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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VOL.103,NO.39
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
HURSDAY OCTOBER 14. 1993
(USPS 650-640)
NEWS:8644810
Apartment boom may be past its peak
After building to student taste developers find market glut
By Tracl Carl
Kansan staff writer
Pat Quinlan, Denver junior, said he was ready to move away from campus after living at 13th and Kentucky streets for a year. He wanted more space and a nicer apartment.
"We moved to Park 25 because it was a non-collegiate atmosphere," he said. "We could live in relative peace."
Quinlan is one of thousands of students who, during the past 10 years, have moved farther away from campus into bigger and better apartments. And apartment developers have been answering that need by building bigger and better complexes, townhomes and apartments all over town.
City Commissioner Doug Compton, who owns First Management, said he believed Lawrence will soon have more apartments than needed.
According to a survey his company took, Lawrence has built more than 3,000 apartments in the past five years. Manhattan has built less than 500.
Lawrence is growing, Compton said, and multi-family development is part of that growth. But it cannot continue and still be supported by students, Compton said.
"The builders and developers need to slow down." he said.
But students created the demand, he said.
A home away from home
During the 25 years he has been in business, James Dunn, who owns several apartment complexes in the downtown area, has seen the different things students look for in apartments. And he knows what they want today.
"Dishwashers," he said. "They want dishwashers."
Students want apartments that offer things they grew up with, Dunn said. They are not used to sharing bedrooms or bathrooms. Dunn said.
Samantha Sadler, Glenview, Ill., senior, lived in Ellsworth Hall her sophomore year, but she needed more space and more privacy. Now she lives in a townhouse near 6th and Kasold streets.
"It has it all," she said. "I have my own bathroom and washer and dryer. And that gives me more time for other stuff."
To continue to attract students, Dunn said, he had to renovate many of his apartments and provide luxuries like washers and dryers, ceiling fans and more bedrooms. Those are things students expect.
But housing near campus cannot always afford to offer that.
Compton said property near campus is expensive, which makes rent expensive. And that makes it harder to offer affordable apartments with
Student living
KANSAN
In 1980, there were 1,217 students living in the area west of Iowa street, north of Clinton Parkway and south of Sixth Street. In 1990, there were
In 1980, there were 2,790 students living in the area north of Sixth, east of Iowa and west of Massachusetts streets. In 1990, there were 3,509. n In 1980, there were 4,248 students living in the Near Community east of campus and north of 19th Street. In 1990, there were 4,991.
extra space and all the comforts of home close to campus.
So the developers moved off campus, he said, and sometimes they went as far as the city limits.
"The land is cheaper and the rent is not so high," he said. "So they can afford to offer more space."
Too many homes?
"I've been saying for two or three years that Lawrence has reached its peak in apartments," he said. "Right now, we have our big projects in Manhattan. We're really not concentrating on Lawrence right now."
But this growth cannot continue to be profitable for developers any longer, Compton said.
Compton said that he did not think increased competition would force landlords to lower their rent but that he did think more people who were not students would move into the apartments. The property farthest from campus will be the first to suffer, he said.
Dunn said he thought developers would start trying to attract renters who were not students, and this would eliminate the small areas with large student populations.
"Students will be filtered in among the general population," he said.
Ken Stoner, director of student housing, said enrollment for freshman, who typically lived in dorms, had dropped at KU and the number of graduate students had risen.
Graduate students created a lot of the demand for apartments, Dunn said.
But Chris McCann, Mission Hills senior, said more apartments might offer more variety.
"Their section of the market has gone up," he said.
"You can find an apartment in Lawrence now, but may not find what you want," he said. "If they build more, the cheaper the prices will be."
U.N. gives Haiti an ultimatum
The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council voted yesterday to reimpose sanctions on Haiti in five days unless military leaders stop violating a U.N.-brokered accord on restoring democracy.
The U.S.-proposed resolution calls for the imposition of an oil and arms embargo and the freezing of the overseas assets of the country's military leaders if the government does not conform with the accord by 10:59 p.m. CDT Monday.
The resolution also threatens to punish Haiti further, possibly with a naval blockade, although it does not authorize the use of force.
In a speech to the council, U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright warned Haiti's military leaders they were treading down a dangerous path in seeking to "extinguish the democratic flame" in Haiti.
"They're riding a tiger that may ultimately devour them," she said.
blocked a U.S. ship carrying 200 noncombatant U.N. forces from landing in Haiti on Monday.
The United States called for reimposing sanctions on Haiti after armed crowds backed by the military forces
The military government also has been blamed for widespread political violence against supporters of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted in a 1991 army coup.
The landing of the USS Harlan County was to launch in earnest the mission to help restore democracy in impoverished Haiti. Under the accord, Aristide — the first freely elected president of Haiti — is to return on Oct. 30.
U. N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said in a report to the Security Council that Haitian army chief Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras' regime had a "clear and explicit intent to prevent the democratic process ... from taking its course." He accused the authorities of "serious and consistent non-compliance" with the July accord.
He also insisted that any foreign soldiers sent to help implement the agreement leave their automatic weapons at home. Cedras had said the Harlan County was turned away because the troops carried M-16s.
In Haiti, Codras declared yesterday he was prepared to resign, as called for under the U.N. plan. But he said he would step down only if parliament passed a general amnesty law.
Before the Security Council voted, he complained he was not being given a chance to defend his position.
"One does not have the right to condemn without giving a hearing," he said.
The resolution approved yesterday does not authorize the use of force to permit Aristide's return but leaves open the possibility of "additional measures."
Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the United States had considered asking the Council for a blockade but apparently backed off because Washington would not have been able to get other council members to agree on such short notice. Washington now has a blockade in mind as a possible next step.
Albright said that the United States would also order travel sanctions, presumably denying U.S. visas to
Haiti's military leaders.
"We will maintain the pressure for democratic change in every manner possible short of an armed intervention that no one wants," she told the council.
The previous round of economic sanctions prodded Haiti's military rulers to sign the July agreement, and recent U.N. and U.S. casualties in Somalia have made a military strike an unsavory option.
Unlike previous sanctions, the new measures do not freeze the assets of Aristide's government.
The Security Council voted Aug. 27 to lift an oil and arms embargo and remove a freeze on all of Haiti's overseas assets after Haitian military leaders pledged to cooperate in signing the July accord.
Some critics have suggested the lifting of sanctions was premature, but U.N. representative Joe Sills disagreed.
"The problem is not that the sanctions were lifted prematurely, it's that certain parties to the agreement have not honored their commitment," he said.
Paul Kotz / KANBAN
Ushio Amagatsu, choreographer of Shijimaa, uses shadows to tell the story of a flower. The troupe from Japan used a nontraditional Japanese art form that evolved in the 1960s to tell different stories in front of a full house at the Lied Center last night.
Shadow dancing
Post filled at minority affairs office
By Carlos Tejada
Kansan staff writer
Gloria Flores, the new associate director of minority affairs, grew up in the birthplace of another administrator Bill Clinton.
"People don't believe me when I say that, but it's true," said Flores, who moved to Hope, Ark., when she was 10 years old.
Flores, coordinator of the Office of Diversity Education at Texas A & M University, will join KU's Office of Minority Affairs on Nov. 29. Her appointment ends a search that took six months and evaluated six candidates, said Sherwood Thompson, director of the office.
"She displays a very strong sense of caring," he said. "She has a profound sense of the need for a multicultural environment in a state university."
Thompson said Flores would replace Norma Norman, who left last spring to join a law firm in Topeka.
Flores said she understood the need to speak for the concerns of minorities on campus.
"Some students need a voice," she said. "Students sometimes need an administrative voice. That's what I hope to be."
A first generation Mexican-American, Flores was born in Texas but moved with her family to Texarkana, Ark., when she was five. She said that despite the distance from Mexico, her family visited often and spoke Spanish at home.
"A lot of migrant families don't want their children to speak Spanish because they think it will keep their children from learning English well," she said.
But Flores chose Spanish as a major when she enrolled in the University of Central Arkansas. By the time she graduated in 1895, Flores said she had realized majoring in Spanish had been a way to keep in touch with her ethnicity.
"It took me home every time I went to class," she said. "It was a way of embracing my culture."
Flores said she got her first taste of administrative duty when she was a member of a panel to select an assistant dean for Central Arkansas. She said the experience ignited her interest in university administration.
Flores received her master's degree in higher education from Southern Illinois University in 1988. She said she took the position at Texas A & M shortly afterward.
Flores said she hoped to continue her education at KU by pursuing a doctoral degree in educational policy and leadership. She said it would not detract from her work.
"I know I'm in for the long haul." Flores said. "You have to be committed to something to finish it."
University Theatre investigates violence and society in its play "Assassins." The musical looks at the use of guns in assassination attempts on U.S. presidents.
Page 7.
For some, low-paying jobs win over school
By Carlos Tejada
Kansan staff writer
Anna Ortiz said she felt lucky.
"I had supportive parents who didn't want me just to stay," said Ortiz, Garden City freshman. "They pushed me to leave and expand an be the best that I can be."
Students such as Ortiz should feel lucky, said Kirk Cerny, admissions representative for southwestern Kansas at the University of Kansas. He said that while some Hispanic students from Garden City and Dodge City got some sort of secondary education, many dropped out of high school and still more did not go on to college.
The problem, Cerny said, is related to the meat-packing industry in Garden City and Dodge City. Many Hispanic families migrate from Mexico or parts of the United States for the area's low-skill jobs. Cerny said the result was a large population of
Hispanics who had no tradition of education.
"That industry has kept a lot of Hispanic students from wanting to go into college," he said. "They're coming from families with no post-secondary education, and they see no opportunity for themselves beyond that."
Lydia Gonzales, director of the League of United Latin American Citizens Education Service Center in Garden City, agreed with Cerny. She said that many of the high school students in the area had families without college educations that did not have the funds to send their children to school. Instead, many of the students are
"That's a big attraction for them," she said. "It's easier for them to go to the meat packing plant. They don't see going to school for four years to study so they can make even more money."
attracted to the same low-skill,low-paying jobs that attracted their parents, Gonzales said.
Gonzales said that money and programs directly addressing those concerns could help these students through high school and into KU. She said financial aid that went to help students with housing and tuition costs would bring more students.
The trend away from education can be seen in the number of Hispanic high school dropouts in the area. The Kansas Board of Education stated that Hispanics made up 58 percent of Garden City area high school dropouts.
"A lot of them end up unemployed," she
The alternatives are not pleasant, Gonzales said.
said. "They won't have the skills to get a job. They'll probably end up on welfare. They might end up in jail."
But Cerny said that recruiting Hispanic high school students in the area was difficult to begin with. He said total enrollment from the southwest section of the state each year was about 100. By comparison, Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village sends 250 students to KU each year.
Cerny said that about 10 Hispanic students were in the group of 100 each year. Each student, however, represented a large group of Hispanic students who got away.
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The solution is to go to the students directly, Cerny said. He said that he took many trips to that part of the state and addressed events such as Garden City Hispanic Day. He said he also informed students of the scholarships available to them.