ann arbor is overrated.

We were going to have this op-ed about University Village in the Daily (under our real name!) but never finished revising it before the end of the semester:

It’s the right building, but the wrong place. It’s the right place, but the wrong building. It’s too dense for a single-family neighborhood. It’s too far from campus and will encourage commuting by car.

But then a project like University Village comes along: dense student housing with ground-floor retail and lots of enviromentally friendly features, in a commercial area adjacent to campus. The well-worn anti-density chestnuts that have worked for years suddenly aren’t as effective. And then we see what happens when the NIMBY neighborhood groups and the landlord lobby get a little desperate.

True, there’s still the faux-progressive argument that University Village is “luxury” housing that has no place in an egalitarian, class-free society like Ann Arbor. Or, as the Daily put it in a recent editorial, “Ann Arbor doesn’t need its own Trump Tower.” Even the Daily’s news stories about University Village have promoted this point of view by describing the development as “luxury” and “upscale.” It’s extremely effective against any possible development, because any new housing is going to look like Trump Tower compared to the dilapidated stock that’s available near campus now. At $1000 a month for a bedroom in a four-bedroom apartment, University Village would indeed be expensive, but when a single in the dorms is going for $9770 per two semesters (meal plan included), it’s not as ridiculous as it sounds.

Burns Park resident Andrea Van Houweling picks up the populist banner: “I think we need affordable housing for students, not luxury housing.” That’s great that Ms. Van Houweling is so concerned about students’ access to affordable housing. Perhaps she will reconsider her membership in the North Burns Park Association, a group that just last month supported a zoning change to the neighborhood that would preclude dense development, specifically for the purpose of keeping out student housing. One neighborhood resident told the Planning Commission that the proposal was needed because “the student housing areas were like a war zone with illegal drinking and a wide variety of activities.” Naturally, the zoning change passed.

In the end, neighborhood groups and landlords didn’t even try very hard to couch their opposition to University Village in terms of affordable housing. What it really came down to is: “We like things the way they are, where we don’t have to live near students, but we can exploit them financially.”

And the Planning Commission tabled the project, in effect responding: “You do? Well, then, by gosh, maybe we should keep things the way they are!”

North Burns Park Association chair Kathy Sample complained that the development would bring more traffic to the area, “Not to mention the pizza delivery.” They’re students! They eat pizza! Do we really want to live near these pizza-eaters?

Increased traffic was also the stated reason for resident complaints about a proposed student-targeted development on the west side of town a few months ago. One man was so incensed over the possibility of students moving into his neighborhood that he came to a City Council meeting citing his military experience and threatening “black ops” against the project, although at least he promised not to harm building workers. The project, which had already been approved by the Planning Commission, was rejected by City Council in a 10-1 vote. Plum Market, of course, opened not far from the site of this proposed development with nary a peep from concerned neighbors. Living near there, I’ve noticed a definite increase in traffic since the gourmet supermarket opened its doors.

Landlord William Copi was perhaps the most frank in his opposition to University Village: “[University Village’s residents] will come from rental properties that constitute the neighborhoods stretching down State and Hill and other streets.” It’s as if Whole Foods showed up to protest the opening of Plum Market on the grounds that the new store would create competition and lure their customers away — and city government listened to their complaints.

In my almost seven years in Ann Arbor, it’s been hard to keep track of all the reasons why various forms of new student housing are bad ideas. Allowing single-family houses to be converted into student rentals harms “family” neighborhoods. Student apartment buildings let the university get out of its responsibility to build dorms. The university building a dorm will destroy the historic character of the city because it requires the demolition of a building where some Ann Arborites once went to high school. Sprawled-out developments are bad because they encourage car use, but denser, taller buildings are bad because they might cast unfortunate shadows. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter what reasons the landlords and neighborhood groups give, because city government almost always accedes to their demands (the Frieze building demolition is a notable exception.)

So it’s a refreshing change to hear for once that a development is bad because it will cut into a landlord’s profits and bring too many pizzas into the area.

I may never have been an undergraduate at Michigan, but I’ve rented in Ann Arbor for years as a grad student. The sneers about pizza deliveries and underage drinking are meant to target undergrads only; the falling-down housing and outrageous rents are decidedly not. In my time here, I’ve showered at NCRB because I had no hot water; I’ve had my apartment heated by space heaters that look like they’re from the 80’s because the heat wasn’t working. I’ve listened to years of rhetoric about how renters and students are undesirable neighbors.

And now, strangely enough, I’m about to leave.