UP Mulls Options to Address Student Housing Concerns

University Park plans to do more to address problems on some streets near SMU, where residents say homes are being occupied by multiple students in violation of city ordinance. 

“I think the things we really need to concentrate on are the trash, and the noise, and those things that we legally can do,” Mayor Tommy Stewart said during a Feb. 18 City Council meeting. “As far as going into a unit and seeing who’s living there, we don’t have that authority a lot of times … I believe we’ve got some work to do.”

A University Park ordinance bars more than two unrelated individuals from living together in a single housing unit. But officials have said that, since they don’t have authority to enter homes, the ordinance is nearly impossible to enforce.

At a Council meeting in November, residents of some streets around SMU said that ordinance violations are an open secret among both students and homeowners. They petitioned the City Council to enforce the ordinance if it could, or draft revisions if it couldn’t. 

“There’s making a mockery of traffic. They’re making a mockery of our ordinance with residencies,” resident Athanasios Agouridis said in November. “It’s time that we … do something that’s reasonable, so we can get our neighborhood back to what it should be.”

Residents said at the November and February Council meetings that they knew when they moved into their homes that SMU students would live nearby. But they were reassured by the existence of University Park’s ordinance that the city would maintain a high quality of residential living.

That hasn’t happened, they said. Students have parked long-term on their streets and in front yards, trash has overflowed and blown into their yards and pools, students have sped down alleys, and pumpkins have been thrown at houses.

“I wish you could see a picture of what these places look like from our backyard,” resident Jim Rice said in November about his student neighbors. “We’re worried that we’re not going to be able to sell our house for anywhere near what it’s worth.”

During the City Council’s Feb. 18 meeting, community development director Patrick Baugh told the Council how other cities have addressed student housing, and reviewed ways to deal with living arrangements that violate University Park’s ordinance.

Options included continuing to enforce nuisance ordinances that apply to parking, noise, trash, and general site conditions, possibly by taking a no tolerance approach to violators.

The city could also draft new ordinances or amend existing ordinances to address the problems. University Park could modify occupancy rules for the areas adjacent to SMU, create an architectural review committee to limit the construction of dorm-like housing units, require rentals to be licensed and inspected by the city, or create a process to issue penalties based on observation. The city could also negotiate with SMU to increase student housing on campus, or bar student vehicles from parking off campus.

Council members did not provide specific direction for city staff, but Stewart said there were several options for the city to pursue, and that it would alert residents when the issue returned to the Council agenda.

“We’ll see if we can get something that will protect your neighborhood a little better,” he said.