What are potential legal issues w/living in a commercial space? (Oregon)

April 9, 2019 10:47 AM

I live in Springfield, Oregon and I've been looking for a living space for some time now. I found someone offering a workshop space for rent that would be absolutely perfect for a live/work situation but I want to know what the potential legal complications could be if I go ahead with this and someone finds out.
posted by Socinus to Law & Government (10 answers total)

Would it be legal for them to rent it to you as a living space? Or are you considering living there but signing a lease that does not include residency?
posted by timdiggerm at 10:55 AM on April 9, 2019

I had a friend who lived in his workshop in Eugene! He jimmy-rigged the bathroom to make a shower. He had a very simplified hot-pot setup for a kitchen. He built stairs out of palettes to a sleeping “loft” over the office portion of his space (kept that out of sight). He had dogs in the space! I think the key for him was having a landlord who didn’t care/looked the other way. And he was really using the workshop space to make art and furniture. However, it was cold af during the long, wet days of winter because the huge rollup garage door couldn’t be insulated. He had an overhead gas heater but as soon as it clicked off the heat just rushed out of the space. Make sure your egress door has a turn style lock set so you don’t get locked in in an emergency.
posted by amanda at 11:14 AM on April 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I’m guessing legal ramifications are a fine from the city and getting kicked out by your landlord. Most likely, though, they’d just need you to stop using it as living space. You’d probably have to pay that fine. Have your everyday mail go to a P.O. Box.
posted by amanda at 11:17 AM on April 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm sure other people can weigh in on Oregon-specific questions (in Minnesota you just pretty much get evicted, have an eviction on your record, etc; "you can't live here" is usually in the lease) but if you do this make sure you have two ways of egress, that there are adequate fire alarms and that the building is fire-code compliant. A lot of the spaces where the landlord looks the other way are not real safe.
posted by Frowner at 11:18 AM on April 9, 2019 [7 favorites]

I have a relative who is doing this in small-town Oregon. He uses a PO box for his mailing address and maintains a fairly paranoid stance about people knowing where he is living, which is a low-key constant stressor. Eviction is a real possibility if you're discovered by the landlord (or "discovered" when it's in the landlord's interest), or if some neighborhood nosey parker is feeling righteous.
posted by mumkin at 11:43 AM on April 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

Is it zoned live/work, or is it zoned as a commercial space? It's easy to ask the city (or perhaps a realtor friend) what the zoning of a space is without specifically asking if it's zoned as live/work (literally just "what is the zoning of this property").

Professionally I sometimes inspect commercial properties. I've come across places that are being used as live/work. It's not within my jurisdiction to do anything about someone living in a commercial space, but even if it were it's pretty easy to hide. Keep you personal belongings stowed in a closed cabinet. Use some kind of cabinet system rather than a wardrobe or other furnishings that you would normally find in a home. Keep your personal toiletries stowed; a toothbrush and toothpaste are a dead give-away that you're spending more than just business hours here. Same with too much personal art or pictures. A commercial space can have a kitchen area, but unless you're a food producer or photographer you probably don't want to showcase a full kitchen.
For the purposes of not looking like you live there your sleeping quarters should be a couch, futon, or daybed; something that looks like a place where you take a break as opposed to a place where you lounge all day on Sundays watching Netflix if you get my drift.

Agree with the comments about egress and heating concerns.
posted by vignettist at 12:48 PM on April 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

Yeah, definitely put in your own smoke/co2 detector. You don’t want to end up living next to those guys blowing up Tesla batteries in their shop.
posted by amanda at 12:54 PM on April 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

If it's not up to fire code and the fire people find out they can just boot you out into the street with no notice. Whether or not this actually happens regularly or is more in the realm of distant threat depends entirely on your locality.
posted by fshgrl at 1:00 PM on April 9, 2019

You can visit the Oregon State Bar's website to find generic legal advice. If you have questions, you can contact the Lawyer Referral Service via links on that page and talk to a lawyer for $35 to find out what the law says specifically.
posted by tacodave at 3:30 PM on April 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I don't know if this is the case in Springfield, but I know that some other cities have been more vigilant about cracking down on illegally occupied spaces after so many people died in the Ghost Ship Fire. (The place you're considering may be completely safe, but I knew a lot of artists in my twenties who lived in studios that were definitely fire traps. Please be careful!) Also, ymmv, but I do think it can be hard to accomplish this without the landlord finding out. The most likely scenario to me seems that they'd find out and you'd be forced to suddenly move.
posted by pinochiette at 8:32 PM on April 9, 2019 [3 favorites]