There was a Planning Commission meeting last night, and the principal topic was a proposal to extend a zoning overlay on North Fremont from the existing overlay in the Starin Park neighborhood (those few streets to the west of Fremont, and between Main and Starin). The zoning overlay would prohibit more than two unrelated persons from living in a residential home (the number permitted is now three).
All these years, and yet there’s still no solution to concerns about student residential housing. There’s a reason for that: there’s a demand for student residential housing. Whitewater is home to a large university campus with thousands of students.
The issue hasn’t been resolved, and will not be, until Whitewater’s housing market meets that demand. Changing the economics of residential housing in a neighborhood will not change the overall demand in the city.
That there’s an existing comprehensive plan that consigns student housing to one part of the city or another means – practically – next to nothing; if it meant something meaningful independent of demand, the city wouldn’t be having the same conversation again and again for these last several years.
Hoping to channel that demand into the northwest corner of the city (as a higher density neighborhood) will only work if there’s comparative gain in meeting demand through construction there.
Municipal planning, through zoning or enforcement, is a piker when compared against the housing demands of hundreds, if not thousands.
That’s why Whitewater’s not yet resolved this issue.