Living at a Costa Mesa motel? You can stay, for now

An Orange County judge Wednesday expanded the number of people exempt from a Costa Mesa law that bans most long-term stays in local motels.

Superior Court Judge Sheila Fell granted a preliminary injunction that will allow anyone living at a motel in Costa Mesa as of Wednesday to stay put until a lawsuit challenging the ordinance is resolved. It is unclear how many residents that is.

The City Council approved the law on a 3-2 vote in August, and it took effect in September.

A group of motel tenants sued in November, alleging that the ordinance unfairly targets low-income residents with the intent of driving them out of the city.

The ordinance forces Costa Mesa motel guests to move after 30 days unless the motel obtains a permit that requires, among other things, that they provide laundry facilities and an in-room kitchen.

Motel tenants represented by the Santa Ana-based Public Law Center, a pro bono law firm, argued that the law is designed to take away a last resort for the city’s poorest residents.

“We’re talking about people that are one step away from homelessness,” attorney Mark Erickson said in court Tuesday.

Erickson originally asked Fell to bar Costa Mesa from enforcing the law at all, but her injunction does not cover those who rent motel rooms after Wednesday.

In a tentative ruling, Fell indicated that Costa Mesa may have run afoul of a California law that requires governments to provide assistance to residents they displace.

Chris Neumeyer, a lawyer for Costa Mesa, argued that the city had already met its obligation by exempting long-term tenants who were in place before the law was enacted.

He said it would be absurd to extend the protection to anyone who moved into a motel after the ordinance was passed.

“The city cannot be required to do this indefinitely,” Neumeyer said.

He said 138 motel rooms are home to 195 people who qualified under the original exemption. If any of those tenants move, they lose that protection.

To comply with Fell’s order, Costa Mesa will create a new list of qualified long-term tenants by distributing a form to motel residents asking whether they might want to stay past the 30-day limit.

“I think we can probably live with that until we get to trial,” Fell said.

The question of what would happen to those residents if the lawsuit fails will have to be resolved later, Fell added.

[For the record, 1:40 p.m. Feb. 26: The city originally asked the judge to bar Costa Mesa from enforcing the law at all, but the judge’s injunction does not cover those who rent motel rooms after Wednesday.]