No, It Isn't Time To End the Student Housing Moratorium.

Verve: Wood & Chauncey

4Up: Vine & Fowler

Monterey: Wood & Pierce

Is it time to end the student housing moratorium? No.

For the last decade Purdue has outsourced dormitory development to the City of West Lafayette. Now that Purdue will once again begin building dormitories of its own, we need to have a further conversation about the size and terms of that "contract".

Purdue's record enrollment numbers have continued to surprise us. Massive builds have taken place, yet rents continue to increase. The city is trying to manage urban in-fill without reliable information from the work's obvious beneficiary. There are practical financial challenges. "Master leases" signed by Purdue with local rental corporations and used by Purdue to manage student overflow then make those buildings "not-for-profit", cutting into our tax base. We receive no payments in lieu of those unpaid taxes.

There is little compensatory involvement in the near campus neighborhood or in the larger interests of the community.

After Wang Hall left its original home in Purdue's Discovery Park (fall 2010) and jumped across Northwestern Ave., the university and the Purdue Research Foundation used the language of "university districts" to describe possible cooperation between the university, the city, and the historic near campus neighborhood (New Chauncey) that made up the majority of my city council district.

With the failure of New Chauncey Housing, a new investment vehicle for the neighborhood was necessary. In 2011 "New Chauncey Rebound" (aka "the entity")  was proposed in a memorandum of understanding signed by Joe Hornett (PRF), Chandler Poole (West Lafayette's Director of Development), and Dr. Carl Griffin (New Chauncey Neighborhood Association.) By-laws were drafted. CSO architects (Jim Schellinger had been central to the negotiations around Wang Hall) were happy to work on a "Targeted Redevelopment Plan and Development Standards for the Historic New Chauncey Neighborhood." Call it an overlay zone.

Soon though France Cordova, Chandler Poole, and Joe Hornett would all be gone. Historic preservation (2011-13) and a land use plan for New Chauncey (2009 -13) would continue to be nudged along by the city council toward their final forms. But attention was turning elsewhere. By 2013 the State St. Project became the focus of the Purdue/West Lafayette relationship. Then there were the high rises. By 2018/19 Campus Edge, the Rise, and the Hub had altered the downtown skyline. The hope behind their construction went something like this; assuming a predictable growth in the Purdue student population, dramatically increasing the supply of rental units should reduce rental costs, and help the near campus neighborhoods stabilize.

That plan didn't work. Not for renters. Not for the neighbors. In a hole? Stop digging.

We will never see an Indiana version of "Save Berkeley" vs. U. Cal. Berkeley. Indiana lacks the environmental laws a neighborhood like New Chauncey could use to accuse a university of essentially polluting neighborhoods by admitting more students than the city can handle. Even if there were, it is hard to imagine plaintiffs winning in an Indiana court as they did in California.

We haven't found a way within state historic preservation law to keep Von's and Harry's Chocolate Shop from being taken out by higher taxes on properties with skyrocketing assessments. There is no green space. Having struggled with rental corporations and "kiddie condos", we now wrestle with the new problem of out-of-state investors and "air bnbs".

The possibility of a "West Lafayette Enrichment Corporation" floated by the city is interesting. This "Entity", this 5013c, would be welcomed. As soon as the "memorandum of understanding" for "the entity" is signed, as soon as its by-laws are in place, and the instant someone gives it its first $50,000, I think I could vote for new development.

But not this week.