From today’s Chronicle, in reference to last week’s 37th street lights / student housing complaint:
More Apartments Near UT
Dear Editor,
Mary-Gay Maxwell’s complaints about houses rented out to too many students strike home for a lot of us [“Are Partiers Dimming the 37th Street Lights?, Â ” News, Dec. 30]. I live in her neighborhood, next to a duplex full of undergrads who are occasionally a problem despite a landlord who’s more responsible than most.
But let’s be clear: Most college kids don’t particularly want to live in a house. It’s more work than an apartment, you don’t get a pool or an entertainment room, you have more worries about parking and roommates, etc.
So why are so many UT students living in rental houses, compared to cities with other large colleges (such as Penn State)? Well, for one, UT doesn’t have many dorms. Not much we can do about that out here in the community. But there’s another contributing factor here: This area doesn’t have anywhere near enough near-campus apartments to satisfy demand. Some students would doubtlessly still live in rental houses, but a large majority would switch back to apartments, as they do at other big universities. It’s ludicrous that there’s so much low-density development (single-story even) along Guadalupe close to campus.
Living off Far West or Riverside (in low-density apartment sprawl) is a poor substitute to being able to walk (or ride your bike) to class – a slow, stuck-in-traffic shuttle bus isn’t going to win the battle against close-in rental houses. So it’s clear we need more near-campus high-density apartment development – and the recent rezoning of West Campus is a good start, but not nearly enough. The problem today, though, is that we’re still dealing with the effects of the last 20-30 years of ill-advised obstruction tactics by near-campus neighborhoods to any and all apartment development. Villas on Guadalupe, anyone?
Unfortunately, this lack of near-campus high-density apartment housing was, in fact, created by neighbors like Maxwell through their irresponsible opposition to essential projects like the Villas. Too bad that people like me (living a few blocks from those 37th lights) have to suffer the consequences with her.
Mike Dahmus
