Tuesday, October 31, 2000
The University Daily Kansan
Section A • Page '
7
SUBURBAN SHOWDOWN
"It's really fantastic to live within walking distance to KU and be out of student housing."
"It's so loud that I hear it inside my bedroom with the window closed."
Ian Tice
Tapeka sophomore
Betty Alderson resident on Maine Street
"Landlords are buying up properties ... They're converted to rentals because people are selling houses to move to the outskirts of town."
Bob Ebey
vice president of Landlords of Lawrence Inc.
neighbors disagree on best way to solve problems with renters
Affected neighborhoods
See map on next page for neighborhood locations
Brook Creek
The Brook Creek Neighborhood has 2,673 people who live in 1,051 households. Of these, 2,057 make up 670 families.
East Lawrence
The East Lawrence Neighborhood has 1,913 people who live in 777 households Of these, 1,242 make up 373 families.
North Lawrence
The North Lawrence Neighborhood has 1,848 people who live in 717 households. Of these, 1,505 make up 507 families.
Renters 25 percent
Pinckney
The Pinckney Neighborhood has 2,740 people who live in 1,275 households. Of these, 1,804 make up 631 families.
Melissa Carr/KANSAN
Source: City of Lawrence Consolidated Plan
Continued from page 1A
In the last five years, many of these residents have moved out, and landlords bought the properties to rent to students, she said. Houses designed for families with two cars now have four or five students and their four or five cars, filling the streets with overflow parking.
"We bought into what we were told was a single-family neighborhood," said Mary-Elizabeth Debicki. "In '87, it was totally single-family dwellings. Now, we are overwhelmed with cars and noise."
Debicki, who was director of the Office of Study Abroad for 11 years, said she was not anti-student.
"We wouldn't be here if it weren't for the students," she said. "We're anti turning our neighborhoods into places with too many cars because they weren't designed for that."
THE STUDENTS
He and his roommates each pay $240 per month.
Ian Tice, Topeka sophomore, moved off campus after his first year at the University and lives with three roommates on the 1700 block of Indiana Street, south of campus, in a single-family neighborhood.
He said his house didn't cause problems on a street that is home mostly to elderly couples.
"It's really fantastic to live within walking distance to KU and be out of student housing." Tice said. "An apartment wouldn't be as enjoyable as a house."
"The ordinance is a horrible idea, and I was really shocked when I first heard about it," Tice said. "We're not bad people; we don't harass the neighbors, and we don't cause problems."
A SIMMERING ISSUE
The City Commission dealt with the same issue last year under a different proposal.
A year ago, the Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods, representing residents of single-family neighborhoods angered by problem renters and landlords, proposed a citywide landlord registration. Student Senate supported the proposal.
Proponents hoped it would give residents and renters a way to deal with party houses, absentee landlords and unkempt rental units. But the proposal fizzled, mostly because of questions about how the city would finance and enforce the system.
The association then suggested the ordinance in order to limit the number of unrelated people who could live together.
Arly Allen, a representative for the association, said the University of Kansas had contributed to the problem by not providing more student housing as enrollment increased. According to city estimates, renters occupy 52 percent of all Lawrence housing units.
It cited parties, noise, unkempt houses, streets overflowing with cars, lack of affordable housing for families and declining enrollment at city-center elementary schools.
The Office of Institutional Research and Planning said that in 1996, 13,746 students, or 58.9 percent of the student population, lived off campus. In 1988, it was 50 percent. No data are available on the number of students living in high-density areas versus single-family neighborhoods.
Each year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development determines fair market rent for rental homes and apartments. In HUD data published in March, that value for Lawrence was $547 for a two-bedroom rental home or apartment, $761 for a three-bedroom and $876 for a four-bedroom.
Allen said unrelated renters could each pay $350 per month, or $1,060, for a three-bedroom house and $1,400 for a four-bedroom. He said unrelated renters were
pricing moderate- and low-income families out of renting in central Lawrence.
Instead of young families buying houses as they come on the market, Allen said that landlords bought the properties, knowing they could make more money renting to students.
"The rents are being charged because we've got 14,000 students who are competing to rent in Lawrence," he said. "You create a shortage of housing, and the elementary schools are faced with declining enrollment."
Holly Krebs, Student Senate Rights Committee chairwoman, said the city should use the new nuisance ordinance to crack down on party houses. If students are forced out of single-family neighborhoods, the demand for apartments will increase rent rates, she said.
"I think there's a shortage of affordable housing, period, in Lawrence," Krebs said. "《The Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods) thinks families need affordable single-family housing, but the reality is that students need affordable housing as well."
She said student renters were not necessarily the reason families weren't living in older, single-family neighborhoods.
"There's been a huge, huge expansion of western and southeast Lawrence — where they have bigger yards, newer schools and less traffic." Krebs said. "The American dream is to live in the suburbs with a white picket fence and to have your kids play in the street. The nature of a core-city neighborhood can't provide the same amenities."
A FADING SUNSET
Bill Staples, professor of sociology, lives in Sunset Hills, a single-family neighborhood west of campus. He moved there with his family nine years ago. During the last five years, some houses on his street have become rentals, including one next door.
"I wasn't counting on having eight or nine cars out in
"The little old lady who lives next door said she learned a long time ago to keep the windows on the north side of her house closed," Neuteboom said. "I think it's healthy to keep all these people together. Everybody adds their own particular thing to a neighborhood."
"This is a great neighborhood," he said. "It's just kind of comfortable living amongst people who are not students."
He said a neighborhood such as Sunset Hills, which is 35 to 40 years old, was in transition as older home owners moved out. At that point, the neighborhood is most vulnerable — and needs young families the most.
Neuteboom and his three roommates can see Lawrence High School.
He said he and his roommates invited neighbors to their frequent backyard parties, which usually had 50 to 60 people and two kegs of beer.
Betty Alderson's home is in the 1900 block of Maine Street. When she and her husband, Donald, moved in 43 years ago, the house was new and near the outskirts of town.
The only complaint they've had was after a party this semester on a Sunday night, he said.
Definition of family in other Big 12 cities
Staples is concerned about noise, trash and the investment he has made in his house and neighborhood. He said student renters would one day become homeowners — and would then know how he felt.
City, State Maximum number of unrelated individuals Special permit available
Ames, Iowa 3 yes
Austin, Texas no limit n/a
Boulder, Colo. no limit n/a
College Station, Texas 4 no
Columbia, Mo. 3 no
Lawrence 4 no
Lincoln, Neb. 2 no
Lubbock, Texas 2 no
Manhattan 4 no
Norman, Okla. 3 no
Stillwater, Okla. 3 yes
Waco, Texas 4 no
front of my house," Staples said. "It's like I'm looking at a used-car lot."
SELLING OUT SUBURBIA
Eric Neuteboom, Colorado Springs,
Colo., senior, has lived in a house on the
1800 block of Indiana Street for three
years. The parents of one of his room-
mates own the house, from which
The Aldersons, like many of the families
"I'm more critical of landlords," he said.
"Renters end up with very few rights,
neighbors suffer from blight and the landlords walk away with the money."
"We're trying to avoid neighborhoods like mine becoming student egettos." he said.
Mellissa Carr/KANSAN
"It was within walking distance to Centennial (Elementary), and very few people had two cars," she said. "A student with a car would have been the exception then."
on the block. had young children.
Student neighbors coming home from bars frequently wake Alderson during the night.
Now a widow, Alderson has watched her street become more of a rental district — with new SUVs and cars lining the street.
One recent weeknight she was awakened at 12:30, 2:30, 4:30 and 6 a.m. on weekends, her neighborhood is a cacophony of yells, slamming car doors and throbbing stereos. Alderson said.
inside my bedroom with the window closed," she said. "It's just not a compatible lifestyle in a neighborhood."
As more homes on her street have become rentals, she said, she receives two to three offers a year to put her home on the market. The agents always mention that many of the homes on her street already are rentals. She said young families were funneled into new developments.
"You won't interest young couples in a house that isn't in good shape and they're going to be kept up at night," Alderson said.
"It's so loud that I hear it
Alderson blames real estate agents.
THE LANDLORDS
Bob Ebey, vice president and representative of Landlords of Lawrence Inc., calls the proposed ordinance unneeded and unfair. He said families were abandoning older neighborhoods because they wanted larger garages and bigger rooms and didn't want to pay the maintenance required of many older houses.
"Landlords are buying properties, and that's true," Ebey said. "They're converted to rentals because people are selling houses to move to the outskirts of town."
He said that if the city enforced its laws, many problem houses, renters and landlords would be eliminated. The city does not monitor neighborhoods for violations but responds to specific complaints. Ebey said a more comprehensive inspection of rental houses, similar to one already in place for apartments, would be more effective.
"The neighborhoods are jumping up and trying to take maybe the easiest way out," he said. "But the majority of the run-down houses are owner-occupied."
The city already has problems enforcing the limit of four, he said, and the proposed ordinance would be even more difficult to enforce.
Gene Shaughnessy, chief building inspector for Lawrence, said the city responded to all complaints about environmental or housing codes, such as the code limiting to four the number of unrelated people who can live in a single-family neighborhood.
He said enforcement of that code was a cat-and-mouse game because of the difficulty of documenting the number of residents.
"Sometimes we get a variety of answers," he said. "It's a difficult code requirement to enforce."
Cruising East Lawrence in his white Ford F150 pickup, Mark Lehmann, vice president and general manager of L & S Management Services LLC, shows off properties he owns with his partners. Lehmann also owns the Old Home Depot, 1045 Pennsylvania St., a home-reimodeling store.
The homes are all neatly painted and stand in sharp contrast to the blighted properties that riddle the neighborhood. Lehmann says the proposed ordinance would force landlords to decrease rent - leaving them less money for upkeep and maintenance.
He said landlords would have a hard time enforcing the ordinance because the city prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and landlords couldn't ask housing applicants about marital status.
"My firm belief is that marriage or relationship should not be prerequisite to anybody's housing." Lehmann said.
David Corliss, assistant city manager, said he thought landlords and property owners would be able to enforce the proposed ordinance because they could ask prospective tenants to list the names and relationships of each person who would reside in the housing unit.
"The fact that we're changing the numbers is not changing the ability of landlords to enforce the law," he said.
NOT ALL RENTERS ARE STUDENTS
Scott Bliss, a Lawrence resident since 1990, owns a house in North Lawrence and rents rooms to two friends.
He bought his house in 1997 to save money on housing. His monthly mortgage payment is $80 more than the rent he once paid for a one-bedroom apartment. Bliss said he had lived in residence halls, the Oread neighborhood and south of campus before purchasing his home.
"There's only so much you can take until you say, 'I want to live in a same place,'" he said. "And I didn't want to live in one of those cardboard cut-out, ant-farm apartment complexes."
Bliss said the proposed ordinance would affect more unmarried, renting residents of Lawrence than students.
See HOME on page 8A
"The purpose of me buying a home three years ago is so that when I get married and have kids, I'll already have a house," he said. "I'm just trying to get ahead, and now I've been told that it's against the law."
Commissioners' views
JIM HENRY, MAYOR
"I have mixed feelings, quite honestly,"
Honied, said. "I do."
my said, "I do believe that if it were to be changed from four to two that there will be a fairly extensive list of exceptions."
Henry said exceptions could include adult caregivers and nontraditional families. He said many areas already were
Henry said the issue was a classic confrontation.
zoned for student living, such as apartments, duplexes and townhouses.
"I think it's the city's responsibility to ensure the integrity, vitality and character of all neighborhoods," he said. "The residents of the neighborhoods do have a concern, and I think if I could emphasize anything, there wouldn't be that concern if people were good neighbors."
Rundle said he viewed zoning as a way to mediate competing property rights and
MIKE RUNDLE
establish adequate amounts of land for different uses. He said city services should be maintained.
"infrastructure such as schools, streets, sewers, fire and police become more and more expensive and inefficient if they are allowed to follow
a cycle of decay and sprawl," he said. "It is irresponsible to view neighborhoods and public infrastructure as disposable."
ERV HODGES
Hodges said that renters did not maintain homes as well as
Hodges said the commission had a responsibility to maintain the character of single-family neighborhood.
"The greatest problems are parking and the numerous automobiles," he said. "Parties are fine — but at a reasonable hour and with a reasonable number of guests."
owners, and that cleaning up trash and curbing noise would solve a lot of problems.
"The students have to be good neighbors," he said. "That's 90 percent of it."
DAVID DUNFIELD
Dunfield said the city should maintain the viability of older neighborhoods, which already had roads, schools and city services.
Dunfield said that when he was a student, he preferred to rent where he could live in peace and quiet and have room to grow a garden.
"There's certainly a place for students in these kinds of neighborhoods," he said. "It's a question of how we can find the right balance that
allows those neighborhoods to maintain their character and not let them be transformed into something different."
MARTY KENNEDY
Kennedy said that he was waiting for the planning commission's recommendation
and public input on the issue but that he was leaning toward a compromise that would limit the number of unrelated renters to three.
"From most everything I've read, there's a larger percentage out there that have done three
and that's been a workable situation," he said. "For the moment that's where I'm focusing."
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