Zoning › LA › Metairie
Can you rent by the room in Metairie, LA?
Generally allowed. No cap and no relatedness test at all - the whole question is whether the occupants are a single housekeeping unit.
Occupancy cap
NONE. 'Family shall mean one (1) or more persons living together and occupying a dwelling unit as a single housekeeping unit with complete living facilities including kitchen facilities.' No number, no relatedness requirement.
Is it a permitted use
Permissive on its face. The entire test is 'single housekeeping unit' - the same lease-structure question as Boston, NYC and Columbus GA. Separate per-room leases with no shared household arguably breaks it. A second kitchen is allowed only as provided in Article VI R-1A, so do not add one.
Registration or licensing
Metairie is unincorporated Jefferson Parish, so the Parish Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance governs - there is no city hall to ask.
State pre-emption
Louisiana has no statewide preemption. WARNING: older secondary sources quote a Jefferson Parish family definition capped at four persons 'on a non-profit cost sharing basis'. That language is NOT in the current code - it was checked against the primary text on 2026-08-31.
What a room rents for in Metairie
A shared room in Metairie runs about $259/week across the 12 ZIP codes we cover here. Private-room rates, per-ZIP figures and the local enforcement record are on the analyzer.
How to read this
Renting a house by the room is usually governed by three things: how many unrelated adults may share one dwelling, whether the arrangement is a permitted use or a boarding house, and whether the state has pre-empted the local rule. This page summarises the ordinance and cites it. It is research, not legal advice — a local land-use attorney decides whether a specific property complies.
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