As Tuition Rises, Student Housing Conditions Decline

In the last 25 years, college tuition has increased dramatically, and an expense that previously could be inherited by the students has now become lifelong debt reaching into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. While upper-level education is arguably improving and attracting just as many top professionals, student housing has undoubtedly fallen by the waste side.

 As more equity than ever is flowing in an around College campuses, college town landlords have held on as a monopoly of increasing property values. At the same time, landlords are able to scrape away increasingly lucrative margins amongst a steady and increasing supply of college students without making improvements to their property or efficiency of business.

Year after year, while college students flood into the areas surrounding their prospective campuses, landlords hold the inelastic cards of raising rents and reducing operating costs without consequences. While surrounding college town properties are usually not owned by one entity, usually 2-3, this demand shift and market failure is without a doubt monopolies in action.   

Despite the massive housing bubble in 2008, college enrollment has increased sharply leading to shortages of housing and the evolution of these impenetrable college town sub-markets (2). At the same time, massive student loans and the financing hurdles that go into paying colleges has become a scapegoat for the lowering standards and media attention.

Unfortunately, the shortage of student housing in and around college campuses leads to an exponentially less competitive market than in most cities and towns. Housing is so desperately sought after by college students that landlords are able to get away with knocking down the overall living conditions and standards of their buildings leaving mold invested drywall and dysfunctional appliances for future tenants (3).

Additionally, owners not responding to maintenance calls, using cheaper materials or shortcuts for repairs, accepting unsafe electrical wiring methods, lending excessive liability to tenants in leases for common areas or utilities, and removing unexplained chargers from security deposits have become the norm (1)(2). Cutting corners and deceiving students has become the unenforced status quo of management.

More commonly, this has lead landlords to disregard the most basic government multi-family housing laws altogether. College town land lords in some cases may not return security deposits within 3 weeks, do not provide consistent heating, leave hazardous materials untreated, or ignore local rent controls laws, all which of which are blatantly illegal (1).

Furthermore, larger national student-housing companies like American Campus Communities or Peak Campus Companies have standardized higher rental rates with grossly unfavorable lease terms for students (2). This in turn forces students to either pay the higher than market rate premiums for the corporate housing suppliers or accept the illegal management practices and living conditions which is a mainstay with nearby slum lords.

Unfortunately, students usually do not have the voice or leverage to negotiate these rents and living conditions. College towns can truly be a “fixed market” in this sense. That being said, colleges that provide more student-housing or resources for students to negotiate reasonable terms, could put local landlords on their toes.

Additionally, students simply asking basic questions about lease terms or suspicious building characteristics of apartments or reading online reviews could avoid future nightmares (3). College town land lords will only provide more affordable rates and address their code violations with the civic engagement of students and colleges alike.

At the end of the day, students accepting slum-like to even hazardous living conditions while paying higher rates is unacceptable, especially considering the increasing financial burden of college tuition. College students in the US should be treated fairly, and deserve reasonably priced clean and safe housing.

Work Cited

1. “Real Estate Law (Multi-family).” California Bureau of Real Estate. January 15 2013. Print. 

2. “Landlords, How to Make a Buck in College Towns.” MSN Real Estate. Web. <realestate.msn.com>

3. “Exposing College Slumlords in Your Area.” Poynter. 4 March 2011. Web. <www.poynter.com>

           USC Department of Public Safety “Gestapo”

            If you find yourself on or around the USC campus you might wonder why the numerous segways, patrol suvs, and armed personnel are there. Well, they are referred to as DPS at the University of Southern California. They are not in any way affiliated with government law enforcement, but are there to protect students, staff, and structures from the crime and vandalism rampantly manifested in the surrounding neighborhoods. That being said, the student-officer interaction is not always friendly to the say the least.

            Near Tommy Trojan, in the center of campus, DPS officers are commonly seen yelling at bikers in pedestrian zones, erecting barricades, or posting restrictive signs. Many are seen in three wheeled tank-like segways zooming through walkways or gunning it around surface streets with their heavily equipped ford explorers as if trouble is always afoot. Most officers will be seen with side arms, the almost identical brown and black uniforms worn by LAPD or LA County Sheriffs, and a healthy slice of attitude. They are the constant “police presence” that are not actual police.

            Many including myself question their excessive numbers or raunchy behavior. Unfortunately, many DPS officers tend to embody a sense of entitlement common to that of a minority of law enforcement officers across the US. Yes, the guy with a beer belly that asks why he pulled you over. And yes, I have seen numerous DPS officers that are well over 300 pounds, questioning if they are really there to confront criminals. Many students I have come across complain that while DPS stringently enforces their restrictions, requests to investigate lost bikes, burglaries, or domestic disturbances can be answered with “your on your own.” I have been met with that response over the phone more than once. One DPS officer even had the audacity to ask me to keep moving on a city-owned sidewalk.

Unfortunately, as long as the big guns, shiny badges, $6,000 segways, and siren equipped suvs are handed out in droves, the DPS “Gestapo” is unlikely to part ways with it’s antics. While this behavior towards criminals may be acceptable, continually alienating USC students without ill will to do actual harm makes no sense. The DPS should exist to prevent actual crimes and investigate criminal behavior, policing cyclists or enforcing superficial restrictions is a waste of University funds and does not contribute to increased public safety. 

           

Traffic Congestion with the USC Village Project

            While the “University Village” project has received overwhelming support by the LA City Council and local residents, I see massive increases in traffic and almost non-existent supplies of additional parking as a serious issue [2]. The plan is to demolish the Cardinal Gardens and Century Apartments (a total of 1,115 units), and replace it with a much more efficient use of space providing housing for up to 5,200 students and 250 faculty/student family apartments in a variety of housing types including studios to four bedroom units, along with 350,000 sq ft of retail [1]. While the development claims shopping and enjoyment for local residents as well, the design seems to leave almost no room for customer traffic flow or parking.

             Developers and USC officials claim the project will create 12,000 new jobs with 8,000 of those being permanent which will add further to the issue of congestion [1]. Not to mention, the lower part of Hoover Street will be removed,  Jefferson Blvd is being reduced to 2 lanes, and USC may be removing 1-2 parking garages on the North side of campus fairly soon for aesthetic reasons [1]. With this layout, thousands of student-residents and employees will being exhausting any residual parking, leaving stand still type traffic on Vermont, Jefferson, and Figueroa with little to no parking availability for local consumers.

            Essentially, the current design of the University Village only leaves room for pedestrian access. Which defeats the purpose of the “local residents” affairs. Not to mention, street parking in local neighborhoods will be further invaded by student and customers then they already are, and traffic will be very slow for bus travel. While local residents living within a ¾-1 mile vicinity may be able to walk, it will be too far for the majority. While the development will enhance the economic activity of the area and provide much needed vendors, access for non-residents will prove difficult without the addition of multiple parking garages/lots. Not to mention, local residents and commuters will face large amounts of traffic congestion even when they are not trying to visit the USC Village.

Work Cited

[1] USC Village. University of Southern California. 12 October 2013. Web. <village.usc.edu>

[2] “$1 Billion Village at USC approved by LA City Council.” Los Angeles Times. 10 October 2012. 12 October 2013. Web. <www.latimes.com>

"Bulldozer Town" Southern California 

                         If you were to ask someone what architecture, planning, form of buildings, or local ordinances their community may have, he or she might not have a straight answer for you. Many might say it is a conglomerate of different architectures, preferences, styles, and series of laws and that is what makes their region so unique. What a ridiculous answer that would be, as it is far to often SoCal residents spew something to that effect. The vast majority of people, whether they like it or not, have an architecture, style, density, layout, and an ideology of development that they envision their city is or will be in the near future. That is most likely why they chose to live there in the first place. These virtues of planning and development come from their personal insights, tastes, and upbringings. This type of behavior has arguably been in our nature since severing ties with the British in 1776 and the creation of state governments [1]. Unfortunately, civic engagement in local government is far weaker in many cities than it should be as citizens either feel their voice is already being heard, or do not make the effort to pick up a phone or go to a public hearing.

            The roots of the American town hall meeting should be more cherished and seen as the exemplar of a direct democracy. If we do not engage our local experts and local officials, they will most definitely not engage us [1]. Being raised in the Santa Monica Mountains, the rustic hill country architecture where exposed wood beams, plaster, organic features, and scrub brush landscapes are the norm, and shops are of a smaller and locally owned nature. Driving amongst the mountains, one can witness the uniqueness of the homes and people, but the homogeneity of their commitment amongst them. As someone who has worked in property management and brokerage, I have found that the style and culture of local areas, through our built environment, can become very personal and deeply emotional to how individuals envision their community. For this reason, local public hearings for even the smallest changes or redevelopments can face harsh uproar. While my community is unincorporated, it has always been able to keep a close leash on LA Country supervisors and certainly did not sit by the waist side and let outsiders tarnish that legacy.     

            As many less dense communities in Southern California like Simi Valley, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, or Santa Clarita see influxes in their populace as the development cycle continues, residents can feel helpless as their slice of heaven becomes bulldozer town for strip malls and track homes, degrading the personality their communities once had. While developers usually focus on large undeveloped parcels of land amongst the city, residents commonly garner these parcels for social gatherings, outdoor recreation, or open space [2]. For many, this process can happen in the blink of an eye, the story polls go up to display the width and height of the building, brochures are distributed about the “grandeur” of the new structure, and before you know it construction begins.

                    In Santa Clarita, the Newhall Ranch development which is underway will include 20,885 homes, a 1,000+ acre commercial district, a water reclamation plant, seven public schools, three fire stations, and two regional parks along the Santa Clara river [3]. Of course, this is land that the community has always cherished for outdoor recreation, and this mountainside along the Santa Clara River has represented an iconic backdrop for the city [4]. Not to mention, no matter how much in assessments developers are willing to pay, the mass addition of residents will put a new strain on city services and inevitably increase street congestion. A development like this alone will change the nature of a city, losing its more rural nature of the past to a more master planned community with 4-6 lane central roads, corporate vendors, office space, and never ending construction. While residents and local environmental groups have shown opposition, stages of the Newhall Ranch surveying and construction are steadily progressing.  

            A more extreme example where residents didn’t really take a stand was shown by Malibu’s “Legacy Park.” In 2006, the City of Malibu purchased an 11acre raw piece of land adjacent to the city’s center for $25 million. After spending an additional $6 million creating man-made hills, planting native brush, and installing a complex underground water reclamation system the City was forced to take extreme actions to address it’s debt. While residents where furious with the unusable, heavy brush-filled park, to make matter worse, the city felt it had to allow redevelopment of the nearby “Malibu Lumber Yard” (a locally owned lumber yard and hardware store set on 2 acres of city-owned land) [5]. Meanwhile, city council members were touting the completion of “Legacy Park” as one of the cities greatest accomplishments and an example for statewide conservation efforts.

Soon after, the historical hardware store was torn down and is now a giant cement cube home to high-end clothing shops like James Perse, Kitson, and Tory Burch [6]. Residents have squawked that while there is nowhere to purchase a hammer now, $100 t-shirts are easy to find [5]. In a city where approvals to development and permitting is usually a grueling 3-5 year process, within months the City of Malibu approved the demolition of the hardware store, and signed off on one of the most unpopular developments in the city’s history. Furthermore, the high-end development led to a domino effect in central Malibu, evolving into a tourist hot-spot with similar high-end shops and eateries useless to residents. While many are frustrated, no one is necessarily in a position to throw commercial leases out or tear the buildings down at this point.

                     The residents of Malibu could learn many inherent benefits of the greater citizen participation seen in the City of Pasadena. Citizens of Pasadena have always been proactive, and it shows in city council members that more closely represent a “protective” force than anything else. One of the city’s more significant hurdles is seen in it’s central “historical district”, in which shops and buildings within this zone are protected from architectural or structural alterations [7]. Talking with many Pasadena residents over the years, citizens take their community personally and have shown no bounds in preventing unfavorable development from bringing hundreds to public hearings to establishing heavily funded coalitions overnight.

            Amongst the city, shops and businesses are usually low-rise and tasteful, parking lots are limited, streets and sidewalks are clean and well maintained, and residential areas can be seen meticulously tree-lined with a collection of craftsman and Victorian style homes, many of which are historically protected properties under a fund supported by the city itself [8]. It was no surprise that this community was able to halt Caltrans’s 710 freeway originally planned to run through the center of Pasadena. Currently, construction of the freeway has been abandoned in the Pasadena area. At one point, city council members were able to convince Caltrans of considering putting the freeway underground, which would have cost 3-4 times a much. Eventually, the freeway run from Long Beach to just north of the I-10 in San Bernardino totaling 23 miles, leaving a gap remaining from Alhambra to Pasadena [8]. That being said, the City of Pasadena united on all fronts was able to hold off State and Federal officials from freeway construction, an impressive accomplishment considering no other freeway in Southern California has been left with such an unusually large gap.

            It is examples like these that show the authority local governments with civic engagement can have. This relationship and participation is the backbone of a grassroots democracy. However, what communities need to understand is that people in the policy and development worlds all have jobs. Developers want to approve entitlements and max-out a property’s equity, brokers want as much square footage to take commissions from their leases, and city council members can become hypnotized by their power to increase tax revenues or add to skylines. While that is not always inherently a bad thing, outside interests can be ignorant of communities long held values, cultures, or conservation efforts. Unfortunately, citizens tend to be the “invisible majority” in this sense and developments can slip through the cracks of their attention spans. What can even be more concerning are those who don’t know they can speak at their city halls or when or where meetings take place. This is especially important in regions of Los Angeles where cities are seeing increasing populations and skyrocketing property values through greater density. Residents need to be far more proactive in this sense by reading public notices, keeping up with city council meeting schedules, diplomatically protesting when poor decisions are made, and establishing community leaders. Whether residents want to believe it or not, the path of their city can be at their discretion.    

              

Work Cited

[1] L. Cooper, Terry “Citizen-Centered Collaborative Public Management.” University of Southern California. December 2006. 29 September 2013. Print. <Jstor.org>

[2] “Fiscal Sustainability and Local Governments in Southern California.” Malakoff, Laura. National League of Cities. 4 June 2012. 29 September 2013.

[3] City of Santa Clarita CAFR. 30 September 2013. Web. <www.santaclara.gov>

[4] “Newhall Ranch.” Newhall Ranch.Net. 30 September 2013. Web. <newhallranch.net>

[5] “Construction Begins on Malibu Legacy Park.” LA Times. 22 September 2009. 30 September 2013. Web. <latimes.com>

[6] “Malibu Lumber Yard.” Landscape Architecture Foundation. Lafoundation.org. 5 January 2011. 16 January 2013. Web. <www.lafoundation.org>

[7] “Design and Historic Preservation.” The City of Pasadena. 2 October 2013. Web. <www.ci.pasadena.ca>

[8] “Pasadena Residents Express Strong Opposition to 710 Plan.” San Gabriel Valley Tribune. 7 August 2012. 2 October 2013. Web. <www.sgvtribune.com>