By J. Marcos Giraldi
The Orem City Council voted last week on a proposal to allow owners of illegal apartments to legalize their situation before the city government presses charges against them.
Orem has more than 800 illegal apartments. Officials from the city''s Neighborhood Preservation Department have shut down at least 600 of these illegal apartments during the past three years.
Garry Gales, city sergeant of the neighborhood preservation unit, said the regulation is not new. He said codes like this one have existed since the ''90s, and the city government has always enforced them.
Gales said the city usually provides people who do not know the code a chance to improve their situation and become legal.
'We give those people an amnesty period in which they can have a time frame in order to bring them into compliance, otherwise they''re going to be charged,' he said.
Gales also said people must get a license from the city to allow them to legally rent part of their homes to people.
The city fine for having an illegal apartment is $200, and the tenants must move out immediately.
'If they are not obeying the law by having a permit, they have to get a permit or ask their people to go somewhere else, but they''ve got to stop renting their home illegally,' Gales said.
Many BYU students are either living or used to live in these apartments.
Colleen Pearson, a former BYU student, said she lived in Orem while she studied to be an elementary school teacher.
'There were four girls in our apartment,' Pearson said. 'We had two girls in each room, but I had no idea that our place was illegal.'
She also said the family she lived with did not know their apartment was breaking the city code.
'We got to know the family really well,' she said. 'They were always so nice to us, plus they were members of the church.'
Pearson said many BYU students live in Orem because the prices for housing are much lower there than in areas closer to BYU campus.
Managers at the city preservation department said they are surprised when apartment owners say they never knew they were doing something illegal.
Orem resident and renter Paul Sorensen said he had no idea about the codes the city is enforcing.
The proposed bill will give renters another chance to become legal, but the costs of getting a license and fixing an apartment can be more than $20,000.