On one side are Colorado State University students in search of affordable housing. They are squeezing as many people as possible into the bedrooms and basements of what were formerly single- family homes and calling it a necessity.
On the other side are Fort Collins homeowners who are concerned about the prospect of living next to unmaintained, high-occupancy rentals. They’re pushing for enforcement of a 41-year-old, little-used ordinance that limits rental homes to three unrelated people.
The issue has galvanized this city of 119,000 as both sides lobby for support.
Defining issue
It was the defining issue in Fort Collins’ recent City Council elections, in which four of the council’s five seats were up for grabs. The new council holds its first work session on the issue Tuesday as members start exploring ways to solve the dispute.
“We feel very strongly that this ordinance is a case of economic, class-based discrimination,” said Courtney Stephens, a student and president-elect of CSU student government. “In some cases, having an affordable place to live is the difference between being able to get an education and not.”
Stephens thinks the new council should use nuisance laws, not zoning, to control any tenant-related problems.
Homeowner Paul Anderson is concerned that quiet, tree-lined neighborhoods such as the one he and his family have lived in since 1979 will be adversely affected by student rentals.
“There’s a point where the number of unmaintained, high-occupancy rentals overtakes the neighborhood, and everybody else moves out,” he said.
Anderson supports the ordinance, as well as its enforcement. Five students live next door to him in a rental property with peeling paint and trees that were toppled by an ice storm two years ago.
“I called the landlord to complain, and his solution was to offer to buy my house,” Anderson said. “He made it clear to me he plans to own every house on the block.”
Summit Hall opened this year to house 400 students, the first new dorm CSU has built since 1967. In the past decade alone, the school has gained 5,000 students, and the supply of affordable off-campus housing hasn’t kept up with demand.
“It used to be that students went from the dorms to an apartment and then to a house,” Stephens said. “But in the past 10 years or so, they have been going right to a house.”
The ordinance, which was written in 1964, was all but forgotten until student riots last fall brought “town and gown” issues to the forefront. Police used tear gas to disperse a crowd of about 1,500 gathered a block from campus before a CSU football game in Boulder against the University of Colorado.
Successful in court
Students were caught burning everything from trees to couches. Cars were overturned. Street signs were uprooted. Beer bottles, rocks and eggs were thrown at police. Two patrol cars were severely damaged, and three students were arrested.
The riots, which occurred in neighborhoods with a mixture of students and longtime residents, resurrected interest in the ordinance. Homeowners, concerned that things could get out of hand, began pushing for enforcement of the long-neglected ordinance.
“We’re no different from any other community in that there is conflict between long-term and transient residents,” said Rita Davis, spokesperson for the Fort Collins Police Department. “From noise to parking congestion to property damage, there are different standards of living between property owners and nonproperty owners.”
Officers from the Streets Department respond to complaints about the number of unrelated people living together because the police department doesn’t have enough resources to enforce the ordinance, she said.
CSU student Jared Fredrickson was evicted from the six-bedroom home he shared with five other students after complaints from a neighbor. The neighbor made her case to a judge, who then evicted the students.
“We didn’t have any idea there was such a law until we got the court notice that we were getting kicked out,” Fred rickson said. “We weren’t rowdy. I think we were good neighbors.”
His neighbor documented the number of residents in the house and pushed police to enforce the law.
“We didn’t end up getting fined or anything,” Fredrickson said. “The judge acted like the law is a joke. But I did have to move, and my rent doubled.”
Thousands in violation
About 5,000 people, 71 percent of whom are college students, now violate the ordinance, according to an economic and market study completed in Fort Collins last month. Funded by the city, the study determined that finding new living arrangements would result in rent bumps of at least $100 a month, according to the study.
It also determined that an average home’s value is diminished by $1,200 by the presence of a rental home in the neighborhood.
Cindy Thompson, who has been a property manager in Fort Collins for four years, said she complies with the ordinance by making sure only three renters sign any lease. Even so, she thinks the law is obsolete.
“Things were a lot different when it was written 40 years ago,” Thompson said. “Properties are bigger, and families are bigger.”
Other rental ordinances on Fort Collins’ books refer only to health and safety issues, said Felix Lee, the city’s director of planning and zoning. “For a home to be a rental, it just needs a minimal amount of light, heat, ventilation and basic sanitary facilities.”
Fredrickson and his former roommates are among those who will be watching the new City Council closely.
“If things go our way, we’ll all be moving back into the same house together this fall,” he said.
