More On Student Housing

So I'm back on the student housing issue yet again. Today, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG) released news titled "Inspections reveal high incidence of fire safety violations in neighborhoods surrounding university" detailing a crack-down on "congregated living facilities" around the university.

I find much of this article to be disturbing, but the biggest problem that I have with the crackdown is "inspectors moving down selected streets" which all happened to be around the university.

“So far we have inspected only a limited number of these facilities, but the results were alarming,” Newberry said. “These are life safety issues that must be addressed before there is a tragedy. In the last two years, we have encouraged Code Enforcement to ramp up inspections to improve housing conditions, and now we’re encouraging the Fire Marshal to ramp up inspections to make housing safer.”

It just so happens that this is occurring soon after students marched on a city hall meeting in opposition to the proposed housing plan set forth by LFUCG. It doesn't take a degree to understand what is going on here. The absolute and unchanging line from both UK and LFUCG is troubling. Instead of engaging in a legitimate debate with students, searching for solutions (even if this solution is not in line with how the city/university would like to proceed), the powers that be are pushing policy, coming up with new reasons why students are to blame.

Why would the university risk enraging students to get something? I have two answers here. Either whatever the university intends to do has benefits that outweigh the risks of an angry student population or the administration thinks that students will be apathetic or become frustrated by the myriad of methods employed by the university and city.

Branham said this is the first time in his 23-year career with the city that a Mayor has asked the Fire Marshal’s Office to inspect congregate living facilities in single-family homes, and the first time there has been a comprehensive approach by the fire marshal.

This is the worst part. I think the city needs to have such inspections, but the Mayor asking the Fire Marshal to do this stinks to high heaven.