To the editor:

The issue of off-campus student housing and its affect on local residents has been around for some time.

As a guide, most Ontario universities provide first-year students with residence accommodations which account for approximately 20 to 25 per cent of the full-time population.

The remaining second-, third- and fourth-year students are expected to seek accommodations off campus, which means living within our Oshawa community.

This is the flash point of the entire problem. Student meets resident and the rest is old news (loud parties, disorderly conduct, poorly kept properties, and the litany could go on and on). I speak with some authority on this matter as I was a university student in each of the last three decades and the location of my home for the last six years has been at ground zero, 300 metres due south of UOIT.

My purpose in writing this letter is to lay out as plainly as possible the realities of the situation in the hopes of clarifying the issue for all those concerned. In the end I hope to propose a solution which, while not perfect, may provide an avenue for compromise.

The university is here! We did not ask for it, nor was it adequately planned for, but that does not change the fact that it is here to stay. With the university comes some 5,000-plus students who need a place to live and given the recent response of several students in the July 11 Oshawa This Week, they want to stay close to the campus.

If you conducted a study of universities around the province I think you would find similar sentiments which would be proven correct by the fact that all students live near campus. For any of you who experienced university off-campus life this should be quite clear to you.

Of course these student houses that are popping up all come with the stereotypical Delta House clientele. In reality, these "bad" houses are few and far between but the possibility of having one next door has driven residential buyers away from the university neighborhoods next to the campus and has hurt property values.

This is the real source of devaluation. Residents in my community complain of parties and long grass but in reality they don't want any students living next door because they don't know what next year's crew will be like. For the same reason, no families will buy a home in our community.

Whether you have two, three, four, five or 10 students next door, the problems will still exist.

Of no less importance is the fact that some properties have appreciated in this unique real estate market because houses can be leased to students. The bigger the house, the more students it can accommodate and the higher the price it will fetch on the market.

With some ingenuity many of my neighbours left ground zero for greener pastures and are now landlord of their old house, owner of their new house and doing quite well. My point is this. As long as the university is here the neighbourhood I live in will be a student neighbourhood.

The economic forces at work allow homeowners close to campus (location, location, location) to lease a property at twice the rate of that in the outlying areas. The natural forces of the market are drawing students to these neighbourhoods (even at twice the market rate), changing their composition and providing homeowners a financial opportunity.

For more than 25 years municipal councils in Ontario have been trying to tell students where to live and it has not worked because the natural economic forces are too great. The Interim Control By-Law 58-2007 (http://www.oshawa.ca/documents/IntrimControl58-2007.pdf), which restricts residential development in our community will only frustrate the natural market forces and hurt more citizens.

By restricting an investor's ability to legally renovate a house in order to make it student friendly, you naturally reduce the market value of the house. No family in their right mind would move into this community and now no investor wants to either because they cannot maximize their profit through reconfiguring the house.

So this bylaw is hurting our property values and forcing (voting) residents to stay because their houses have sunk far below what they have paid. A second point around this bylaw is the question of where are all these students going to live? With no development in Ward 7 students will be forced into wards 4, 5, and 6 dispersing the problem over a wider area. Are you ready for the invasion? How many are coming? Has the city planned for it?

The Development Services Committee and its proposed bylaws under DS-07-214 (http://www.oshawa.ca/agendas/Development_Services/2007/07-09/2007_07_09_Agenda_DSC.pdf), among other things proposes to restrict students houses to a maximum of four students.

In the short term this would skyrocket prices for student accommodations by as much as 50 per cent sending students into the fringe areas of wards 4, 5, and 6. As an example, six students at $500 each is $3,000 per month rent. To make up that same $3,000 which the owner needs, four students would now have to pay $750 per month. Good luck all you students under DS-07-214. As for you homeowners at ground zero, you will now have four students living next door instead of six, there will be the same number of parties, the beer bottles, the noise, fast cars and long grass but the kicker is, you won't be able to get out by selling your house for a decent price because the only person who wants your house is an investor.

Of course an investor will only pay for a descent return and four students means if you want out of the neighbourhood you are going to sell at a loss. One other important fact often gets hidden in committee meetings. The university pays taxes, the landlords pay taxes and the economic benefit to businesses of having thousands of students shopping must be in the tens of millions.

That is why Oshawa wanted the university in the first place. Many residences are also directly and indirectly supported by the economic activity brought in by the university. Yes this economic benefit comes at a price but it is a benefit none the less.

As for the Tribute lawsuit I would ask the following question; 1. When someone comes into a sales office next to a university and buys multiple houses at a time, you, as the sales representative should... a) Take the money and run. b) Be concerned that they are investors creating student housing. c) See if Flip this House is doing a large scale renovation special. d) Turn the investor and their millions away for the good of the community. Legally you may have a case but morally you do not.

So you cannot criticize the plans of others unless you have a better one, so hear it goes: You can't stop the students from coming and 25 years of past experience says they will live next to the campus. You would have better luck stopping high tide on the Bay of Fundy then you would of stopping student housing.

By removing the interim bylaw 58-2007 and quash DS-07-214 you will make Oshawa investor friendly. The only way that the remaining citizens living in these areas are going to be able to get out of them is to increase their property value. The only way to increase their value is to allow their houses to be converted to student housing (The new bylaw prevents this).

In some of those larger houses on Ryerson 10 students could live comfortably and 10 students at $500 per month times 12 months is a significant return which of course would warrant a significant investment by the investor. With bylaws friendly to student accommodations, the prices of the houses in our community would balloon, allowing the resident to sell at market value or perhaps even above and get out.

Yes, of course, you will still need to enforce laws, bylaws, and all that other stuff but you will have to do that with or without your proposed laws. You can't legislate good manners or community values -- they are taught by parents, teachers and the surrounding community.

At age 20 many of us were probably causing a little trouble ourselves. Show some tolerance (be fair), pick your battles (be firm) and include students in our community (be friendly) and we will all thrive as a result. We might not be able to stop the tide but we can certainly channel it and make it an integral part of our community.

The proposals of Oshawa City council do not address the issues, fight against the natural laws of economics and hurt the citizens it wishes to protect. By making this town a true university town and accepting our reality, we can focus our efforts on looking for the opportunity 5,000 students offer.

Paul Vrana

Oshawa