By Chris Buttonshaw
Students vs. residents vs. the city vs. student vs… around and around we go. When will this issue stop? No one knows.
The issue of student housing in Oshawa has been an on-going source of discussion (or argument), worry, and debate for over a year now.
Durham College and UOIT do offer on-campus residences but the schools can’t keep up with the enrollment increase to house all the students. Also, not all students want to live on campus.
The issue of students living off campus heated up in September 2007 when residents began lodging numerous complaints against students.
Complaints included loud, wild parties, cars parked on the road at all times, property maintenance, and even having garbage out on the wrong day.
Some of the complaints are understandable because who wants a wild house party going on beside them all night? Also having a house with overgrown grass or garbage on the lawn is ugly and isn’t nice.
However, the car issue is kind of pointless. If you have three or four students living in a house and they all have cars, of course, there’s going to be cars on the street. Driveways are only made for two cars nowadays if you’re lucky. Yes, it impedes the snowplows but same problem exists on streets that have no students.
Also, let’s be honest, we’re talking students here. This probably means 18 to 24 year olds who are out on their own for the first time in their lives; of course there are going to be some mistakes.
The issue between students and residents probably could have been easily handled with a simple discussion between them. If that didn’t work, then the residents could have complained to the city. That’s what should have happened. Instead the city passed a strange and prejudiced by-law.
The by-law limits the number of students to four per house. Understandable but some of the houses have eight rooms so landlords now had to charge students twice the rent, which is hell if you’re a struggling student trying to pay for school. By-law officers even started searching students’ houses for by-law infractions.
To students it looked like the City of Oshawa had turned on them and wanted them out of the city. Did it matter that the college was there long before the new subdivisions? That the people who moved in knew the school was there so should have expected this kind of thing? No and no.
Honestly, it was like someone moving in next to an airport or train tracks and then complaining about the noise.
Since this all started DC and UOIT have built new on-campus housing and are currently building more. Is this because they decided they wanted more housing or did they do it to get students out of the neighbourhoods?
The more important question is: will this issue affect enrollment? Probably not, but will it make the city look bad in terms of student relationship? Yes.
For more info:
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20071031_184153_8504&source=srch
http://www.macleans.ca/education/universities/article.jsp?content=20080116_145448_7964
Filed under: Campus Wide , DC News, Durham College, Oshawa, student housing, UOIT
