- Get
to know your neighbors. Sometimes introducing yourselves to
new residents in a student rental house at the beginning of an academic year is all that’s needed to maintain a good relationship.
Take a plate of cookies. Ask them to give the neighbors some
warning if they intend to throw a large party.
In
most cases, the students renting in the neighborhood are going
to be reasonable people who are at the college/university
primarily to learn. You won’t have any more reason to have
a disagreement with them than you would any other neighbor.
- If
you don’t already have a neighborhood association, form one.
You are not the only person who enjoys living in your neighborhood
and wants to see it continue to be a place that attracts new
residents.
It
would help if your neighborhood currently consists of a majority
of residents who own
their homes – but change still can be possible without that.
A
wealth of information on forming neighborhood associations
is available. Three of these many sources on the web are:
Phoenix,
AZ
http://www.ci.phoenix.az.us/NBHDPGMS/toolkit.html
Madison,
WI
http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/neighborhoods/howtostart.htm
Richmond,
IN
http://www.waynet.org/nonprofit/nsc.htm
- Know
that if your association is requesting a zoning change, properties
already used for a particular purpose will most likely have
to be allowed to continue that use. This is known as ‘grandfathering,’
and will ultimately make the proposal more likely to pass –
a good thing.
- Contact
your city’s Planning Commission and find out what is the correct
way of bring an issue before it. Planning Commissions usually
act only when they are asked to address an issue. If your neighborhood
group doesn’t bring it up, most likely it’s not an issue they
are planning to address.
- Contact
other cities to see if methods they have used to address similar
issues have been effective.
- Designate
one association member from each block to be the block captain.
They will be the person to personally contact each resident
on their block to provide information on the proposal, and keep
them updated on its progress.
- Be
certain that all people living in your neighborhood are informed
about the request to the city, and it’s impact on them and their
property. A half-sheet flyer delivered door-to-door works great.
Make it larger as necessary, but don’t go over two 8.5 by 11
inch sheets. Have key neighbor association contact phone numbers
and e-mail address on the information sheet. Have a space for
the block captains name and contact numbers to be filled in.
If
your association decides to circulate a petition to get signatures
of area residents in support of the proposal, be certain that
the block captains are the people who take the petition house
to house on their blocks. Block captains should be knowledgeable
about the proposal so they can answer questions. If any questions
are raised for which the block captain does not have an answer,
be certain that they relay the question to the association
so that an answer can be researched.
If
the proposal requests a change in zoning, it would be helpful
for the association to create a brief document explaining
the impact the change would have on some real properties and
owners in the area (i.e. Mrs. Brown, who owns the duplex at
137 Main and lives in half of it, will be able to continue
renting the other half to less than X related people.) Of
course, the association also should have the impact the requested
change is intended to produce clearly explained (i.e. Once
the zoning is changed, no house that is not currently licensed
as a rental property for more than three unrelated people
will be allowed be licensed for more than three unrelated
renters).
- Be
sure to contact the college/university student government to
have a face-to-face talk with a representative to let them know
the reasons for your request to the city. Try to enlist their
support – it’s been done.
- If
your request to the city may be seen as having an impact on
absentee landlords, know that you may be coming up against significant
opposition from them (e.g. letters to all property owners in
the area warning them not to support the neighborhood association’s
proposal – for some particular, possibly inaccurate, reason).
- Always
have good numbers of neighborhood association members present
at any city planning commission meeting where your proposal
is discussed. Letters from individuals in support of the proposal
to the mayor, council, and planning commission members also
are appropriate.
- Work
with the planning commission. It may be necessary to reduce
the area the proposal impacts, or alter some other element of
the proposal. If that will make the proposed change possible,
it’s a start. Often, once one area is able to get a change through
others will organize neighborhood associations and follow.
- Finally,
the college/university your neighborhood is adjacent to may
be convinced to actively play a role in maintaining the health
of the neighborhood. There are numerous examples of this around
the country. It is, clearly, in their best interest to keep
the areas surrounding their campuses appealing. After all, it's
what puts the 'town' in college town. Three of these are:
Duke
University, Durham, NC
http://www.realestate.duke.edu/echomes.htm
The
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
http://www.osu.edu/org/osucp/homeown.htm
Union
College, Schenectady, NY
http://www.union.edu/News/CollegeNews/SpecialEvents/1998-99/commplan.htm
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