Only four unrelated adults will be allowed to live in single-family zoned property after Austin City Council passed an ordinance March 20 to changing the city's occupancy limit.

The ordinance passed 6-1 with Councilman Bill Spelman voting against the measure. Councilman Mike Martinez said the ordinance is a way for the city to help deal with the issue of stealth dorms.

Previously, city code allowed up to six unrelated adults to live in homes and six unrelated adults per side in two-family homes and duplexes. The ordinance will last for two years, when city officials are expecting to have a new Land Development Code

Spelman voted against the measure because he thought using the boundaries of the McMansion ordinance—reaching from North Capital of Texas Highway to Ed Bluestein Boulevard and Research Boulevard to William Cannon Drive—provided too broad a scope for a problem he sees as "severely" affecting certain neighborhoods.

"Any restrictions we put on people being able to live together in single-family houses are going to put the biggest restrictions not on students, not on people who are building stealth dorms for the purpose of carrying students and charging them an arm and a leg for their own bedroom and bathroom but on ordinary folks that don't have very much money and have decided to double, triple and quadruple up to share the costs of single-family housing," Spelman said.

The ordinance also includes grandfathering of existing structures under the higher limit as well as a provision that allows homes reconstructed within a year after a natural disaster to keep its previous occupancy limit.

Councilman Chris Riley said he hopes council members and the public will continue to focus on the bigger picture as it pertains to incorporating new housing types throughout the city rather than waiting for the new LDC to address the issue.

"I really think there is some real urgency to addressing the underlying problem here," Riley said. "I think that is going to affect everyone. It's going to affect those that want to live in high-occupancy dwellings, and it's going to continue to affect the neighborhoods in Austin because we're still going to see those development pressures manifested in some other way. We're going to continue to have problems as long as we are falling short of the goals set out in the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan about achieving an adequate distribution of a variety of housing types across the city."