A Los Angeles City Council panel gave a resounding thumbs-down on the so-called tiny houses for the homeless Monday, determining they are illegal on public property and also cannot be used for human habitation even on private property.

The issue was heard by the council’s Public Works and Gang Committee and also is slated to go before the council’s Homelessness and Poverty Committee before returning to the full council.

The 4-by-6-foot wooden structures on wheels have cropped up on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, on the Westside and in San Pedro, where their appearance sparked an uproar from residents and business owners.

Senior Assistant City Attorney Valerie Flores told the panel that the structures are illegal on public property, including sidewalks, streets, alleys and parks. Under city law, they are considered bulky items and can be picked up and destroyed by city sanitation workers.

Offering little beyond space for a mattress, the bare-bones structures have been ridiculed as “dog houses” by critics, including Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino, who represents the Harbor Area and is chairman of the Public Works and Gang Reduction committee.

He said intentions may have been good in making the homes — a program launched by Elvis Summers of Los Angeles in a GoFundMe campaign — may have been good, but the result was unacceptable.

“The only legal use for these is for dogs. This is not the way we treat people who are homeless in our city,” Buscaino said.

The homes that appeared in San Pedro have since been moved by supporters to private property and are now out of public view.

But either way, Flores said, they are illegal.

“They pose hazards in the roadway and they qualify as vehicles under the Vehicle Code,” she told committee members. “So under city law, they may be treated as bulky items.”

But even on private property, including in backyards, the structures are in violation of building codes and it is illegal for human habitation, she said.

“Most cities have very strict building codes to make sure that any structure approved have the bare minimum access to safe electricity, ventilation and water,” she said. “From what I’ve seen of these structures, they don’t meet current safety standards.”

The builders also could be open to prosecution under dumping statutes, although council members stressed that an “education process” needs to continue first to get the word out that the structures are not permissible.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell said the tiny homes are dangerous.

He said homeless encampments have caused problems, including repeated cases of arson in one camp, in his 13th District that includes Hollywood.

“I’m horrified at the thought of one of these wooden shacks being set on fire with someone inside,” he said. “It very easily could happen. … I’m not so kind-hearted toward those making these (houses) happen.”

Mental illness, addiction issues and crime plague the encampments, he said.

“We always have brought resources (to the encampments), we offer them shelter, but in every last instance, every last person has refused any assistance we’ve offered,” he said.

Buscaino, who co-authored the motion seeking the legal status of the tiny houses when three of them turned up on Eighth Street in San Pedro, said, “We can do better” in serving the homeless.

He has instituted a “quality-of-life” police unit that works with county and city social, housing and mental health workers in offering assistance to local homeless individuals.

But he agreed the task has not proven to be easy.

“In the last seven months, we’ve housed 71 individuals,” he said, but noting hundreds have refused help.

“The three people in the shacks were offered shelter and they, too, refused,” Buscaino said. “So we have to help one soul at a time, little by little, for those who want it.”

O’Farrell noted that the city is building affordable housing, adding that the charge that the city is “doing nothing” is a “myth.”

The council’s Homelessness and Poverty Committee has been charged with producing a plan to combat homelessness by the end of this calendar year.

“In my district alone several hundred units” are set to begin construction, O’Farrell said. “We have to look at this comprehensively but we also have to look at this as a public safety issue. We can’t be Pollyana in our approach.”