7W 9 9 9 V v 9 0 , 9 ~~J F- Alan Levy and Dale Winling weigh in on off-campus housing. So much for MONOPOLY, this is real estate 1 '~~ ~~~ o\ ~ By Alan J. 7 0 f \he \h sud \non a in the real world. . Levy Director, Public Affairs and Information, University Housing wo successive years of very large freshman classes with the attendant pressure on being able to house both returning on- campus residents with contracts for the new academic year along with all those freshmen has generated some media attention and campus commentary that U-M and Ann Arbor have a student housing "shortage." The reality is that while U-M residence halls have indeed been fully occupied, there is availability in on-campus apartments and the off-campus student housing market is experiencing a historically high vacancy level - approaching 10 percent for at least the last two years. - University community members can ride Ann Arbor buses for free - it became economically and practically more convenient for students to consider off-campus housing located at a great- er distance away from Central Campus. A 24 percent increase in ridership since the start of the program suggests that some students have actively pursued this opportunity. There are several long-term critical issues related to off-campus housing that require more sustained attention from all stakeholders - the City of Ann Arbor, the University, landlords, safety and security agencies and the students themselves - in order to bring about higher- quality student neighborhoods and improved town-gown relations related to off-campus students. An incomplete list of these issues includes: Quality of student housing tudent rental properties in Ann Arbor and environs run the gamut from poorly maintained units with unrepaired code violations - and, in worst cases, without a cur- rent certificate of occupancy - to very well maintained units with highly responsive and responsible landlords and everything in between. Students should utilize the excellent online and print resources of the Off-Campus Housing Program to iden- tify the most important questions to ask before signing any lease. They should also have their own checklist with regard to their expectations regarding appearance, upkeep, sanitary and safety conditions and aesthetics before they start their off-campus housing search and selection. The City Building Department is required to inspect every rental unit every two and a half years but is severely taxed to keep up with the volume of units across the City and two and a half years in any event is a long time between mandatory inspections. Students can file a complaint with the Building Department if they believe that their landlord is not satis- factorily completing repairs or is not resolving code violations (See www.off campus.housing. umich.edu/lt/inspection.cfm for specifics of filing a complaint), but the best thing to do is to carefully review the track record of a prospec- tive landlord before signing on the dotted line. Safety and security he recently concluded fall term was marked by some disturbing events in off-campus housing, including three significant fires in predomi- nantly student housing units, as well as crimes against both person and property involving students. The safety and security of University students living in off-campus properties must be every- one's collective paramount concern and a matter for constant vigilance. Landlords must be held to the highest possible standard with respect to ensuring their properties meet or exceed all fire and life safety code requirements and should actively monitor that all fire safety equipment is properly maintained throughout the tenancy of student residents. For their part, students should carefully inspect their rental at move-in to be sure there are properly functioning smoke detectors and adequate egress in the event of a fire, and not take any action on their own that disables fire safety equipment. ver the last decade, it has, discour- agingly, become much too much the norm that many students become convinced that they must sign a bind- ing lease for the following academic year as early as September and Octo- ber. Students new to the University are making a commitment to live off-campus, often with other students they know for less than a couple of months, in neighborhoods they have little experience with, and without taking adequate time to review the terms and conditions of the legal agreement they are signing. They are not always able to knowledgeably assess the posi- tive and negatives of their prospective house or apartment mates. Students make these commit- ments from the often misguided and inaccurate vantage point that "all the good housing will be gone" if they have not signed a lease by a certain point in the fall term. The fact that it is not easy to define the "villain" in this prac- tice unquestionably leads some students into bad decisions with significant negative conse- quences. While there are some landlords who press prematurely for students to make deci- sions about next year's leases, there are students (and sometimes parents) who want first crack at the "best" housing and prod landlords to final- ize lease signing before they would otherwise choose to do. Mayor John Hieftje has proposed an ordinance, modeled after a similar ordinance enforced in Madison, Wisc., that would prohibit the signing of leases for the next academic year While there may be selective shortfalls in specific types of hous- ing that students are interested in (e.g. unique, multi-occupant houses), students arriving last August without previously mak- ing housing arrangements had no difficulty in locating good, qual- ity housing near both Central and h Campuses. University houses about 30 percent of ent body (undergraduate and graduate) ampus residence halls and apartments; this percentage has stayed consistent since the early 1970s. The availability of on-campus hous- ing will not change substantially in the foresee- able future, even with the arrival of North Quad Residence Hall in September 2009, because some older residence halls will successively be closed for up to two years for major renewal and reno- vation. There is, however, an important new on- campus housing option available for the last two years for sophomore to senior undergraduates; University Housing now offers more than 400 one- and two-bedroom apartments in Northwood III as an alternative to residence halls. Addition-