County to examine housing problem
Ben Slivnick
Issue date: 4/13/07 Section: News
County plans to re-chart a course for Route 1 development could include incentives to build student housing, but after a similar effort five years ago failed to draw the interest county and city officials expected, student leaders are clamoring for input.
Planning officials laid out detailed guidelines aimed at shepherding in new retail, housing and office space along the three-mile-long College Park corridor in 2002, but with only a few developments on the books, city and county officials say the plans could use another look. Chief among the officials' concern is student housing: Despite a 900-bed student housing complex opened in 2005, demand for off-campus housing has proved insatiable.
This year, however, there's a new sense of urgency. A flood of more than 600 students now scrambling for shelter downtown after getting the boot from Resident Life has strained the city's housing stock. That's caused the development plan to come under greater scrutiny from student leaders, who blamed the county for abusing its zoning authority at a Student Government Association rally yesterday.
"Right now we have caught a lot of people's attention about the housing issue," SGA President Emma Simson said in an interview. "It's time to really use this attention to get a lot of changes we need to ensure that there is a large enough supply so that students are able to afford housing."
Since the development plans were announced five years ago, the city has had some help reevaluating the approach to city development. The Environmental Protection Agency commissioned a team of experts to examine the city's development woes, and in January 2006 a report was issued that recommended the city "place more student housing in the corridor."
"Stakeholders were unanimous in their desire to see less student housing in existing neighborhoods," the report said. "Supporting the development of more student housing in the US Route 1 corridor would serve this goal, and several others."
Planning officials laid out detailed guidelines aimed at shepherding in new retail, housing and office space along the three-mile-long College Park corridor in 2002, but with only a few developments on the books, city and county officials say the plans could use another look. Chief among the officials' concern is student housing: Despite a 900-bed student housing complex opened in 2005, demand for off-campus housing has proved insatiable.
This year, however, there's a new sense of urgency. A flood of more than 600 students now scrambling for shelter downtown after getting the boot from Resident Life has strained the city's housing stock. That's caused the development plan to come under greater scrutiny from student leaders, who blamed the county for abusing its zoning authority at a Student Government Association rally yesterday.
"Right now we have caught a lot of people's attention about the housing issue," SGA President Emma Simson said in an interview. "It's time to really use this attention to get a lot of changes we need to ensure that there is a large enough supply so that students are able to afford housing."
Since the development plans were announced five years ago, the city has had some help reevaluating the approach to city development. The Environmental Protection Agency commissioned a team of experts to examine the city's development woes, and in January 2006 a report was issued that recommended the city "place more student housing in the corridor."
"Stakeholders were unanimous in their desire to see less student housing in existing neighborhoods," the report said. "Supporting the development of more student housing in the US Route 1 corridor would serve this goal, and several others."
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