Student housing in some East Lansing areas could be restricted or prohibited due to a new East Lansing rental housing ordinance.

With signatures from two-thirds of property owners, community members can petition the City Council to turn their neighborhoods into rental overlay districts - which would limit or restrict new rental housing licenses from being issued in their areas.

"With this ordinance people can keep the integrity of their single family homes, and the neighborhoods that are rental can keep their integrity," Councilmember Vic Loomis said.

The ordinance will keep areas designated for university rental housing more separated from those designated for East Lansing families. It was enacted to control the conversion of single-family homes into rental homes, to allow more young families to live in East Lansing - keeping rental housing out of neighborhoods for families.

The ordinance was put together by city officials with input from the Housing Leadership Council, which is a group of local landlords, and the city's Housing Commission, which is made up of community members.

Kathleen Boyle, chairperson of the Housing Commission, said community members wanted to look at ways of controlling the licensing of new rental properties in residential areas.

"The community is concerned when something changes in a neighborhood," Boyle said. "If a house turns into a rental, a lot of the time they aren't kept up well."

City Manager Ted Staton said many East Lansing single-family homes are converted to rentals for students. He said that in addition to preserving neighborhoods, the council was concerned about controlling the conversion of homes.

"In the past few years, in the hundreds of homes have been converted to rental homes," Staton said. "We want to give an opportunity to young families who want to buy a home in East Lansing."

Staton said keeping young families in East Lansing is an important part of developing and expanding the city.

Young families bring more children to East Lansing Public Schools. Staton said in 1970 there were 5,600 children in enrolled in the school district. Today there are 3,600.

"With the decrease in children, the city receives less state money for education," Staton said. "If more families were able to own homes in East Lansing, our school enrollment would go up."

If a community is able to get two-thirds of property owners in their area to sign a petition, they can ask the City Council to prohibit all new rental housing licenses in the area. Another option neighborhoods have is asking the council to limit the licenses issued to those for owner-occupied homes only - those which allow a one-room renter to live in the home in addition to the owner.

Although the ordinance restricts rental housing from certain areas, Joe Goodsir, president of Community Resource Management Company, a local rental housing company, said he is in favor of the ordinance.

"It limits licensing of new rental properties in the neighborhoods we should be protecting, and we are in favor of doing those things," Goodsir said.

"There are certain areas we think should be designated only as university housing."