City of Evanston Blog
Thoughts on Housing Occupancy Issues
A good part of last week was spent on reports of City enforcement strategies of housing rental occupancy laws in Evanston. The City issued a release that goes over the specifics.
It was a frustrating series of events. Many renters in Evanston are students at Northwestern University. The student newspaper, the Daily Northwestern, wrote an article Tuesday that started a chain of events that played out over the next several days. The article stated that the City would start enforcing a law banning three unrelated persons from living together on July 1 that would force landlords to evict hundreds if not thousands of students. The article said that the City has never enforced this law before and NU officials were quoted as encouraging students to move further away from campus to avoid the law. Wow.
In addition, the Daily called this law the "Brothel Law." Double Wow.
I read the article early Tuesday and laughed out loud.
It contained misinformation, incomplete information, a dose of sensationalism and tabloid journalism that I was surprised to see from the Daily, while combined with interesting background on the issue in other communities. I'll admit I didn't think much else of it the rest of the day.
I was at home Tuesday evening when I got a call from a member of my staff that attended a town hall meeting on campus that night and told me about what happened. At this point I realized that the Daily article had set off something bigger. The next morning at 6 AM WGN Radio was calling for comment and it was off to the races. I saw Mayor Tisdahl first thing in the morning Wednesday at the first of two meetings we had that day to discuss future uses of the Varsity Theater downtown. We discussed the meeting from the night before after the breakfast meeting. I had briefed the Mayor late Tuesday night about what had happened and she told me that she gave WGN Radio my number for comment. At that point, we decided to work on a release through the day to clarify the situation. The Mayor also wanted to write a Letter to the Editor to the Daily.
On our calendar that day was a second meeting on the Varsity Theater with Northwestern officials, including NU President Schapiro. After that meeting at 1 PM, President Schapiro wanted to talk about the housing occupancy issue. We explained the situation and told him we would issue a clarifying release by the end of the day. He was happy to hear that.
So I went back to the Civic Center and reviewed the draft release prepared by staff. The release had to do several things. First, it had to reinforce that the City had no plan to change our enforcement strategy. Yes, the July 1 date had been out there for something to happen. The reality was that the date only coincided with the action of pending code enforcement cases. Members of the City Council had asked last November that we put off final enforcement action that might lead to evictions until the end of the school year. That occurs in June, but somehow had morphed as a July 1 date. This is not the first time the City had ever done this to be sensitive to student needs, but was the first time it was widely publicized. It was this bit of factual information that became "the City will enforce a law starting July 1 that has never been enforced and hundreds will be evicted." Both City staff and NU officials did not catch the morphing of this factual information into something more. No one corrected the Daily or attempted to clarify the statements in the Daily before the article Tuesday or immediately after. By the time the anger and frustration of students came out at the meeting Tuesday night, it was too late.
The second issue the release needed to cover was that the law is what it is and the City will continue to enforce it. It is what it is and we will continue to enforce it. If students or other interested parties want to change the law, great. That is what democracy is all about. The Evanston City Council is no stranger to changing laws and if folks want to see a law changed, then the City Council has a great track record of considering a change. It may or may not happen, but will certainly be considered. However, until the law is changed regarding housing occupancy, the City will enforce it as it has for years.
The release went out. Immediately, the City was "backing down" and the Daily insisted it was correct all along. I didn't want to continue the argument since the issue seemed to have settled down, but thought a blog post might help for the wonkier watchers of town/gown relations to understand the situation better.
So what can be learned from all this: First, information moves fast and furious. The City reads all of the various sources of information written about us, including the Daily. When we see something incorrect or incomplete (despite sensational tag lines and other tabloid comments that make us laugh or unhappy) we need to correct the record immediately. Second, we have to make time to ensure that there is no creep or morphing of incorrect or incomplete information from any outlet. In this instance, we didn't do a great job of this and it created a lot of unneeded stress and strain. Finally, we need to work with community groups (including student groups like ASG) to get out correct information the moment we realize that something is out there that is wrong.
Lets see what this week brings.....
I have two concerns about the selective enforcement of this law. The first is the continued belief by Northwestern students that they are being targeted and will take their dollars outside the city of Evanston. As a former Evanston business owner, I know this to be a reality.
The second concern I have is that if the city is selective in its enforcement, it will result in a lawsuit which Evanston can not afford.
Many years ago, Evanston restricted how much on campus housing would be allowed by creating dormatory height restrictions during the landfill developments. This forced many students to rent out in the Evanston community which has been a huge financial windfall for property owners who rent units. This also inflated rental prices which bring a bit of hypocrisy to a town that advocates affordable housing.
If the city intends to enforce the law, it must do so fairly throughout the entire Evanston community or potentially face litigation. And if the intent of enforcing the law is to control off campus partying by students, good luck.
Just like there are smells near garbage transfer stations, tailgate partys near football stadiums, there will also be “kids being kids” near University campuses. And to use one law (brothel) to enforce another (loud partying) is not worth the ramifications – in my opinion.
February 4, 2011 5:21 AM