Diamondback Online - The University of Maryland's Independent Daily Student Newspaper

The landlords of the university's only graduate housing, student leaders and university officials all met for the first time last week, a meeting that may be the first step for graduate students to improve their housing conditions.

Southern Management Company met with Graduate Student Government President Laura Moore and several university officials to discuss possible solutions to numerous graduate student complaints regarding Graduate Hills and Graduate Gardens, the university's graduate housing complex.

College Park's housing shortage has hit graduate students particularly hard and unpredictable rate increases leave Southern Management's residents struggling to afford their rent. The meeting may affect mid-lease rent increases, clarify the graduate housing complex's lease and evict several alumni who still reside in the student housing.

"With all these public-private partnerships being signed, people need to know that there are big pitfalls," Moore said. "Essentially you're putting someone in charge of student housing whose first priority is not students, it's making profit ... These partnerships need to be done very differently from this one."

Pamela Martin, Southern Management's director of community relations, said the company has not committed to anything yet and will have a more definite plan after further consideration.

"There haven't been any decisions made at this point," she said. "We're not sure what direction we're going, but we'll have more decided in the next few weeks. It's all being talked about or being reviewed as of now."

Currently, rent increases at Graduate Hills and Gardens occur simultaneously for all residents. Moore proposed they take effect on an individual basis, depending on the resident's particular leasing status.

"After the resident's 12-month lease is up, it switches to month-to-month. People can live out their 12 months and then their rent increase could happen," Moore said, although acknowledging Southern Management was not receptive to her idea. "That's a tough one to change, because that decision isn't being made at Grad Hills and Gardens, it's being made at SMC corporate."

Jan Davidson, the university's associate director of Resident Life, attended the meeting as a "liaison" between the company and the university. He said the university could alleviate these problems by raising graduate student stipends to match the rent increases.

"I talked about the stipend raise as an example of what universities do," Davidson said. "It's kind of a matter of rent control. The notion would be to ensure there are stable, predictable rents."

Following disclosure that alumni have been living in the student-only housing despite the complex's lease agreement specifically prohibiting students from remaining as residents 45 days after they graduate, Moore called for Southern Management to enforce its own lease agreement.

The Resident Lease states that 45 days after the resident graduates, he or she "will immediately provide notice" and "will quit and vacate said premises." Despite this, the website does not indicate the resident must leave the complex within 45 days, but that after such time the "rent will be adjusted to the Non-Graduate rental rates."

At the meeting, Southern Management said the lease could be clarified to better explain their treatment of alumni residents, Moore said.

"What's muddying the waters is the misinformation that SMC is giving to residents not in a written form," Moore said.

Contact reporter Lindsay Kalter at newsdesk@dbk.umd.edu.

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