Residents urge board to deny retroactive permit after bedroom conversions at Hollywood Rose Hill apartments

The City of Columbia zoning board heard residents' objections over retroactive permit requests tied to bedroom conversions and interior work at the Hollywood Rose Hill apartments, where neighbors said converting common stairwells and hallways into bathrooms has effectively intensified occupancy and created safety and parking problems.

The issue centers on whether interior changes — adding bathrooms and reconfiguring two-bedroom units into three-bedroom units within the existing building footprint — constitute an unlawful "intensification" under the city's Unified Development Ordinance (UDO). Neighbors urged the board to uphold the zoning administrator's denial of retroactive permits; the owner and counsel argued the work did not expand the number of dwelling units or the structure's footprint and therefore is not intensification.

Residents described observable changes and neighborhood impacts. Emily Suski, a Hollywood Rose Hill resident, said, "It has intensified the parking issue and ... This is not something we need to predict. It's something…