Students who are worried about having more than three unrelated people living in their house might find that today's planning commission meeting could be the beginning of even bigger concerns.

The planning commission will discuss at noon a plan that limits the amount of rental housing by percentages per block face, and could also limit the number of unrelated people living together in certain areas.

Each zoning district would have its own specifications. Higher level residential zones -- R3, R3B and R3A -- would be allowed 30 percent rental houses per block face. The urban village, and residential office zones, as well as the residential zone R4, would have no limit.

The plan, known as the "blockface theory," is the most recent of developments in the borough's effort to resolve the rental housing problem in State College.

"We're talking about numbers as well," Planning Director Carl Hess said.

One of the alternatives in the block-face plan involves limiting the number of unrelated people living in one- and two-family dwellings in R2 zones to two. The limit is now three, a limit which itself has been the source of controversy in the past year.

Undergraduate Student Government President Mike King said 3,000 students signed a petition against the three-unrelated housing ordinance in favor of his square-footage proposal. King said he thinks this is a step back even further.

"I'm rather frightened by the proposals," he said. "As student residents, these are unacceptable policy initiatives."

King said his concern is that the planning commission is discussing "changing fundamental definitions" of zoning.

"There is a chance this could affect every home in State College," King said.

Hess said the planning commission will try to make a distinction between family unit rentals and rooming houses. As of yet, that distinction is unclear to some.

"Parts of that don't make much sense to me," said Tom Daubert, State College Borough Council member and council liason to the planning commission. "I'm not sure that's the way to go."

Daubert said he is concerned that this is not the way to address the real problem, which he says is "visual more than anything." He said the problem is not really how many people are living in the houses, but how many cars they have.

"When there are twelve cars parked on the grass, people aren't too happy," he said.

Daubert said he feels that rather than basing the number of rental houses by zoning district, they should look at the whole area.

"I think there are some areas of R3 that should be 100 percent (rentals)," Daubert said. Under the block-face plan, R3 zones would be limited to 30 percent rental housing. But for Daubert, there are more questions than answers.

And Christy Rambeau, vice chair of the planning commission, said that is all right.

"We're trying to stay pretty open-minded and flexible at this point," she said, adding that they are not anywhere near ready to bring this proposal to the council.

"It's not one that's going to be solved overnight," Rambeau said.