Well, we've discussed permit parking and its advantages and disadvantages here before, but many streets have parking on only one side, and know on those streets some people park on the sidewalk as a result. If you started enforcing that, there really would be nowhere to park for blocks and blocks. And, while the numerous renters are part of the parking problem, I know there are longtime residents and families on my street that have two and three vehicles to one house. I live between Ridge and Henry and the streets were filled with visiting cars on bike race day; that's once a year, so I think we can't complain too much about that.

Honestly, more streets should have parking on one side or be made one-way because it's just scary. Levering should not be a two-way street, for example, since it's not wide enough for two cars to pass. If there were parking on only one side . . . but that will never happen!

Back to the housing thing -- I have heard of people enforcing the laws over by the St. Joe's campus. Last year a lot of students were locked out by L&I in the middle of the night and then had no where to live. I think neighbors started turning them in because of the parking and noise.

I'm not sure how it could be discrimination to enforce the law. What's discriminatory about related vs. unrelated? It's not as though it would apply to a couple that isn't married . . . it would have to be more than three people, and last time I checked even Utah doesn't go for that!

So it's definitely three to a house everywhere with no exceptions? I heard people say they knew people in Manayunk who had "checked out the rules" before renting and somehow came up with four. Maybe their landlord is making up rules on his own or something!

It seems like a silly thing to me that the law doesn't take into account the size of the home at all. What if you wanted to buy an old mansion that was a fixer-upper and take a bunch of roommates to help cover the cost? And how are frat houses legal under this law?

I'm sure the parking situation has been discussed at great length. And I totally agree with you about redesignating streets as one-way. A prime example is Hermitage, between Ridge and Umbria (or portions of it at least). You take your life in your hands driving that street, sometimes.

I think the most feasible solution is to develop more free parking lots (or residential permit only lots), like the ones on Umbria street (bewteen Fountain and Hermitage) and the new one they built on Fountain and Silverwood. But that's a whole 'nother discussion.

I shared a 4br house in manayunk with 3 roommates. It actually had two smaller rooms (dens? offices?) that could have worked as two more bedrooms, but it would have been insane to have 6 people living there and only two bathrooms!

In West Philly, there are tons of huge houses that are shared, most are one person to a bedroom and they still house about 4-10 people each, depending on size. My boyfriend moved out of a 7-person share recently, which also had a guest room, and several rooms where people could have slept... the house was enormous. He is now happily living with 2 roommates in a smaller place

Not sure what the law is, exactly, but it would be hard to enforce it if it was just 3 unrelated people to a house, in some places... especially giant victorians which could potentially be lots of different apartments but are just one dwelling. I mean, what's the difference between a huge house with 5 or 6 or so roommates and a small apartment building with 4-6 units, each filled with 1-2 people? The only difference is, there's probably just one kitchen and maybe 2 bathrooms to fight over!

I have also heard that if you just put in a second kitchen, however tiny it might be, you can put more people in the house because it counts as a duplex, even if it's not sub-divided. Whatever!?

I have been in houses around UPenn and Drexel where 10 to 12 people live in a single house. Some do have a second kitchen. Some of the frat houses at Penn house up to 20 people.

I'm sure that there are exceptions to the law at some point. Having a place where everyone rents one room seems more like a boarding house situation to me rather than renting an entire swelling and having a bunch of people living there. It seems more hotel like to me than just a "cram everyone in so we all pay less" type situation.

I do agree that for the city to not take the size of the house into consideration is wrong. Large houses can easily accomodate more than the "3 unrelated persons" law.

As for it being s discrimination issue, I don't think it would qualify. To discriminate against someone they have to be part of a protected class. Race, religion, marital status, age, etc. For example, if I am a landlord and I do not want to rent to you because you smoke, I can easily tell you "no, you smoke". Smoking is not a protected class (as we can see by the laws they are trying to pass....but that is for another post). I can't however say "no, your Jewish so I wont rent to you". Religion is a protected class.

In Lower Merion in Student Housing, which they check when someone complains, they go by the number of beds.

Manayunk ain't lower merion, but most of the people who live here were from there.