A special workshop for City Council this Tuesday at 6 p.m. to discuss rental occupancy with the community touched on several proposals by staff and community. Here’s what you need to know, briefly.

Steven L. Schainker, city manager, said this was what he considered to be the beginning of the conversation, because the City has not yet reached out to neighborhoods or rental associations. The law will go into affect on January 1, 2018 that prohibits limiting by familial relation.

There are 14,000 rental units in the city of Ames, Schainker said.

“One of the biggest concerns for the staff… whatever you do, if you make some major changes, we have to verify these changes is January … implementation is something we’re going to have to think about,” Schainker said.

Limit the concentration of rental units in a specified geographic area.

This approach is being used in various cities outside of Iowa and has been approved by the courts, according to the staff report.

Council Member Chris Nelson asked if there was data on how many of the 14,000 units are in single-family homes. 1,765 units are in residential low density zoning, about 13 percent of the units in Ames, according to data shown by Sara VanMeeteren, a liaison for community codes.

“We know that’s been upheld in the courts in the state of Minnesota. That doesn’t deal with density within a unit,” Schainker said. “A policy issue would be to address what is that boundary.”

Limit the number of adults that can inhabit a rental unit.

More and more children are returning home to live temporarily with their parents, or remain with their parents past the age of 18, and many grandparents are living with their adult children because of the high cost of long-term care.

“This has nothing to do with family. This means if you come in as a family, and you have a certain number of people, that may prohibit their ability to rent,” Schainker said.

Limit occupancy in rental units to a specified amount of square footage per person.

Choosing the square footage is the problem. Using square footage or parking space per renter means larger rentals could have more people, and therefore would not effectively cap the number.

Limit occupancy based on the number of off-street parking spaces.

A representative from the South Campus Area Neighborhood association said basing number of people by number of bedrooms creates additional rooms and enclosed porches turned into bedrooms, which changes the character of the neighborhoods and how attractive the housing and neighborhood looks. The same can happen with parking spaces, for already paved backyards or extended driveways that can stack multiple cars.

Limit occupancy in rental units based on a multi-tiered approach.

This would be the “all of the above” option, and is the most likely thing for the council to do. The council could layer regulating number of people with size of homes and within a specific area.