Land is still available for intensive redevelopment in the Route 1 corridor near the University in the Northgate area that can result in perhaps another 1,500-2,000 student beds. In addition, the redevelopment contemplated for the majority of the Route 1 corridor is groundfloor retail, with 2 or three floors of apartments above. This development could eventually add hundreds of apartments, though these units would likely house all types of renters and not students, exclusively.

The rent control cap is really the threshold level at which rent increases are regulated by the City. The one percent threshold applies to Maryland’s assessment of the property’s value for tax purposes. This value is reassessed every three years. The numbers we are using now were established in late 2003. These values are generally in the $150,000-$250,000 range. Today the range would probably be $275,000-$475,000. Increases are phased in over a three-year period. We will know in January when the new assessments are posted.

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As for rent control, I would be interested to learn its associated benefits and problems. Considering many single family homes in college park are between $350,000 and $500,000 in value, wouldn’t the 1% cap rarely apply? What do students pay, on average, for a room in a single family home in the different neighborhoods of the city?

I would also like to learn more about the arguments for and against the historic district. I am generally in favor of the idea of protecting the charm of the town’s historic homes, and think there are better areas to redevelop, lest we turn college park into a soulless suburb.

My question is: where would the city council like to have students live besides a redeveloped knox-box area and the two projects that have been approved? I agree that we should not incentivize student-housing projects far away from the city when those students could walk or bike to class otherwise, but why are most of the new development projects within walking distance of the campus not made available to students such as Mosaic at Turtle Creek, East-Campus, City Hall?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

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The most logical place for students and non students to mix would be in small apartment units. The kind no one is building currently, even though it was the backbone of the new housing that was supposed to come to the Route 1 corridor under the 2002 Sector Plan.

We want a mix of housing types in all areas, though, which is why we can support things like a Northgate condominium next to a University View.

No one wants to call the police constantly about problem neighbors. People simply move away. One of my constituents, a homeowner, called me repeatedly,often after midnight, about his problem neighbors, who appeared to be students. Some of his calls led me to respond and see the problem firsthand. My advice to him was to move, because the problems came from so many nearby sources. Some people are very tolerant of their neighbors, while some people have children or jobs to go to at 6 am and can’t afford to be so accomodating. Up until this year the police could not be counted on to respond at all to such problems.

Rent stabilization is an issue that I agree with you on generally. College Park’s version “Rent stabilization lite” addresses the myriad of issues that typically are associated with such programs and so is a reasonable short run policy. Our landlords oppose everthing that doesn’t make money for them – look at their steadfast opposition to tenant fire safety.

Owner occupany requirements are the hallmark of well maintained desirable condominium projects. A lot of condo owners oppose renters for neighbors even if the renters are 30, 40 or 50 years old.

Obviously developers and lenders don’t like such restrictions – they just want the units sold as fast as possible so that they can get their money out.
But if you ask them for modest restrictions it turns out that such requests can be accomodated.

Housing located far from campus has negatives beyond traffic, because it represents a missed opportunity to develop College Park into a “college town” What does a project even like the nearby Courtyards do to enhance College Park as a college town? Practically nothing. While their always will be missed opportunties, we should not encourage or even incentivize them to occur.

With respect to Mr. Goodspeed’s comment on the Old Town historic district, the existing zoning there doesn’t permit much more density than already exists. I don’t see the County revisting the College Park area with an updated Master Plan review any time in the next 6-8 years. Even then I can’t see the County proposing any changes to that neighborhood in terms of adding density. I suspect that they may pick battles that involve increasing the density near Metro stations and leave other areas alone.

Mr. Blitzstein wants the City Hall project to be student housing. I suspect that as student housing the project would not be as pfofitable as we are aiming for and need to make the redevelopment viable. If non students don’t demonstrate they want to live their they won’t sign contracts to buy such units and the project will not be built.

A better mix of housing is necessary to attract a better variety of retail to the area. Given that in the last six years over 2,000 beds have been built at South Campus Commons and the redevelopment of the Knox Boxes could yield over 1,000 additional student beds, it doesn’t seem to me that a non student targeted project is at all out of place.

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And you are right Mr. Carroll, the city council will freely admit that they don’t want students, at least not so many, living in residential neighborhoods. But the simple fact of the matter is that students have no other place to live. And, in addition, not all students want to be housed by the masses in high rise apartments. Some prefer to rent single family houses.

While these students may have little understanding of the concerns of College Park homeowners and permanent residents, such as mortgages, they in turn feel you have little understanding of the fact that this is a college town and there just happens to be a large university here that thousands of young people attend. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but as student liaison to the city council I am frequently asked the question, “Don’t they know it’s a college town?”

And Bob, I cannot help but think of the point that I brought up at the city council meeting the other night. Why, for example, is the City Hall site you hope to redevelop as housing not within your desired school impact fee waiver zone? Just because it is in your plans to redevelop as nice condos doesn’t mean that is set in stone or that is in the best interests of the city.

I believe student housing, or non-discriminatory housing, on that site would fit all your criteria for desired student housing: “to put students within walking/biking proximity to campus, have housing convenient to mass transportation, and have the housing in an area where retail is a permitted use, too.” Plus, please tell me what sane “adult” would want to live in a condo across the street from Cornerstone.

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The City Council has been a strong proponent of progressive land use policy (Route 1 Sector Plan and an eventual form-based code) and I’ve supported their efforts all along the way (and wrote about them often). Indeed, we wouldn’t even be rethinking College Park without mix-use zoning on Route 1. However, I firmly believe that their attempts to sort out the city’s population are misguided and damaging to the city. They, nor any planner, nor any person can really know who will live where. While I was forced to gloss over the details of the city’s policies in the original column, the simple fact still remains that the housing market has become dangerously distorted and everyone is paying the price in the form of higher rents.

Never did I once say the City Council actively opposed any student housing complex. They are simply restricting and complicating the market. The central premise of my column was that we need to abandon the idea that private industry must provide student housing OR “real people” housing. There is no need to divide the city into turfs and Parkside, an apartment tower where anyone can live, is proof that projects like these are successful. Now of course new developments are going to differentiate themselves on luxury levels and price, but the presence or absence of students shouldn’t be a government mandated amenity. If a student rental unit is being too noisy or is overflowing with underage drinkers then call the police – that’s what they are for.

The following is a defense of my three points:

1)Rent stabilization is misguided in any circumstances no matter who advocates for it. It is only detrimental in cases where it’s binding and there seems little reason for a government to enact such an ordinance if it is not in some way binding. High rents encourage more housing. Zoning, historic districts, and painstakingly detailed planning requirements discourage more housing or actually make it impossible to build. We’ll see the full effect Rent Stabilization down the line, but the text of the ordinance, the exclusion of apartment buildings from rent control, and the enormous amount of opposition from landlords should be indication enough that rent stabilization is a mistake for College Park.
2)Owner occupancy requirements are not in any way defensible. In a college town they have the explicit purpose of excluding student renters. These policies hurt a developer’s financing capabilities (indeed I’ve spoken with CP developers who have told me just that). If the city is so sure students won’t pay for high rents at these complexes then why does it go out of its way to encourage these provisions? Where would we be today if the Knox Boxes and the Towers had requirements like this? How big does the student waitlist have to be for policy makers to understand the severe lack of housing in College Park?
3)The student housing impact fee, like all impact fees, is designed to make developers pay (and pass along to buyers and renters) the negative community impacts of a project. The only impact of a project built far away from the school is increased traffic, yet we should remember that the traffic is actually the same or in many cases less than it was before the project was built – the school still has the same number of students. The city council should focus on (indeed it has to some extent) reducing parking requirements and giving large incentives for public transit. They should not be hitting developers with more fees and pushing them towards building on the most expensive land…

As for PG County, I think they are missing a real opportunity in College Park. What during the day is the third or fourth largest City in Maryland becomes comparable, at night, to a tiny suburb with two lively strip malls – the only difference is that it contains a world class university.

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