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Student housing is one of the most fre
quent bones-of planning and development
contention locally, and an issue that seems
to come up again and again in bizarre ways.
From a fraternity tearing down houses in a
historically black neighborhood to build a
plantation house to comical games of regula
tory Whac-A-Mole with the builders of cheap,
infill student houses in intown neighbor
hoods, local officials seem really at a loss
to anticipate or manage these issues. Most
recently, bulldozers have started rolling and
are in the process of obliterating mdch of the
Cedar Shoals, site of Daniel Easley and John
Milledge's historic meeting that led to the
siting of the University of Georgia and the
beginning of Athens. Oh, well... maybe well
catch the next one?
So, why is student housing such a force?
It isn't really economic development even
though it may create some construction jobs
temporarily. Even when' developers are com
pelled to add retail space to their projects,
more often than not the spaces are simply . -
used for leasing offices or remain vacant for
years. In the case
of buildings like 909^
Broad and 755 Broad
(formerly Georgia
Traditions), the pres
ence of hundreds of
students upstairs or.
down the street hasn't
been the surefire bet
for retail that one
might hope.
Further, the con
struction of new
bedrooms for stu- •
dents doesn't result
in new students. It
simply shifts student
population from one
location to another.
While enrollment at
UGA has increased somewhat in recent years,
it hasn't kept pace with the vast glut of stu-.
dent-oriented housing that has concurrently
emerged. Consider that the university cur
rently has about 34,000 students in Athens.
There's housing for roughly 8,000 on campus,
the majority of those being freshmen who are
required to live on campus (except those liv
ing with their families nearby). Taking into
account the 1,600 or so who live in fraternity
or sorority houses, that leaves about 24,400
students out there in the housing market.
Between projects recently completed, those
under construction and those soon to start,
there are well over 2,000 bedrooms entering
the market, representing an increase in supply
of around 10 percent. Of course, it's not as
if there are thousands of homeless students;
either these developers have made huge mis^
calculations, or students will fill new develop
ments, leaving older ones vacant
So, what happens to the older ones?
Venturing back a few decades into the
archives of The Red & Block, I took a took at
who was marketing apartments to students.
Interestingly, certain student apartment com
plexes have had a great deal of longevity,
especially those in the Riverbend Road area.
Other areas, however, such as on the Eastside
and along Atlanta Highway and Epps Bridge
Road, no Longer primarily serve the student
population. Some have matured to become
stable and diverse working-dass housing, but
some have become run-down or hotspots for
crime over the decades. In a year or so, The
Flats at Easley Mill will warehouse 300 stu
dents. Can we predict which 300 bedrooms will
be vacant because of that? Oo complexes and
apartments designed to serve students have '
the adaptability necessary to be repurposed
into housing for Athens' working class?
In trying to predict how the rental housing
market will evolve over time, it's also worth
considering that the university's decision
effectively to provide subsidized transit to
Riverbend and Milledge Avenue has played a
major role irf the longevity of those areas for
student housing. All students pay a transpor
tation fee, regardless of where they live, and
while ACC buses are available to students,
their service to other parts of the city often
isn't nearly as frequent or direct as UGA's.
On-campus housing routinely has a wait
. list that numbers in the high hundreds, and
sometimes pushes past 1,000, according to
several Red & Black pieces over the years.
Should an antsy UGA Real Estate Foundation
decide it's time to meet that demand, it eas
ily could. Dorm life also seems to build more
demand for itself> with students coming back
year after year in appreciation for the conve
nience, community, and academic experience
that go with it
Another variable to consider is the univer
sity's ability to compel students to live on-
campus should it wish to, and its flexibility in
terms of the types of housing it can provide.
While there aren't any huge projects in the
pipeline, with a captive market UGA could
easily rock the local student housing industry.
The dorm loft and futon industry, comprised of
several small local companies, was decimated
a few years ago when the university finally
decided to indude lofts in its high-rise fresh
man dormitories. While that was a good move
in terms of eliminating the waste of so much
lumber at the end of each semester, it demon
strates the dramatic scope of even a minor
change in housing policy by the university.
UGA fs this community's biggest economic
player, and its students are a major consumer
force whose habits and dedsions have dras
tic impact on the built environment. While
we tend to decry students' impacts on local
neighborhoods, it seems that we don't really
have a good understanding of just how all the
variables interact to produce those situations.
Until we explore the issue more completely,
well likely continue to throw up our hands in
frustration as new student housing pops up,
often in the places we'd least desire it.
Kma Williams attiensrising@fiagpole.com
&
Economic development in action?
FUW5POLE.COM MAY 2,2012
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