Taking Back Their Neighborhoods
Judy McGovern sees the new dorm as an opportunity to “reclaim” neighborhoods for “year-round residents.” In her dream scenario, the U of M would provide the funding to buy up houses and get them out of the hands of its students. Then the neighborhoods would be rezoned to keep them permanently student-free. We can’t wait until she tries to suggest this plan, under which the university would be paying to negate the easing of the student housing crunch caused by the dorms it’s also paying for, to Mary Sue Coleman.
Taking that many students off the market would help the costs, a bit but there is another dynamic at work. Housing prices are high here because people will pay that. Why sell a house to someone for less when you can get someone else to pay more for it?
Not to mention, no matter how much they try there is always going to be a group of students that want to live in an apartment rather than the dorms.
posted by Kozzie on November 14th, 2004 at 11:56 amI think this is a pretty rotten idea. I mean, I’m all for taking pressure off of the housing market, but talking about *regulating* students out of the neighborhood is unfortunate. This is just reinforcing the students-as-second-class-citizens view.
posted by Murph on November 14th, 2004 at 7:00 pmGiven that UofM is Ann Arbor’s biggest landlord, removing more student housing from the surrounding neighborhoods allows UofM to charge more for its housing.
posted by Chuck on November 14th, 2004 at 8:36 pmJudy McGovern can’t write worth a shit.
posted by yd on November 15th, 2004 at 9:23 amJudy McGovern can’t write worth a shit.
posted by yd on November 15th, 2004 at 9:23 amCertainly McGovern is right in implicitly arguing that the invisible hand of the housing market has failed miserably in Ann Arbor. The idea that a realignment of student housing presents an opportunity for action on controlling the market isn’t too nutty, either.
However, that she calls upon the university to solve “community” problems is ridiculous. While many universities as well as the hospitals she discusses offer home-financing programs to help attract and keep faculty, it is generally done from a self-interested standpoint. It’s not the university’s job to make up for decades of community failure to maintain neighborhoods and keep housing affordable.
Why is the detached single family residence the holy grail of community even here in supposedly cosmopolitan Ann Arbor?
posted by Dale on November 15th, 2004 at 9:54 amThe more student housing they take away near campus, the more students have to live in housing far from central. This means more students need cars to get to their classes, which means that the parking situation, believe it or not, gets worse.
Hooray! Everybody loses!
(I’m trying to find a house for next year with some friends, and it’s NOT going well. So excuse my dire pessimism.)
posted by art student on November 15th, 2004 at 2:41 pmOr, students living far from campus could ride the free AATA bus, of course. (Yes, still sucks, but a more viable option than driving, even for the sake of one’s own sanity/wallet… I did that in my one year at a McKinley complex at Stadium & Pauline and it wasn’t even free back then).
posted by Brandon on November 15th, 2004 at 3:38 pmIt’s a nice thought, but the bus is a bit impractical when you have a huge portfolio or unwieldy foamcore model to drag up to north campus every day
posted by art student on November 15th, 2004 at 4:07 pmThe AATA bus, I mean… the University buses are awful too, but at least there’s generally more aisle room.
posted by art student on November 15th, 2004 at 4:08 pmMary Sue ranks #3: check it out! Go Blue!
http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/11/15/college.presidents.glance.ap/index.html
posted by Anonymous on November 15th, 2004 at 4:17 pmMan, I definitely prefer the AATA bus to the UM buses… those are so crowded. I end up standing most of the time. I get a nice comfy seat on Route 3 up to North Campus every day, in contrast.
posted by Brandon on November 15th, 2004 at 4:43 pmArt Student,
There’s a very nice house on my block that’s for rent. If you promise to be a conscientious neighbor I’ll email you the phone number
Walking distance from campus even. I have no idea what the rent is.
posted by Alex(andra) on November 15th, 2004 at 5:34 pmI’m sorry — is there an economist in the house? Can someone explain to me how $300,000 houses will halve in value when the U builds a new dorm to hold a few hundred folks?
And how exactly do you redline (sorry, “zone”) a neighborhood to be “student-free?” I was under the impression the 14th Amendment applied in Ann Arbor and that housing covenants were somewhat out of date.
Judy McGovern not only can’t write, she can’t think. This is the most illogical drek I’ve read outside the Daily.
posted by Dan on November 16th, 2004 at 12:56 pmDan, many other college towns have adopted zoning that reduces the number of unrelated persons who can inhabit a single family residence home. Once it’s so labeled (and enforced), students are unable to afford the rent (being able only to have 2 or 4 in any given SFR) and the property no longer makes sense as a rental. Thus, students are de facto zoned out.
“11% vacancy” was thrown around at last night’s Downtown Residential Task Force meeting several times as an argument against increasing residential opportunities downtown. Anyone have source for this?
posted by Dale on November 16th, 2004 at 2:27 pmI’d be interested to see some vacancy stats too. I can’t tell if the rental market is softening this year - it seems like there are more vacancies than usual, but I keep getting people showing up on my doorstep who want to rent my house.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 16th, 2004 at 4:36 pmThat’s because they all know what a peach you are to live with, AAIO.
posted by js on November 17th, 2004 at 11:20 amMy one thought on this is that AA in general suffers from a SEVERE undersupply of housing. Not really hard to figure out why housing prices are so high when the past several years of growth (both the U-M and people like Pfizer) have created a rising-demand/static-supply situation.
posted by Nick on November 17th, 2004 at 9:18 pm