While Colorado State University has continued to increase the number of students admitted in recent years, student housing has struggled to keep up, and now some complexes face growing waitlists.
After Aggie Village opened in 2016, CSU’s newest on-campus apartment complex, hundreds of students were unable to immediately secure a space in Aggie Village if they applied after Feb. 1, according to Tonie Miyamoto, director of communications for Student Affairs.
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Those who were not able to secure a unit for the apartments were given a few options: be placed on the Aggie waitlist in case space opened up later, cancel their application and receive a full refund of their deposit, move their application to another semester or transfer their deposit to the residence halls where space was guaranteed.
“I applied (to Aggie Village) in January and didn’t hear back for two months,” said Nathan Renshaw, a sophomore studying English and philosophy. “Then, I was waitlisted, (but) I had found somewhere else to live before then.”
Aggie Village was built by CSU in order to offer an on-campus living option, according to the Housing and Dining Services website. Because of its popularity, the apartment complex denied housing to many students.
“Students were notified of their apartment assignment on an ongoing basis, beginning in late March, once we knew how many of last year’s residents were planning to stay and how many were planning to move out,” wrote Christie Mathews, director of Apartment Life in a statement to the Collegian. “About half of last year’s residents chose to stay, so we had just over 500 spaces available for this summer and fall.”
Housing and Dining could not provide a specific number of those who opted to be placed on the Aggie Village waitlist because applications come in year round, and assignments are made on a rolling basis.
Other complexes faced pressure of growing demand, but with less students.
Rams Village, located less than a mile west of CSU, also dealt with a waitlist, but not of the same caliber. The waitlist size for different bedroom units did not exceed the number of units available, and only around 10 groups did not get a unit. The apartment complex established a wait list in order to give its current residents time to renew their lease.
Nicole Mizer, the community manager of Rams Village Apartments, believes that with the housing projects and current housing opportunities in the Fort Collins area, there is not a shortage of housing available.
“Timing can be a key factor for students depending on the type of housing they are wanting to lease,” Mizer wrote in an email to the Collegian. “I do not think there is a shortage of apartments available to CSU Students, especially with all the new housing, both geared directly for students and traditional, that is in the works to come online in the next 12 months.”
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Another apartment complex geared to CSU students, State on Campus Apartments, avoids the issue of wait-listing by stopping the signing of leases once a type of unit filled up.
“This year there was not a wait list for the property,” wrote Aaron Worley, leasing director for State on Campus Apartments, in an email to the Collegian. “There were certain unit types that we ran out of early on in the season and there was an internal wait list for those, that if a desired unit type became available for a future resident that was not available when they signed, they could be transferred to that unit prior to move-in.”
Because of high demand, Aggie Village has started planning to build another apartment complex that is similar in lifestyle.
“The popularity of Aggie Village will influence our next housing project, which is slated for the Aylesworth/Newsom site,” wrote Mari Strombom, interim executive director for Housing & Dining Services. “We will begin planning next month and no date is set yet for groundbreaking, but now that Aggie Village has been open for a full year and we know that demand is high, we will plan to continue to build and renovate housing that appeals to students in a similar way.”
Julia Trowbridge can be reached at news@collegian.com or on twitter @chapin_jules.
Editor’s Note: In a previous version of this article, Aggie Village was twice referred to as “off-campus” housing. It is located on campus.
Editor’s Note: In a previous version of this article, the students who were unable to immediately secure a space in Aggie Village were incorrectly referred to as being waitlisted for the complex. These students were not necessarily placed on a waitlist, but were unable to secure an immediate space.
