Students are finally being exposed to some of the city’s legitimate arguments against their habitation of residential areas around Lexington, at least that’s what they want you to think.

According to a Monday Kernel article, Lexington Fire Marshal James Branham said in a random inspection of about 14 houses in residential neighborhoods around campus, 12 houses had violations and seven houses had “serious” violations.

Additionally, the fire department will be looking for zoning code violations where overcrowding is an issue.

Students need affordable housing. In a lot of cases, that affordable housing is the housing that is the least maintained, unkempt residential property. This is a problem that has and will continue to exist as long as the post-secondary education system does.

Yet, the timing of these investigations is curious to say the least.

If the problem all along was the condition of the housing, why did the city not just come out and say, “We are looking out for students and their living conditions.” And why is it just now becoming a problem?

When proprietors built and remodeled, or the city re-zoned its property, the city knew exactly what was going on, or at least it should have.

They distribute the permits and licenses necessary for contractors to perform their jobs; so how did this get by them? It’s not not like all of these houses and apartments just popped up yesterday—this is something that is far from a new issue.

Student Government President Ryan Smith said the university is involved with the housing proposal and the recent fire safety inspections to some degree, but its involvement “boils down to” interpretations of whether or not the public feels UK is responsible for the supervision of students off campus.

One question that has arisen over the course of the debate is UK’s involvement in the process. UK has only so much student housing, and in the current economic situation, UK cannot build on campus to accommodate more students. But that is as far as UK’s involvement is mandated. This is an issue for the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.

Now that the smokescreen is starting to clear, the housing issue is starting to look less like irrresponsibility by students, and more like irresponsibility by the city. Sure, students need to do a better job cleaning up and keeping late-night noise down, and the permanent residents that make up the city deserve to be respected, but that isn’t the main problem.

Students have been scapegoated as rowdy, uncontrolled children, which to some extent is true. However, the negligence of the LFUCG has allowed housing to deteriorate to the point where it is illegal to house students in these homes as it currently stands.

Not only must honesty prevail, but LFUCG must be held accountable for its missteps to prevent taking the situation to the slums.