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bungocheese t1_it1sv3j wrote

Same thing they're trying to do in narragansett, which I'm pretty sure they haven't been able to fully pass

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sibly t1_it25yh7 wrote

Smithfield did this too. I never understood how it’s not considered discrimination under the fair housing act.

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The_Dream_of_Shadows t1_it26byq wrote

“We need to open up more space for our own residents, not college students. Quick! Let’s make it so that you can’t have more than three college students in one house, meaning that they’ll necessarily have to take up more buildings, which will likely still be in Providence, thus invalidating our entire goal.”

We elect unfathomably stupid people…

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Grainger407 t1_it26ey3 wrote

Replying to bungocheese (#151,494)

It’s in effect now. I think a lot of people are fighting it. But I know for a fact landlords are enforcing it.

Kids also getting around it aswell. Really stupid if you ask me.

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WrathWise t1_it27bf4 wrote

Replying to The_Dream_of_Shadows (#152,248)

Ironically I am now and have been a resident for 15 years thanks to coming here specifically to attend college. Love RI. (& I was born in NY, moved around, + lived out of the country so it’s not like I’m inexperienced in comparing).

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degggendorf t1_it29qoy wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#151,755)

> “We need to do what we can to preserve housing for our residents and to maintain our neighborhoods”

by........making students occupy even more housing units? This is doing the exact opposite of what they're saying they want it to.

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degggendorf t1_it29x09 wrote

Replying to fishythepete (#152,380)

I think the "quotes" in the previous comment were to denote dishonesty.

They might be saying that's their goal, but the real purpose is just to keep certain people out of certain neighborhoods...a tale as old as time.

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peanutj00 t1_it2a67h wrote

This is so fucking dumb. As if college weren’t expensive enough.

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abstractrobotica t1_it2crng wrote

I dunno, I thought this proposal was meant to deal with noise and quality of life issues, and not about affordable housing. I guess I should read the article. It will never pass.

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Grainger407 t1_it2g02y wrote

Replying to AleutianMegaThrust (#152,680)

Not exactly. A lot of kids are being forced to live with 3 instead of say 4 or 5. The owners have to jack up the rent to break even. It sucks. I know plenty of kids who are just “renting with 3” and having 1 or 2 kids stay there even though they rnt on the lease. It’s hurting the local economy and it shows. Kids will party regardless of how many kids live in a house. Personally, I think it’s a dumb rule and I can see it being turned over.

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Keelija9000 t1_it2gbpo wrote

Does this apply to families with 4 children living at home commuting to college?

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Zaizu t1_it2h88d wrote

Half the city are college kids this is idiotic

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pinkiepie1212 t1_it2he1h wrote

Are they just *trying* to make it harder for ppl to afford to have a place to live while going to college?

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karvus89 t1_it2jeml wrote

What a dumb proposal

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Moelarrycheeze t1_it2jpdh wrote

What’s the point? The kids are gonna party regardless of the occupancy limit. All this does is raise everyone price

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mpm4q2 t1_it2kn0g wrote

It has always been a law!

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dishwashersafe t1_it2m0nf wrote

This is discrimination plain and simple. So 4 people can live together if they're not going to college?? But if they decide to get an education, let's punish them?

>"We need to do what we can to preserve housing for our residents"

Oh so students aren't residents?? Fuck off.

And don't get me started on affordable housing... so say there's a 5 bedroom house available, but sorry, you're only allowed to have 3 students live there. Way to simultaneously increase costs AND reduce supply.

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totoop t1_it2mfjr wrote

Replying to The_Dream_of_Shadows (#152,248)

The reality is they are just pandering to the vocal minority of wealthy homeowners that are very active in the local political system and are tired of having rambunctious college kids (and probably just poor people in general) living around their neighborhoods so they concoct some BS spin to accomplish their goal.

I mean.....I could be wrong but I don't know what is worse; a political system full of corrupt asscracks that don't have the publics best interest in mind or a political system full of complete idiots that have no idea how their policies will actually impact the public. Both are scary and we probably just have both anyways....

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Swamp_yankee_ninja t1_it2mibz wrote

Keep voting for these idiots… so many fundamentals and rights being ignored and infringed upon, here I don’t have the time to list them. Buy by all means house 30 illegal immigrants in one house.

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D-Spornak t1_it2qmuh wrote

If apartments were affordable then most people would probably not choose to live with 800 other people.

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dc_dobbz t1_it2qscs wrote

This is unbelievably stupid, even for city politicians.

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Jerkeyjoe t1_it2qycd wrote

Not sure how I feel, but in my personal perspective, the dude who bought my building modified two 2 bed apartments to 3 beds, and is renting room by room marketed to students. I mean whatever, but I'm not pleased about the packing there's just too many people in too small a space.

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wyzapped t1_it2v9k5 wrote

How is this even enforceable? It seems so easy to circumvent. If kids are acting like animals when they are renting, then punish those kids (via violation of noise ordinaries, disturbing the peace etc.). Don't punish all students, and landlords to try and fix the bad behavior of only some.

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Open-Mood-3755 t1_it30vwr wrote

Watch them lose a giant portion of their own economy since no one can move here for college anymore. A giant portion of the incoming freshman batch ended up delaying or going elsewhere because they couldn't find housing, since the Narragansett "ban" forced so many students to live on campus. Plus, once their old ass rich benefactors die off, who's going to line their pockets? Who's going to want to move to RI because of the high cost of rent? No one wants to relocate here because cost of living is simply too high. Fabulous thinking dollface this is how you turn prosperous places into ghost town imo.

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peanutj00 t1_it31d35 wrote

Replying to chatendormi (#153,913)

How many other states have this kind of occupancy limit though? (Actually wondering—I haven’t heard of this before!) I came to RI for college because I got a pretty great scholarship which saved me enough to graduate without debt. Part of what saved me money was renting a beach house in the off-season with classmates. It makes sense to me that landlords would prefer students renting from September-May than having their properties standing empty until the summer.

I feel for today’s students because tuition and rent have both gone up steeply. I wonder what benefit anyone gets from this bill.

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ranchdressing01 t1_it38q4m wrote

What exactly would the proposed benefit for this be? Can't seem to wrap my head around it...

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christopher1983 t1_it3as61 wrote

tl;dr Here’s a relevant YouTube video on the Case Against Single-Family Zoning

Limiting the use of residential land benefits white people who own property at the expense of non-white renters who do not (even in totally separate parts of the city). The sponsor of the legislation represents Ward 2 (Blackstone & Wayland) which is primarily zoned R-1, R-1A. It is the whitest ward in the city with 69% non-Hispanic Whites. The areas around Providence College are similarly zoned very low density. The highest density R-3 and R-4 zones are found in the Wards 13 & 15, with the greatest non-White populations.

With this proposal, the Councilwoman seeks to further limit the use of housing stock in the already constrained residential zones of her ward. This is no solution for the city’s housing shortage.

Single-family housing has been recognized as a form of exclusionary zoning. Based on zoning map and demographic data by ward (see the bottom of the map) alone, it seems to have worked out exceptionally well for Ward 2.

Intentional or not, this measure would further limit the use of low-density housing stock around Brown and most other Universities, but will have its greatest impact in the knock-on effect it continues to exact against less-affluent wards. In actual fact, the cost of housing has gone up considerably across the city in the last 20 years, but has risen most sharply in Silverlake, Elmwood & Olneyville.

The repeal of single-family housing has been successful in many areas of the United States, most notably in Minneapolis & California. At the beginning of the year H-6638 was proposed in the RI legislature to do the same here. I think we should all pressure our representatives in the State House to make movement on this issue. We can all hem and haw about the percentage of low-income housing allocated within new developments. But let’s remember the housing affordability issue is strongly related to overall housing stock and that overall housing stock simply cannot increase within vast tracts of Providence.

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Proof-Variation7005 t1_it3cnf7 wrote

This is an excellent opportunity to point out that we should probably reverse the existing ordinance already doing this in single family homes already. I was shocked to realize that hadn't been shot down by the courts years ago.

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The_Dream_of_Shadows t1_it3i89n wrote

Replying to Jerkeyjoe (#153,761)

The thing is, this isn't about the packing at all. The Council isn't proposing this because they care about college kids being too tightly packed. They're doing it because college kids are supposedly "taking away" homes from actual city residents.

Which, in theory, should mean the Council would support more college kids per home, not fewer, in order to free up more buildings...

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silverhammer96 t1_it3mxny wrote

This would literally do the opposite. Limiting the number of students means the students would be more spread out therefore occupying more buildings. What the hell is wrong with our state?

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mpm4q2 t1_it3t9la wrote

Like I said dyslexic! What’s your excuse?

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Grainger407 t1_it3uv0o wrote

Replying to Desperate_Expert_952 (#155,762)

I graduated recently from URI. Some landlords absolutely enforce it. Others turn a blind eye like I said in my last comment. People will have 100+ person parties if 3 people live in a house or 5. It doesn’t solve anything other than make college kids lives harder.

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barsoapguy t1_it40vve wrote

Replying to Grainger407 (#156,500)

Could people sue the colleges then for the behavior of their member’s or perhaps the colleges could expel the students then ? If this is about the behavior of the students that should involve the parent organization .

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Grainger407 t1_it417l4 wrote

Replying to barsoapguy (#156,921)

Students definitely face repercussions when they live off campus. I have heard of multiple people getting in trouble with the school for disturbances/ breaking laws/ rules of the school. Sue? Not entirely sure.

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barsoapguy t1_it4198d wrote

Replying to Moelarrycheeze (#153,258)

Can’t they crack down on the schools then if them partying is the problem ?

If the behavior of the member’s of these respective colleges are out of control shouldn’t those groups be held to account ?

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Proof-Variation7005 t1_it4dqu6 wrote

Replying to bluehat9 (#157,141)

Maybe. I don't know how many single family homes are student rentals anyway. Most seem to be duplexes or triple deckers. Some landlords might disregard it if there's no enforcement, but I'm guessing as many/more probably don't risk getting themselves in trouble if there is enforcement someday.

Either way, it never should've passed in the first place.

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Aleyoop t1_it4mfvh wrote

Replying to abstractrobotica (#158,422)

There are colleges in those towns. URI students live in Narragansett and Bryant students live in Smithfield. That’s why those ordinances exist, people move to a college town and then get mad it’s a college town for some reason. But it’s true Brown has a lot of pull. I’m just saying, it very well pass.

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barsoapguy t1_it4mhfy wrote

Replying to Moelarrycheeze (#157,743)

Don’t the colleges have a code of conduct ? I know my company can fire me if outside of work hours I massive breach our code of ethics .

How do these organizations not maintain oversight on their members ?

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elporkco t1_it4mr8d wrote

There's something really messed up about a government, that tries to dictate how people live. And it seems pretty discriminatory to single out college students. They are over 18 and legally adult Are they not?

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DeanOMiite t1_it58ygc wrote

Replying to AleutianMegaThrust (#156,766)

I paid $400 for Bonnet for a couple years (four beds) and had a three bedroom at point Judith for....I think $450? Now I have a client (I'm a realtor) who gets $1000 per bed near PC (utilities included). Times have changed.

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DeanOMiite t1_it593ob wrote

Replying to Grainger407 (#156,500)

Right? I mean if anything it just means the drunk kids have another room to pas out in without worrying about sleeping in someone else's bed. It's not like they walled off every fourth bedroom.

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dishwashersafe t1_it5hhn5 wrote

Replying to Dextrous456 (#152,450)

Thanks for the links. That was a good read. Obligatory "I'm no lawyer, but" even without being a suspect class (and I'm not convinced they aren't), it can still be discrimination. The main argument as far as I can tell is that concerns about maintaining the character of the neighborhood are legitimate. Now replace "college student" with [racial minority of your choice] and suddenly those arguments don't seem okay.

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Dextrous456 t1_it6xviw wrote

Replying to dishwashersafe (#160,728)

I get what you're saying. It can be discrimination in a practical sense, but not in a legal sense, since - so far - they've only defined certain protected classes. Those are drilled into everyone who takes a real estate class. The closest thing to "student" is "familial status."

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dishwashersafe t1_it7aseg wrote

Replying to Dextrous456 (#163,853)

Makes sense! What about occupation or age? Those seems like closer parallels. Are they not protected in a legal sense? Can a neighborhood legally decide "we're a 55+ community now" and everyone younger isn't allowed to renew their lease? Can a neighborhood legally say no factory workers are allowed anymore because they're ruining the character of the white collar neighborhood? Maybe the answer is "yes", but I feel like it shouldn't be!

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powlacracy t1_it7br9u wrote

Where I went to college had a similar law, no more than two of us could be on the lease or something like that. How do you expect two college students to live in a 4-bedroom house? Most landlords didn't follow it. There was a very vocal part of the community who hated the fact they lived in a college town (something they chose to do). The cops didn't help either. They would go around to "introduce themselves" to try to figure out how many people were living in each house. A thing our landlord warned us about.

Laws like this only divide the community unnecessarily.

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Thick-Error-6330 t1_it7jsc9 wrote

As a college student, this is so frustrating. Some of us just want to find affordable housing, which means living with multiple people.

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Dextrous456 t1_it982un wrote

Replying to dishwashersafe (#164,932)

Age is definitely a protected category. I don't know how 55+ communities get away with it, tbh.

There are also different rules depending on whether you are a landlord-owner-resident or a landlord who doesn't live in the building. Most building over 3 units have stricter requirements, too.

Here's some detail.

The employment* and public accommodations statutes prohibit discrimination based on race, color, sex (including pregnancy and sexual harassment), disability, ancestral origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression and age. The credit statute, in addition to prohibiting discrimination on these bases, also prohibits discrimination based on marital status, familial status, military status, and association with members of a protected class. The housing statute covers all of the previously mentioned areas in addition to status as a victim of domestic abuse, housing status, and lawful source of income.

http://www.richr.ri.gov/about/index.php

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