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17 Mar 2004
uwRyan.com This website is meant to provide value to UW students by delivering information. Please provide feedback on what I write as well as give me suggestions of topics to cover. You can send e-mail to me to ryan[at]uwryan[dot]com.
uwstudent.org
Federation of Students 
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City housing policy flawed
City of Waterloo staff have produced a 57-page discussion paper on student housing that provides background information and research and offers a number of options. Both Chris Edey from Feds and Bud Walker from University of Waterloo are proposing that more medium density development be allowed in the neighbourhood east of UW around Hickory Street and Albert Street. This area is already 80 percent students according to the Feds Housing study. This would provide more spaces close to UW. City staff favour a particular option would generally promote housing along major streets like University Avenue, Columbia Street, and Erb Street. It could also include restrictions on rental housing elsewhere like an increase in the 75 metre spacing restriction on certain lodging house classes. The suppose merits of this 'major streets model' are based on flawed information and unrealistic assumptions. First the study says acknowledges that students would prefer to live close to campus. This is partly based on a study done by Pam Charbonneau, marketing manager for residences, for her graduate thesis. The figure the study states is that 96 percent of students want to live within 20 minutes of campus. The actual figures are that 70 percent of students surveyed would prefer to live within 10 minutes with 26 percent preferring within 20 minutes. This is like telling someone that you would prefer to pay less than 10 dollars for something and him saying you want to pay less than 20 dollars. Ten is less than 20, but it won't get us better housing. This distortion is important to the major streets model because it would provide more housing further from campus. A ten minute walk from either the SLC or Dana Porter won't get you much past Albert Street or through Waterloo Park. This should give a clear picture of where student ousing development should be encouraged. A second poor assumption that city staff make is that you can walk between points two kilometres apart in 20 minutes. This doesn't account for having to walk around buildings, around blocks or over hills. When talking about housing close to the campuses Dan Currie, policy planner, sometimes shows a map with circles of 2 km radius around the two campuses. The larger you draw the circle, the more supposedly suitable housing you can say is close to campus. A third problem is that housing near one university is considered close to both. This is not as much of a problem for Laurier because it is surrounded by residential areas. UW on the other had is bounded by Waterloo Park to the south and North Campus to the north and low-density old-post neighbourhood to the west leaving Albert and Hickory neighbourhood to the east. The paper refers to a housing development at the Brighton School site (on the far side of Laurier from UW) as near the universities. Brighton is close to Laurier, but it not near UW. Those poor assumptions in the study are promoting an inferior response to student housing concerns and concerns of other residents in the city. Trying to push student housing out of already existing student neighbourhoods and into narrow strips of the city further from campus will only encourage some unscrupulous landlords to continue to operate illegally. Residents in certain areas don't want students living in their "backyards," the city should allow student housing around Albert and Hickory so we can live in our own "backyard." |