Boston.com had an article today regarding the opposition to this project:
Plans for a 810-bed Northeastern University dorm currently under city review are facing a new round of criticism.
realestate.boston.com
From the article:
“The luxury dorm is a project that will raise the cost of housing in Roxbury and contribute to the homelessness crisis in Boston,” Liam Easton-Calabria, an ER tech and Socialist Alternative organizer, said in a statement. “Massive schools like Northeastern are withholding so much funding because they are labelled as non-profits. We can’t afford to let them further gentrify our communities. We deserve to have social housing instead of luxury dorms, but we need to get organized and we need to fight to make this happen, that’s why I’m supporting this campaign.”
In a press release announcing the rally, organizers said students at local colleges and universities “should not be expected to pay exorbitant prices for dorms when they are required to live on campus.”
FFS, can someone please show these students a supply-demand curve?!?!?! Economics wasn't my favorite undergrad class at Northeastern, either, but if they actually attended one they wouldn't be spewing nonsensical remarks like these. A luxury residence hall constructed exclusively for the use of NU student residents (plus retail and academic facilities open to greater community) helps their cause: it not only enables students able/willing to pay more for housing to free up older, non-'luxury' housing stock on campus, but also reduces the student demand for off-campus housing. Lower demand for housing in the neighborhood means that neighborhood housing supply will not face as much pressure to increase prices as years past, thus preserving affordability in Roxbury.
Historically, the inference among Bostonians when it comes to fearing gentrification is fear of displacement--displacement of long-established residents of a neighborhood because an influx of cash/investment is coming to it. The building site in question is a parking lot. Therefore, no people are being displaced from this site--cars are. (boo hoo for the cars... if only there was a 10-story parking garage 40 feet away for them to park at
) Equitable investment across our neighborhoods that--yes--gentrify it increase the taxable value of real estate in the City, which in turn enables the City to program more dollars for goods and services that benefit all of its residents (parks, schools, infrastructure, etc.). Higher and better uses of our parking lots, vacant lots, and condemned/antiquated properties is good for everyone.
Northeastern University is not the developer of 840 Columbus Avenue: American Campus Communities (ACC) is. And ACC, as a private developer, is not exempt from paying taxes to the City of Boston for this residence hall, even if it leases the beds to Northeastern. I noted this in a previous post up thread: Acc pays millions of dollars in taxes to City of Boston for Lightview. So Northeastern isn't withholding squat from this: there is a long-established demand for more on-campus housing, and the partnership NU strikes with private development partners like ACC and Phoenix Development (East Village) enables them to address that demand while simultaneously freeing up thousands (at this point) of beds in abutting neighborhoods for prospective, non-student renters, AND adding to the city's coffers.
As for Easton-Calabria's last remark, I want to note that the
NU Residency Requirement applies only to first and second year students and there remains no shortage of antiquated, far-from-luxurious housing stock on campus at cheaper price points for more frugal students (the Stetsons, Speares, Whites, Willises, et al). I also want to note that the cost of housing on campus or off campus isn't news: the universities have been incredibly transparent for years as to the costs of different residence halls and informing prospective students about the costs of attending/living at the school(s). #buyerbeware
