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 toâ€Â 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.
You all stated that “UK has only so much student housing, and in the current economic situation, UK cannot build on campus to accommodate more students.” Did you research how other Universities have financed their housing on campus? I believe if you did, you would find out that some have created long term leases to third party developers who build the new housing. This required no money for University to do. So your statement that there can’t be housing on UK campus because UK can’t afford it doesn’t seem true. Please try to do some research on this rather than just making random statements.
Thought I’d help you guys out a little and do some research on your story you should be doing. I googled “private on campus housing” and got several examples of what UK could be doing.
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=24934863
http://www.campushousingsolutions.net/news.aspx/2009/8/20/campus-housing-solutions-awarded-contract-for-mountain-state-university-student-housing-project
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=26491978
The article overlooks the disregard landlords show to students, homeowners in the area, and the city of Lexington. Landlords are the people responsible for the deterioration of the neighborhoods surrounding UK. Landlords who are cited for code violations pay the fine but do not do the repair. The laws need to be changed so that anyone who owns a house that is rented by anyone has to keep that house in good repair. Renting to students is sometimes the complete livelyhood of a landlord. Any money put into repairs cuts into their bottom line.
The University is responsible for providing suitable housing for it’s student. Indicating this is a city shortcoming is not logical. The citizens of Lexington will be here long after the students have gone home and must be frustrated at footing the bill for KY’s shortsightedness! Dr. Todd, it’s time for you to show some leadership!
This problem can/could be avoided by city officials enforcing construction and fire codes, plain and simple in my opinion.
@Mark: The problem with your analysis is that one must have demand for student housing before a third party company will come in and make a large (in this economy) risk to build residential complexes. The only way there would be demand for such housing is if students are displaced from current residences.
@Jean: This is still a problem with the city. The city needs to crackdown more on violations, but doing this now is very conspicuous and to me seems like the powers that be are just throwing out new reasons why students are the problem. We need to look for a solution, not have the city/university push predetermined policy.