Critics: Vast student presence muddies cost-of-housing issue

The notion that nearly half of Charlottesville renters are spending at least 35 percent of their gross income on housing costs is raising some eyebrows.

“The Census data is what we’ve got but there are some real difficulties with it,” said John Pfaltz, a research professor at the University of Virginia.

While the data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey seem to underscore Charlottesville’s high cost of living, many contend that the overwhelming presence of students in the city’s rental housing market makes the affordability issue more complicated than it initially appears.

The affordable-living rule of thumb is that housing costs should not exceed 30 percent of income, but data for Charlottesville shows that from 2005 to 2007, 47.2 percent of households living in the city’s 9,008 rental units devoted at least 35 percent of their income toward rent. The annual survey also showed that 1,697 households with mortgages, or roughly 22 percent of Charlottesville’s 7,686 owner-occupied units, were devoting 35 percent or more of their income to housing costs — something, Pfaltz said, that is probably a better measure for how those in Charlottesville are faring.

For critics, renters tell a different story — Census data has no way of filtering students out of Charlottesville’s estimates, and as such, many students skew data because they make little to no income or are still supported by their parents.

According to the university’s Housing Division, there is space for about 6,600 undergraduate and graduate students to live on campus. There are 18,666 undergrad and grad students enrolled at UVa this year — leaving about two-thirds of them to find their beds off campus.

While many point fingers at students for taking up so many of the city’s rental units, Wade Trembley, who owns and operates more than 300 city apartments directed toward student renters, said overbuilding has greatly grown the supply of student apartments.

“There’s been a lot of new beds added, more than the growth rate of the university,” Trembley said.

Trembley added that he thinks UVa students may have worsened the city’s housing affordability situation in the past, when rental units were more scarce, but that is not so much the case anymore.

“There’s been a lot of new construction, and in my view [there is an] adequate supply,” he said.

The data released Tuesday showed that Charlottesville’s occupied-rental units comprised 54 percent of the city’s total taken housing stock. During the survey’s three-year period, roughly 58 percent of Charlottesville’s rental units cost $500 to $999 per month, and about 19 percent had rents of between $1,000 and $1,499.

There have been several reports confirming the need for more affordable housing not just in Charlottesville, but the entire region. A January 2007 State of Housing report of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission — whose service area is Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa and Nelson — showed that by 2010, the region would need an additional 3,950 affordable rental units based on low-income renter projections.

Pfaltz said thousands of students living off campus would naturally affect the city’s housing markets, and possibly influence prices.

“They create a tremendous demand for rental housing,” he said. Plus, he said, as new facilities are built in the city, availability might become even more strained as students move in from Albemarle County.

“All the students want to live near the university,” Pfaltz said.

But Rick Jones, vice chairman of Management Services Corp., which manages about 1,000 rental units in Charlottesville, said the market for students is a distinct one that does not affect the need for the city to increase its affordable housing stock.

“I don’t think that housing that is geared toward students has any effect on the lower-income people, who are the most concerned about affordability,” Jones said. “Rents are pretty much market driven.”