Rethink College Park

In 2006, roughly 23% of the single-family homes in College Park were rental units. In Old Town (the area bounded by Route 1, Paint Branch Pkwy, Calvert Rd and the Metro tracks) about 3 in 4 houses are rented (red and blue dots above). This is according to a detailed GIS study conducted by Eric Raasch, former RTCP contributor and UMD Real Estate Development Student in 2008. A similarly dramatic percentage of rental units exist in the southern part of the College Park Woods neighborhood just south of Metzerott Road. The percentage of rental housing in neighborhoods close to UMD is a whopping three times larger than the city as a whole. Presumably the vast majority of these are student group houses. The student influence on rental homes further from UMD (like in northern College Park) declines abruptly as it’s subsumed by the larger Prince George’s county rental market.

These maps will come as no surprise to those of us familiar with the city. Students, for the most part, seek out low cost units as close to UMD as possible. The effects of the lack of structured on and near campus student housing in College Park fall disproportionately on about 50 owner-occupied units in Old Town and another 100 or so in the southern part of College Park Woods.

Some would argue that state should take on the risk of building the 1000s of student beds required to house the increasing number of UMD undergrads seeking to live in College Park. That’s a non-starter given that the state is unwilling and unable to substantially expose itself to further risk. The strategy of imposing rent control, denying further private student housing or apartment buildings that developers still see profit potential in, and insisting that UMD provide all student housing on campus (to no avail) will not improve Old Town. That strategy is a recipe for the continued degradation of all the neighborhoods near UMD; especially Old Town. It’s an argument that ignores the fact that nearly all the economic development in CP over the last 10 years has been driven by student housing developers. Without these projects, there would be no mixed-use redevelopment of Route 1 and nearly all these students would be living in College Park’s neighborhoods and driving to campus…

UMD is currently building a $67 million dorm on north campus that will house 650 underclassmen. They’ve also built well over 2,000 beds in recent years with South Campus Commons and The Courtyards through public-private partnerships. The Lakeland and Berwyn communities of College Park have accepted over 3,000 beds of student housing right adjacent to their neighborhoods (some are still under construction). Why is it that the handful of long term residents still left in Old Town and city councilmembers across the city are fighting against the proposed Book Exchange Redevelopment – a project that is plainly in everyone’s interests?

There would be next to no opposition to this project if it was occurring over at Applebees or up at the Knox Boxes, yet the effect on the area would be the same if the proposal was in one of those places. Why can’t Old Town see that the completion of all these beds (some next fall) will drive down rental rates in these complexes and begin to empty out students from the neighborhood, reduce traffic, enliven and reinvigorate downton, expand the city’s tax base and increase walking and transit use?