Monday, February 8, 2010
Students living in large multi-person houses in the Oread Neighborhood might be facing stricter regulations in the near future.
Potential regulations range from parking spaces and the number of residents allowed in these types of houses to tenant behavior and building expansion.
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New regulations for Lawrence boarding houses considered
City commissioners met Tuesday to discuss new regulations involving converting large, old homes in the Oread section of Lawrence into boarding houses occupied by five or more people.
Houses that house more than 10 college students can have negative effects on neighborhoods. Parking congestion and parties are a few of the issues that have drawn criticism.
Currently boarding houses, which the city officially calls congregated living spaces, are permitted for dwellings with up to 12 sleeping rooms and 24 occupants if parking and other standards are upheld. Current parking regulations call for 1.5 spaces per two lawful occupants. This means eight occupants would require six parking spaces.
The plan proposed at Tuesday’s City Commission meeting was to have no limit to the number of bedrooms or occupants and a requirement of one parking space per resident for new boarding houses. For existing boarding houses, the plan would require four parking spaces for six bedrooms and an additional half a space for houses with more than six bedrooms. There were also recommendations on limiting the size of expansion.
Although the commissioners discussed the plan, they voted to return the proposal to the planning committee. Part of the city’s decision to return the proposal to the planning commission was to give students the opportunity to voice their opinions. The commissioners recognized that boarding houses, especially in the Oread Neighborhood, are more practical for students because they are close to campus and allows students to share rent and other expenses with multiple roommates. The area known as the Oread Neighborhood, primarily located on Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky streets between 11th and 17th streets, is the main focus of the discussion around boarding houses.
But the planning commission is having difficulty proposing a plan that would be acceptable to neighbors, students, landlords and the community as a whole. The proposed plan was more beneficial for students, but some Oread neighbors felt their interests were not protected. Because of this difficulty the plan will likely be reworked to include regulations that are harsher for students. The committee originally initiated a text amendment that would change the regulations of boarding houses in May 2009 and have had subsequent meetings in August, October and December with little success in finding a proposal that accommodates all.
Members of the Oread Neighborhood Association and a few property owners that live in the predominately student-populated area expressed their concerns with parking, excessive partying and other behavioral issues associated with the growing number of boarding houses at last Tuesday’s meeting.
While the discussion around the future of boarding houses affects students just as much as neighbors, only one student was present at the meeting.
Elise Higgins, a senior from Topeka and community affairs director for Student Senate, is responsible for representing the interest of Student Senate to the city and making sure student voices are heard when decisions are made that affect students. The reasons she attended the meeting last Tuesday were to address the lack of student input in the process and the negative generalizations being made by members of the Oread Neighborhood Association.
“It’s important students are involved in the process when it affects where they live,” Higgins said. “I objected to the way students were being characterized as alcoholics and irresponsible undergraduates. It’s really unfair to generalize that to all students who live in the neighborhood.”
Tristan Conrad, a senior from Andover, said he disagreed with people who think the number of boarding houses should be reduced or that they should be limited by harsher restrictions. Conrad lives in an eight-bedroom house with nine other students. He said that they are not irresponsible students and chose to live together for the economic benefits of boarding style houses.
“We have contacted our neighbors and help them with items such as yard work,” Conrad said. “We have also helped our landlord with work around the house. It is our house, we live there and are productive students.”
Both Higgins and Conrad said they believed students should be more involved in decisions that affect them as well as permanent residents.
— Edited by Ashley Montgomery
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