lays out the future of Baton Rouge, restricts the number of people that can live together. But Myers said it has outdated definitions and is selectively enforced.
The document is dated 2009, but its sections go back further. Myers frequently cites the 1950s as the beginning of the UDC. Its chapters address different areas of city-parish government, such as zoning districts, streets, and sidewalks and utilities.
Dwelling is one of the definitions pertaining to students.
It reads, “A single-family dwelling is a building that contains only one living unit including attached buildings in the case of townhouses.”
Many areas surrounding the University are zoned A1, or single-family dwellings.
The document’s definition of family reads, “not more than two (2) persons, or not more than four (4) persons (provided the owner lives on the premises) living together by joint agreement and occupying a single housekeeping unit with single culinary facilities on a non-profit, cost sharing basis.”
Students start breaking the law when three or more unrelated students occupy a single-family dwelling, unless one of the residents owns part of the property.
Once the definitions are used together to enforce law, Myers said it becomes a tool for discrimination against minorities and young people.
“College students, and young people in general, live with others,” he said. “But it isn’t just young people. Lots of people have roommates. Sometimes it is two unrelated people; sometimes it is more than that.”
The Department of Public Works enforces violations, but it does not actively seek them out. Instead, the department waits for complaints from neighbors or other Baton Rouge residents.
Myers said the department asks neighbors for photos. After receiving the complaint, a person assigned to the UDC goes to the residence.
“The complaints officer simply goes to the house and looks for multiple cars with different license plates,” Myers said. “But I don’t think that a license plate with a different state on it could really tell whether someone is related or not.”
The discrimination leads to demographically homogeneous neighborhoods. In Southdowns — a neighborhood on the outskirts of campus — Myers said the residents are looking to keep out college students and minorities.
Biology freshman Trent Davis said he is puzzled by residents reporting their neighbors. Although many students choose to live on campus or in apartment complexes, others live in single-family dwellings near campus.
Davis lives on State Street and has never received a preliminary letter, but his friend William Reed, a 22-year-old Baton Rouge resident, received two letters in eight months.
“I just walked out to check the mail one day and found a letter telling me that I was breaking some kind of ordinance,” Reed said. “All the letter said was that we were breaking some ordinance, it didn’t give any specifics. The next time I heard about it, my landlord told me that we had to move out.”
According to the Department of Public Works, the owner isn’t notified until he or she receives a warning letter. Myers said he wrote back several times to get more information but never received a response. Instead, the Department of Public Works sues the owner without taking into consideration the owner’s response, according to Myers.
There have been 290 preliminary letters sent, 90 lawsuits and one injunction based on the single-family dwelling definition.
