OCEAN CITY- Resort officials this week began cursory discussions about proposed tweaks in the occupancy calculations for seasonal workforce housing in an issue ripe with a growing shortage versus safety and quality of life issues.
Ocean City’s current calculation calls for 40 square feet per each occupant in seasonal employee housing, a standard that has been in place since 1979. The widely accepted international standard is 50 square feet per occupant, leaving Ocean City’s standard about 10 feet shorter than most neighboring communities. What resort officials are learning is that seemingly innocuous 10 feet, roughly the size of a standard bedroom closet, can make the difference between three summer tenants in a room or four, and for seasonal housing landlords, perhaps an extra $1,500 to $2,000 per unit per summer. Extrapolated out over hundreds of units, it’s certainly a major financial issue.
Coupled with a widely known seasonal workforce housing shortage in the resort, squeezing an extra summer worker in here and there certainly has implications for the business community starved for summer help, but perhaps most importantly, there are major safety issues and quality of life issues for the employees, including the thousands of international J-1 students that flock to the resort each summer.
The issue arose when city officials learned some seasonal housing landlords were seeking a credit for closet space, for example, to meet the 40 square-foot standard. For example, a typical 150-square-foot bedroom would only accommodate three summer workers, but a credit for the 10 square feet of closet space would allow a fourth tenant.
Most seasonal housing landlords are aware of and adhere to the 40 square-foot rule, but a few less scrupulous landlords look the other way and cram far too many student workers into undersized bedrooms. Others have found a loop-hole and are reconfiguring floor plans and removing closets altogether to meet the 40-square-foot standard and gain an extra tenant per bedroom.
It has created a conundrum in the resort facing a seasonal housing crunch and the potential loss of summer employees, but paramount to all of that is the health, welfare and safety of the student workers. Before the Mayor and Council could begin to address the issue and discuss potential tweaks in the calculations during Tuesday’s work session, the public got their chance to weigh in. Joe Wilson, chair of the Realtor Political Action Committee and Coastal Association of Realtors Board Member Joe Wilson urged the elected officials to be cautious with any tweaks considered.
“We all know the town is currently experiencing a shortage of workforce housing, an issue we feel on an annual basis due to the seasonality of the town,” he said. “At this point, the current code allows landlords to play a numbers game to increase the number of tenants in their properties. That doesn’t necessarily promote the health, welfare and safety of the occupants. The alternate calculations seem like a step in the right direction.”
Wilson encouraged the Council to hold firm to the current 40-square-foot standard.
“There is simply not enough student housing in Ocean City and some landlords are taking advantage of the imbalance because there’s not enough supply,” he said. “I urge you to consider anything you can do to improve the safety of the students.”
Ocean City Chamber of Commerce Executive Director and Seasonal Workforce Committee member Melanie Pursel agreed.
“Seasonal workforce housing is a major issue,” she said. “We host thousands of international students each summer. If you don’t have the housing, you don’t have the workforce and that is certainly important to our business community. We urge you to adjust the calculations to make the housing more accommodating.”
Planning and Community Development Director Bill Neville urged the Mayor and Council to hold true to the 40-square-foot standard and resist any changes that would allow credits for closet space, for example.
“The standards have been in place for years,” he said. “The square-footage calculator for occupancy is very clear and understandable in the code so it is enforceable.”
Chief Building Inspector Kevin Brown told the Council he had polled dozens of communities up and down the coast and found most adhere strictly to the international standard of 50 square feet. He said he could not support any changes that would allow Ocean City’s standard to dip below an already low 40 square feet.
“No other resort community has a lesser code than 50 square feet,” he said. “I was very surprised to learn Ocean City went to the lesser code in 1979. I can’t give a favorable recommendation to any change that allows the standards to be reduced further.”
Councilman Wayne Hartman said he used to be involved in the seasonal workforce housing business and also seemed opposed to any allowance in the calculation for closet space.
“In a former life, I was a large provider of student housing and it’s hard to imagine people removing a closet to increase the square footage,” he said. “I think what we really need to look at is the 40-foot calculation from 1979. I think we’re doing a disservice when we encourage people to remove closets. That’s taking property owners in the wrong direction.”
Councilman Dennis Dare said the issue largely involves the traditional older seasonal housing which had smaller rooms than many of the new units in the resort.
“I sense we have a baseball cap where one size fits all,” he said. “In 1979, the average room size was much smaller. Whether it’s 40 feet or 50 feet, closets or not, there is a big difference between the older units for student housing and the new units for family vacations. Going to large units with smaller standards could become a bad thing and have an adverse effect. I wonder if it’s practical to have two sets of criteria.”
With Mayor Rick Meehan at a funeral and Councilman Doug Cymek and Matt James absent, Councilman Tony DeLuca suggested and issue so important required the attention of the full Mayor and Council and suggested moving the discussion to a later work session. Council President Lloyd Martin agreed and said decision regarding occupancy calculations would have to put the safety of the student workers first.
“If there is going to be a sliding scale for closets, how are you going to calculate areas?” he said. “We need to make sure we address the needs of the student housing and also have to make sure it’s safe.”
Brown said with a dearth of building inspectors, many larger issues go unnoticed before there is a complaint filed. He said changing the equation now would only exacerbate the problem.
“We have a housing shortage and that’s unfortunate, but we need to clean up some of these issues,” he said. “In the worst case scenarios we run into, we’re not even sure if the smoke detectors and fire alarms are in place and in working order. A lot of the student workers remove them because they keep going off.”
Brown said in his years as a building inspector, he routinely sees overt violations already and allowing a closet credit, for example, would contribute to that.
“We see these units where the bunk beds are stacked with walkways so narrow they have to walk sideways to get through,” he said. “We have pictures of doors and windows blocked with bunk beds.”
