The Associated Students of Colorado State University, a student organization that oversees $2.4 million of student fees, began petitioning Wednesday at 11 a.m. to change the housing occupancy ordinance from “U+2” to “Me+3”. ASCSU will petition from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day for the next 60 days.
If the organization is able to obtain 3,400 signatures from registered Fort Collins voters, the initiative will appear on the ballot during the next regular city election on April 4, 2017.
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“(Petitioning) is a huge milestone for students that they have been advocating for, for 10 years,” said Jason Sydoriak, president of ASCSU. “Right now, the rhetoric of the city is that U+2 is a compromise. But, no one has ever given us (students) a seat at the table to actually put forward our plan. This (petition) is what we believe is a compromise. This is a declaration that we can contribute to how we define the city and the character of the city.”
The legal number of signatures required to get the initiative on the ballot is 10 percent of the number of people who voted in the last city election.
ASCSU’s goal is to obtain 5,000 signatures to account for signatures from people who may not be registered to vote in the city of Fort Collins, said Edward Kendall, ASCSU director of community affairs.
“Really the biggest thing is to ensure that they’re are registered to vote in the city of Fort Collins if they want to participate,” Sydoriak said.
The initiative proposes to change the current city occupancy limit to allow one more unrelated adult to live in a residence.
Current law allows: |
Petition proposes: |
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3 unrelated adults
1 family of any size + 1 additional unrelated adult
1st adult and dependents + 2nd adult and dependents + 1 additional unrelated adult
2 or more siblings (one family) + 1 additional unrelated adult Ad
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4 unrelated adults
1 family of any size, two additional unrelated adults
1st adult and dependents + 2nd adult and dependents + 2 additional unrelated adult
2 or more siblings (one family) + 2 additional unrelated adults
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*Explanation of the law according to Dale Wood, senior compliance inspector for the City of Fort Collins and the City of Fort Collins Website. |
Collegian ASCSU reporter Erin Douglas can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @erinmdouglas23.
Micah • Mar 2, 2016 at 6:21 pm
People should be able to live as many to a house as they want. The real issue here isn’t living, it’s parking. “free” parking isn’t really free. I propose metered parking, with 80 percent of the revenue from a spot in front of a house going to the residents of that house.
sharidue • Mar 6, 2016 at 12:05 am
If the issue is parking, that doesn’t make sense. I have neighbors that are a couple with four cars between them–2 people with four cars. That’s more than the three cars that would be accounted for in a U+2 situation
and that is not uncommon around here. So counting cars has nothing to do with how many people live in a house. If it’s about cars, then regulate the number of cars, no matter how many people live in a house.
Beatrice Krummholz • Feb 25, 2016 at 9:42 am
What these students are asking for isn’t “one more person” it’s over 30% more people. That is simply unacceptable in single-family neighborhoods.
The current regulations ARE a compromise. They allow households of three unrelated people to live in neighborhoods which were designed for (and which are zoned for) families.
Furthermore, since there are unlikely very many (if any) 4th or 5th bedrooms that are sitting empty, relaxing the rules will merely “legitimize” these over-occupied rooms allowing landlords to charge the going per-bedroom rate. It will not increase the availability of housing nor will it reduce the cost.
The majority of the city is already available for extra-occupancy rental housing. The fact that there are few such houses is what these students should be addressing. It’s clear that landlords are unwilling go to any
extra effort to apply for EORH permits.