The Associated Students of Colorado State University have come to a conclusion about what they will petition to put on the November election ballot. They want the U+2 law to be turned into Me+3, but it is not that simple.

Jason Sydoriak, president of ASCSU, believes that U+2 is unfair to people who are struggling in the economy today, and he isn’t the only one.

First year student Isaac Morris, a biomedical engineering major, said the U+2 rule limits opportunities for the community.

“It complicates living, especially in a college town,” Morris said.

Changing U+2 would allow the city to better accommodate more of its residents, Sydoriak said.

“This ordinance would allow two families to live in the same dwelling,” Sydoriak said. “We believe that this would be more accommodating for low-income individuals. For instance, two single mothers would be able to live in the same dwelling, that way they could be able to afford it.”

Sydoriak and ASCSU have also decided to try and streamline some of the extra occupancy rental housing registry, which allows individuals to apply for a house to accommodate for five or more individuals.

“Right now, it’s so restrictive that over the ten years they’ve been in existence, it has only allowed for 30 homes to be able to actually get that,” Sydoriak said. “We want to allow all single family homes to have the opportunity to apply for this.”

Sydoriak also wants to make it a little bit easier for authorities to use noise nuisance ordinances.

“Those who cause issues with noise violations, we believe that they are probably more apt to cause issues within the community and take away character from the community,” Sydoriak said.

These proposed changes came after a lengthy process.

“We’ve written out all the language. So, what we will do next is bring it to the city to make sure that we’ve done everything we need on our end in order to get the right documentation so we can gather petition signatures,” Sydoriak said. “As far as the specific process, during that period up until the point that we collect the ballot petition, we’ll be doing stakeholder engagements. I’m already doing that with city council and other prominent organizations within the city. This will allow residents to better understand what we are trying to accomplish.”

Sydoriak feels these changes need to be made in order to better our community as a whole.

“We’ve gotten to a point where everyone has loved Fort Collins so much that population has outpaced affordable and attainable housing in the city,” he said. “The current ordinance doesn’t necessarily accommodate for those increases in population. We want this ordinance to actually truly reflect what the city has been trying to accomplish and that’s increased affordable housing and preserve the character of the city.”

The current U+2 ordinance is negatively impacting the community, Sydoriak said.

“This current ordinance U+2 is preventing individuals from living in this community and participating in it in a very constructive and citizenry sense,” Sydoriak said.

The power to change U+2 is held by CSU students, according to Edward Kendall, the director of community affairs for ASCSU.

“Students have a lot of power to change U+2 if they want to,” Kendall said. Kendall encourages students who believe in these changes to sign the upcoming petition. This ballot will launch and signatures will be collected beginning Feb. 23.

“I am one person, this office is probably somewhere around 70 people, but that is nowhere near enough people to get this onto the ballot,” Kendall said. “We need the whole force of the student body out there trying to help get this onto the public view. People can sign up to volunteer and actually circulate the petition and that’s the type of help we really need if we are going to see this thing succeed.”

Collegian Reporter Pamela Shapiro can be reached at news@collegian.com or via Twitter @pb_shapiro.