Opinion: U+2 Enforcement is discriminatory and it drives up rent
In a half-mile square area of Fort Collins, Colorado, most residents will only live there for two to four years. Most of the residents are highly educated. Most do not have a steady income. Most are young, ambitious, and yes, sometimes they are loud.
In the half-mile square area west of Colorado State University, most residents are students. Located within walking distance of their school, they live in this tiny area for the convenience and the large amount of rental homes.
In the half-mile square area of Avery Park, the city of Fort Collins decided they were tired of getting occupancy complaints.
Fort Collins, like 110 other U.S. cities that host a university, has a city occupancy ordinance to cap the number of unrelated adults that live together. While the Fort Collins’ ordinance states “unrelated adults,” it has most heavily translated to “students.”
Known as “U+2” since 2006, the Fort Collins city ordinance limits housing occupancy to three unrelated adults.
Most city council members support keeping U+2 and oppose altering the law. Without enforcement of the ordinance, they argue that investors with “deep pockets” will purchase houses and rent them out, according to their official statement. The city legislators argue that this type of competition will increase the price of housing, lead to more rentals and eventually force out families in a neighborhood.
While this is council members’ official statement on the issue, perhaps more believable is the pressure from elderly community members who dislike the effects of having a university near their homes. The council has been facing community pressure to keep the law — and enforce it within the student population — since 2006.
Council members have said time and time again that the law is not discriminatory. Yet, the origin of the law is rooted in discrimination. According to Dale Wood, the senior compliance inspector for the city of Fort Collins, and several historical references, the law was originally enacted in 1964 to target a specific demographic: European immigrants.
Immigrants migrated to Fort Collins every growing season to work for the harvest, but they were not welcomed. Most of them were poor with large families. The Fort Collins City Council wrote a criminal level ordinance to prevent the immigrants from housing multiple families in a single family home. Presumably, the law was used to imprison and criminalize the migrant population.
As the problem faded away with changing agricultural needs in the city, the ordinance remained on the books.
In the early 2000s, CSU was growing rapidly, and concerns rose among community members regarding the large population of students moving into previously quiet neighborhoods. An ordinance that had not been enforced in decades was brought to the council’s attention as a method of reducing nuisance complaints in student neighborhoods. However, city council was opposed to imprisoning students for violating an occupancy ordinance, and decided to change it to a civil offense, resulting in a fine.
The fine can be up to $1,000 per person, per day the home is over-occupied. Occupancy does not depend on the number of rooms in a home. Three is the maximum, regardless if the property has more than three bedrooms or is owner occupied. Certain zones may apply for an extra occupancy waiver, but only 46 properties in Fort Collins have one.
Nine apartment complexes in Fort Collins have been issued a waiver from U+2, and this makes them particularly attractive to students who are afraid of being in violation of city law. However, this competitive advantage means these complexes can charge far more for rent — and they do.
Heritage Park and Rams Crossing have some of the highest rental rates in the city, and both have waivers for U+2.
If city council is interested in preventing “investors with deep pockets” from driving out families and increasing rent, perhaps they should consider these student-targeted apartment complexes that have a city-issued waivers from the law.
The increase in the price for rent in these apartment complexes means homes in the same area can charge more as well. As long as the landlord stays slightly below what the apartment complex on the next street over is charging, students will pay. With these selective waivers, the city has in effect created both of the problems U+2 was supposed to avoid: increasing rent and driving out low-income families.
But, instead of engaging in meaningful discussion with student leaders and the CSU campus on the topic of how to revise the law to work as intended, city council refused discussion and increased enforcement.
In January of 2016, the city council implemented the “Avery Park Pilot Program.” For one semester, the city actively enforced U+2 exclusively in a half-mile square area west of campus.
The Avery Park pilot program is not only upsetting, it is anti-student. It places the burden of inspection on only a tiny half-mile area within all of Fort Collins — one that is commonly known to be heavily student-populated. Imagine if the city used this picking-and-choosing technique of enforcement of the law for other issues in Fort Collins, and targeted a neighborhood known to be populated by a specific ethnic group, or a specific elderly population.
But, students are not a protected class. No one in the legal system cares that 70 percent of U+2 violations are committed by students. And, the city officials know all too well that the students will not show up to vote. They know all too well that after paying astronomical rent prices for three years, students will move on to another city to start careers. Students as a demographic lack the institutional power in Fort Collins to force the city or community members to listen.
The blame for the council’s ability to ignore the massive 18 to 25 demographic on campus can be placed on the students themselves: a majority of students who live in Fort Collins 10 months out of the year are not registered to vote in the city, and most voting records show low voter participation rates for ages 18 to 25.
But, this is not an excuse for city council to continue to ignore the concerns of their most profitable constituents: In 2009, CSU and its students alone created $12.9 million in tax revenue for the city.
The city’s website says they do not discriminate based on “age” or “marital status.” How can Fort Collins continue to make this claim while unfairly enforcing the law in a single, 20-year-old neighborhood, without enforcing it anywhere else in the city?
In addition, this pilot program will last for a “semester.” That is the official time. Not six months, not a year. A semester. The enforcement is being based on a student schedule, and city council continues to claim that it does not target the student population.
U+2 does prevent every home near the university from becoming a rental. Larger homes that might otherwise be converted to a rental remain single family because with the occupancy limit it would not be profitable.
However, smaller homes are not protected. U+2 does not address the problem facing lower income families, when they are presented with the same abnormal rent prices facing students for a tiny home and a shortage of small homes to purchase.
Because of the ordinance, students who can’t find an appropriately sized house that won’t violate the ordinance are frustrated, and result to renting at an apartment complex near the university.
Instead of increasing enforcement and refusing to discuss the issue, city council should consider making occupancy waivers easier to obtain. The city could decide of a neighborhood is overcrowded before issuing the waiver, and revoke it if the property receives a nuisance violation.
Currently, the city is using the occupancy law to control neighborhood nuisances caused by the heavily student-populated areas in the city. But, as a result, they inadvertently target students who have never had a problem with their neighbors and are generally respectful people. A more accessible waiver program would quell the students’ complaints and work more effectively for the city’s real concerns.
However, as long as student representatives and community stakeholders remain gridlocked on the issue and refuse to discuss alternatives, U+2 and the Avery Park program will remain discriminatory, drive up rent and reduce single-family access to affordable homes in Fort Collins.
Erin Douglas is a junior at Colorado State University pursuing two degrees in journalism and economics. Read more of her articles at collegian.com where she works as the Collegian news editor.
