Is House Hacking or Rent by the Room considered a Rooming House?

[David Y M.]

I was reading up on a couple of my local city code of ordinances and have a question on the legality of house hacks and rent by room strategies.This specifically is regarding DFW, Texas, and most cities have a provision about rooming or boarding homes. It is defined as the following.

• Boardinghouse, rooming house, lodging house and tourist house shall mean a building arranged or used for the lodging, with or without meals, for compensation, by individuals who are not members of the same family

Additionally, zoning ordinances prevent SFH and most MF to operate as a rooming house.

Do I simply get around this by being at or under the max number of allowed unrelated tenants under one home? I noticed this also may be an issue as many cities have set this at 2 or 3 individuals. Does anybody actually do this by the book and get a special permit license? I haven't heard of many people actually doing this.

Are there any other workarounds?

Thanks in advance