PROVIDENCE – The City Council held another public hearing on the controversial proposal to limit the number of college student renters per apartment in Providence Wednesday evening.
The amendment, which was introduced last year by City Councilwoman Helen Anthony, has been significantly narrowed since it was first introduced, but it still fueled a heated discussion during the nearly two-hour hearing.
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Many testified in favor of the ordinance, lamenting loud parties, piling trash and disturbances caused by clusters of students in these neighborhoods. But more than 30 people signed up to speak against the ordinance, often sharing concerns that the proposal would exacerbate the housing crisis and fail to address the intended problems.
City ordinances already prohibit more than three college students from living in a single-family home within single-family zones, but the proposal would extend the restrictions to units in multifamily homes.
During an initial public hearing held last October, dozens spoke out against the proposal. Council President John J. Igliozzi called the original proposal an “overreaching response” to a local issue, with the potential to “have a negative impact citywide.”
A second hearing, initially scheduled for Nov. 16, was postponed “to allow more opportunity for stakeholders to discuss how to best address the challenges created by college campuses bleeding into residential neighborhoods,” Anthony said.
Since then, Antony modified the amendment to significantly reduce the impact it would have on students. The new proposal is limited to zone R-1A and R-1 – as opposed to the original amendment which would have also affected zones R-2 and R-3 – and would only affect undergraduate students.
The new amendment would only impact approximately 1,800 dwellings, as opposed to the 29,000 which would have been affected with the original amendment.
“This ordinance is not anti-housing,” Anthony said. “It’s actually the opposite. We must strive to be a city where families can thrive and preserve housing for our residents. We need to encourage colleges and universities to do their share to house their students and not encourage our limited housing stock to be converted for profit centers for neglectful developers.”
During Wednesday’s public hearing, many returned to share their support or concerns on the ordinance. Several residents of the areas that would be impacted spoke in favor of the proposal, saying that their neighborhoods have been reshaped by the influx of college students.
“Because there’s literally no occupancy limit, investors pack these homes with students, 12, 15 or more in a family home, all to generate more rent,” said Nina Markov, who lives on Keene Street. “When you suddenly have a cluster of such houses, with 50 or more undergrads living in them unsupervised, that’s when some serious problems arise. The near constant noise, frequent parties, overflowing garbage, neglected maintenance, etc. all begin to have a real impact on the quality of life for all residents in the neighborhood.”
But the meeting was also packed with people speaking in opposition of the amendment. Despite the changed made by Anthony, which many acknowledged, people continued to argue that the ordinance will lead to higher rent prices, displace hundreds of students, and fail to solve problems of noise and littering.
“This ordinance would take rights away from college students who are citizens with all the rights of every other citizen of the city, just because they’re college students,” said Jeff Levy, who testified for the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island. “There’s no reason to address problems of noise, problems of parking, problems with litter, by stripping rights away from members of our society. There are there are better ways to address the problems that don’t involve taking the rights away.”
The ACLU already filed a lawsuit in 2016 seeking to strike down the existing ordinance limiting student housing in R-1 zones – or zones for single-family homes – but the state Supreme Court ultimately upheld the ordinance.
Students also showed up to speak against the ordinance. Michael Kearney, an undergraduate student at Brown University, said limiting the number of students who can live in an apartment will not only fail to solve the intended problems, but it will also make them worse. Many also pointed out how the ordinance would particularly impact low-income and marginalized students.
“If fewer college students can live in each unit, then there are fewer units of housing available for everybody,” Kearney said. “Fewer housing units mean means housing prices will go up for everyone. This creates an incentive to convert even more houses to apartments and even more longtime residents will be displaced.”
There was no vote on Wednesday.
(Latest version of this story removes the house number of the person who spoke during the hearing in the 11th paragraph.)
Claudia Chiappa is a PBN staff writer. You may contact her at Chiappa@PBN.com.
I agree 100% with Helen Anthony on this issue. As a matter of fact, Helen’s original amendment should not have amended, but should have been passed as originally proposed.
I see no reason why law biding taxpaying permanent residents should be forced to tolerate transient students, who do not pay taxes to the State or PVD and who apparently are not respectful neighbors, living among them. Quiet, peaceful neighborhoods should not be made to suffer because Brown fails to provide adequate housing for its students.
When they go to the polls, permanent resident taxpayers should keep in mind the names of those PVD Council Members who favor non-taxpaying transient students over tax paying permanent residents and vote them out of office ASAP.