Neighborhood representatives have heard this before, but hopefully UK officials are serious this time about striking a balance with enrollment growth
For many people scattered throughout the neighborhoods surrounding Chevy Chase, this might seem like a recently re-opened conversation. However, for those who have been living in the long shadow of UK, there has been a persistent attempt, spanning the last 20 years, to engage the “People with the Power” in a dialogue that gives consideration to the impact of the university’s growth on their surrounding communities.
A lot of residents of the neighborhoods that border campus feel they have either been babbling in tongues, or talking amongst themselves, for all the attention they have received. Meanwhile, university officials have pressed on with their own goals of expansion, dispassionate to the cries of pain and anger emanating all around them. There have been lots of conversations going on, but not all parties were listening.
The voices of indignation became louder and more strident over the last few years, as those living in these small, charming, older, affordable houses adjacent to the university have watched their environment radically change - for the worse. Many residents who still remain have lived in their homes for over 20 years - some 50 years. A widow on Oldham Avenue has been there since she was a young newly-wed bride just after WWII, raised her family and looked forward to the ease of retirement in a home that had been paid for and offered urban amenities located in a village-like environment. Instead, she is one of a few owner-occupants still holding out, stranded and surrounded by a roiling sea of student rental properties, accommodating numerous young people out from under parental supervision for the first time.
Houses that are zoned R-1 (single family) have been subjected to unnatural stresses that were never anticipated in their original design. Parking is a mess, trash is horrific, noise is constant, sewer issues are a disaster, landscaping is neglected, and green space has been replaced with asphalt.
The cause? The University of Kentucky has steadily increased its student enrollment, up by 500 this year, so that it now clocks in around 26,000, all the while failing to address the somewhat obvious and urgent questions of “where to accommodate all these young people, how to provide access to amenities, and where in the world will they park all their SUVs?”
The result? The opportunity to provide off-campus housing was suddenly recognized by landlords and developers who scooped up the reasonably priced single-family homes in the neighborhoods surrounding the college, turning them into boarding houses and dormitories by building large vinyl additions and paving back yards. Intuit to the basic needs of a student, they provided sleeping quarters for sometimes as many as 12 young academicians and parking for their many vehicles.
The other problem(s)? The city council has for many years been dominated by a group of elected officials who appear consistently pro-development in their voting pattern.
The effect? Pressure for student housing continued to increase on the areas surrounding the university. Homes that had been owner-occupied for years systematically morphed and whole neighborhoods became rental accommodation where the ever-changing rental occupants’ priorities were out of sync with the remaining owner-occupant stalwarts.
Many saw the storm clouds gathering, sold up and fled. Unfortunately they unintentionally contributed to the prevailing winds. Others battened down the hatches, invested in life jackets, extra batteries, built levees and committed to the long haul.
One of the first desperate efforts to stave the swelling tide was an attempt by a group of neighborhoods to seek the H-1 Historic Zone overlay. It was seen as the only straw available to grasp when pitted against the relentless onslaught of bulldozers and the indifference of the university to take care of its own.
Of course, not everyone saw this zone overlay as the solution to restricting vinyl additions and the rental invasion. Many involved in the democratic process were landlords already invested in the neighborhoods. It became a bitter and divisive neighborhood civil war.
The zone application failed in council. But, six years later, those same neighborhoods have been left weakened, suspicious of each other and dysfunctional because of this battle. There has been no kiss and make up.
Anticipating the wave crashing, 3rd District Council Member Diane Lawless worked with neighborhood advocates and colleagues to draft a Zone Ordinance Text Amendment (ZOTA). This involved lots of redefinitions of words and terms, such as “single family,” which ultimately provided a set of new clarified restrictions to non-related individuals living in an R-1 zoned single-family residential home.
Meanwhile other groups such as Town and Gown Commission and the University Neighborhood Advisory Council (UNAC) were beginning to hear the persistent piping in their ear. Suddenly there were concerns that whole neighborhoods might turn into student ghettos. There were already examples of this having happened in other urban placed university campuses.
From the initiative of these think tanks, a collaborative group was formed comprising the University of Kentucky, Transylvania University, KCTC and The Blue Grass Trust as contributing stakeholders in a $45,000 study undertaken by Omar Blaik and his company U3 Ventures.
Over a period of about nine months, Omar Blaik and his colleagues met many times with neighborhood and city representatives, as well as their sponsors. Their charge was to find a way that “The University of Kentucky, Transylvania University, and the Bluegrass Community and Technical College could act as leaders in the creation of a strategic vision to leverage their economic impact and better integrate with their surrounding neighborhoods.” It was understood to be a collaborative exercise.
Their findings and recommendations were made available in April 2012.
Many neighborhood representatives who had given of their time and thoughtful input in this study were pleased to see that some of the suggestions made were.
Then there was the long summer silence, broken by the Aug. 28 issue of the Kentucky Kernel announcing that Omar Blaik was out and Sasaki, a Massachusetts firm, was in and engaged to update the UK Master Plan for the basic fee of $340,000. There was no promise to integrate the many researched and valid recommendations made by by Omar Blaik’s U3 Ventures that had attempted to be a report engaging all stakeholders.
So now there is the New, New, New UK Campus Master Plan. Click here to see it.
The last one was created in 2002 and Ayers Saint Gross was commissioned to focus on creating academic communities, connections to downtown Lexington and growing sustainability.
Much has been made about involving all interested parties in the latest process, claiming that the success of the master plan requires that it respond to the needs, values and aspirations of the university community; that consultation with the university’s faculty, staff, and students, residential and retail neighbors and government partners is an essential element of the master planning process; That the process has been structured to encourage and facilitate input by incorporating online survey tools, individual interviews, public forums and work sessions with the Master Planning Committee and Board of Trustees.
Topics to be discussed are to include increasing the residential capacity, accommodating enrollment growth, strengthening town-gown relationships and enhancing the “student experience.” But in many neighborhoods adjacent to campus, this “experience” has been defined as the right to party all night, litter, get drunk, park wherever, and generally do whatsoever they damn well please – so possibly not such a good goal in the discussions.
The master plan schedule will be developed over a six month period and involve these phases.
Phase A: Housing Framework Priority and Campus Assessment
Phase B: Collaboration
Phase C: Recommendations
Phase D: Document Production
Phase A is already underway and includes the gathering (again) of information by interviewing and surveying internal and community stakeholders. Presentations and meetings have been held with groups of area neighborhoods. Opportunities have been encouraged to voice concerns, but so far there is no new aria being sung.
The issues remain: UK’s alcohol policy, parking, storm-water runoff, historic preservation, density and UK’s attitude toward its residential neighbors.
For those who have lived in the neighborhoods around campus for some time, this is deju vu experience number three. However, meetings, forums and the opportunity to provide input is still somewhat new and shiny, but not necessarily to be trusted or seen as anything more than Greeks bearing gifts.
The only thing different is the president.
Dr. Eli Capilouto talks about his commitment to improving neighborhood conditions by recognizing UK’s responsibilities to its students. He says he walks the neighborhoods, sometimes late at night. So now it remains to be seen if he can combine the walk and the talk.
Kate Savage is a member of the Columbia Heights Neighborhood Association.