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Student Housing
The recent focus on student housing by the city of Duluth, has raised the question: what are other college towns in the state of Minnesota doing?
BY AMANDA DANIELS
STATESMAN STAFF WRITER
iISSUE: 78/26
TYLER SWEENEY / STATESMAN
Illustration showing one of the
proposed solutions to Duluth’s
student housing.
Much of recent Duluth’s City Council meeting discussions consist of the 300-foot rule ordinance. Not only is this the talk of city council meetings, but also around Duluth and campus. If all of this 300-foot rule talk is such a big topic of conversation in Duluth, what are other college campus’s doing to control student population in other cities? “The 300-foot rule is not all that common,” Councilor at Large member Jim Stauber said. “Most communities with this issue have changed the definition of ‘family’ in order to control the number of renters in a single family dwelling.”
Minnesota has several large colleges; Minnesota State University (MSU) in Mankato is one of them. They do not have a 300-foot rule, but something a little similar. “In Mankato, we have an ordinance that allows only two unrelated people per dwelling unit in a R-1 or single family home district,” Micheal Laven, president of Mankato City Council said. “We also require off-street parking as part of the rental property use. That helps with traffic and parking concerns for the entire block.”
The Twin Cities campus doesn’t have a 300-foot rule either. “Minneapolis, like most cities, controls land use through their zoning code,” Jan Morlock said, responding on behalf of the U of M’s President Robert Bruininks. “This does not state what properties may be rented, but rather regulates density of housing, number of parking spaces required per unit and similar elements that lead to decisions by property owners how to use their land.” The city of St. Paul tried to create an ordinance like the 300-foot rule, according to Morlock. “A council member in the city of St. Paul put up a trial balloon on a similar ordinance about five years ago. The idea never reached the stage of a proposed ordinance,” Morlock said.
St. Cloud State University’s campus is approximately the same size as UMD’s; they don’t have a 300-foot ordinance either. “The city of St. Cloud does not have a density or proximity restriction for rental dwellings. A community-based task force has recently considered this concept, but has recommended not pursuing such a regulation,” Matt Glaesman, AICP Community Development and Planning Director of St. Cloud said. The new ordinance proposal in Duluth, according to Stauber, would limit the 300-foot rule to only a large area around campus and remove the requirement for other area’s of the city. MSU follows something close to this idea. “We do zone several areas near MSU-Mankato that allows for higher density of housing [three, four or five roommates]. That has also helped lower the impact on rental property in single family neighborhoods,” Laven said.
The 300-foot rule, as told in the Statesman two weeks ago, is a spacing requirement that puts a limit on where rented homes can be placed in Duluth. The ordinance would say that no two or more single family rented homes can be placed within 300 feet from one another. Senior Stacy Jorgenson believes the ordinance isn’t all that bad of an idea. “I am involved with the Student Legislative Coalition, and one of our initiatives is the development of a student housing district plan,” Jorgenson said. “This ordinance assists with pushing the students toward an area where we can have student housing. I believe that this ordinance isn’t as terrible as it appears to be to some students.”
City council members tabled the new 300-foot ordinance March 24 until May 27, asking the planning commission to create a Blue Ribbon Panel of parties that have a stake in the issue and suggest changes to the rule, according to Stauber.
