The City Council will consider an ordinance at Wednesday night's meeting that would regulate whether or not a basement counts as a storage area or livable space.
The city says the regulations are necessary because "most newly constructed basements are permitted as storage areas but developed as a livable area," according to the city staff report.
That means those basements sometimes lack features required of livable space, such as proper ventilation and emergency access, according to the report.
If passed, the new regulations would mean:
- Basements 300 square feet or less without cooling or heating would count as a storage area, not livable space.
- Basements greater than 300 square feet with seven feet or more of ceiling clearance will be considered livable area and would be subject to the same regulations as other livable areas in a home.
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