Concerns about student renters dominate forums

The abundance of student rental homes in College Park dominated the discussion at recent forums for City Council candidates in Districts 2 and 4 as attendees bemoaned the transformation of their neighborhoods.

As residents complained about late-night parties and overcrowded, poorly maintained properties  at Thursday's District 2 forum in Berwyn and a District 4 forum Sunday in College Park Woods, candidates pledged more student outreach and stricter noise code enforcement.

But many candidates insisted problematic landlords are more of a worry than individual student renters, making it the city's responsibility to minimize the desirability of renting out homes in College Park.

"We don't want to drive all the students out of the neighborhoods, but we do want to change the market to not make it so financially lucrative to have a rental property," unopposed mayoral candidate Andy Fellows said at the Berwyn forum. "It's going to destroy single-family home ownership."

District 2 incumbent Jack Perry, who has lived in College Park for four decades and served on the council for two, said he expected to put up with some noise and partying in his neighborhood on football game days as the penalty for living in a college town when he first moved in "800 years ago." He recalled knowing the families who lived in each house on his street.

But since then, he said, a lack of on-campus housing pushed more students into his community, music players got louder and a drinking age of 21 kept students from legally partying on the campus or at bars.

"It is a changed community: So many houses have turned into rentals, I don't believe the amount of people that drive down or walk down my street. I don't know where they're going, and I don't know who the hell they are," Perry said. "There are so many houses today [in which] I don't have the slightest idea who lives there."

Although most discussion of student rental homes at both forums focused on complaints, some of the candidates also offered proposals to reverse the growing number of off-campus rental homes. 

District 4 candidate Marcus Afzali, a university graduate student, said the city should extend the period in which repeat noise violations lead to higher fines from six months to two years. Last year, District 3 Councilwoman Stephanie Stullich backed off an attempt to increase it to one year after student outcry.

Afzali also said the city should strengthen its rent-control policies, which would both help existing renters and discourage single-family homes from being converted into rentals.

Both incumbents in District 4 — Karen Hampton and Mary Cook — unsuccessfully opposed a rent control measure over the summer.

At Sunday's forum, Hampton proposed making it easier to pull a landlord's license for renting to troublesome students as an alternative to rent control.

Meanwhile, District 2 candidate Bob Weber, a landlord, said the best way to change the makeup of a neighborhood wouldn't be to punish owners who rent out their properties but to provide financial incentives to landlords to sell off their properties to long-term residents.

Many candidates also prioritized increased outreach to students, arguing it could help them better understand city rules and engage them in the community.

Cook said she would seek to expand the city staff to include a "mediator," who would have the role of settling disputes without involving city code enforcement officers and hefty fines.

Jonathan Sachs, the Student Government Association's city council liaison and the only student outside of campus media to attend either forum, said much of the discussion at the District 4 forum took for granted that students are undesirable neighbors — a "completely unfair" generalization.

"I think that the students who make the most noise stick out and become the rule for everyone," Sachs said. "Everyone has good neighbors and bad neighbors, and students are living on their own for the first time, and I think the residents of College Park should give us the benefit of the doubt and help us be good neighbors."

Candidates at the two forums also stressed the issue of public safety. Weber and District 4 candidate Denise Mitchell both recalled living in College Park as children without having to worry about crime, contrasting that with too-frequent burglaries in their neighborhoods today.

Candidates also suggested working with the university to expand the area patrolled by campus police in student-heavy neighborhoods and strengthening volunteer neighborhood watch groups. But unlike in a District 1 forum held earlier this month, no candidate called for adding a police force to the city.

bholt at umdbk dot com