‘Tis the season for striking amendments! The unrelated home occupants bill, like many other bills we are reporting on this week, saw a striking amendment as it passed out of committee. This type of amendment strikes all previous language and starts the bill from scratch.

SB 6302 started off as a little bill that wanted to eliminate a city’s enforcement of occupant limits, except for building code occupant load.

The bill now proposes to:

• Replace the prohibition on local government regulation of unrelated persons' occupancy of a household or dwelling unit with a requirement (if the local government does have such regulations) that it must provide a process for seeking an exception to the regulations.
• Allow a jurisdiction (during an application review for the exception) to review the property’s:
  • Compliance with applicable building codes;
  • Public health impacts;
  • Public safety concerns; and
  • Infrastructure capacity (and can require that conditions are met prior to approval).
• Allow a local government to later revoke approval if the household or dwelling unit is not in compliance with building, fire, or other code requirements.

This bill is likely to see further amendments on the floor. If you have an interest in this bill, contact your legislators.