YFS raises concern over rise in housing prices
Jacqueline Perlin
Assistant News Editor
@jackieperlin
The university is rolling out a new campus housing strategy over the next 10 years to renovate current on-campus residents and build more student housing.
Gary Brewer, vp finance and administration, explains that the university launched a formal housing review two years ago, assessing the state of housing on campus. In addition, students were asked about what they would like to see in terms of campus housing.
Some of the residences, notes Brewer, are over 40 years old and are in need of renovation.
“It’s not just about the price,” he says of the reason why less and less students are opting to live on campus despite the fact that enrolment numbers continue to increase. “It’s the fact that it’s not new, modern, or configured the way students want.”
The review was largely undertaken by Scion, a third-party group that looked at on-campus housing. It emphasized that students are more likely to begin living on campus if there are beds available that meet their needs and wants.
Brewer also explains that new student housing will also have an academic aspect through initiatives, such as ones that would provide tutoring for students in a particular faculty in the residence.
The housing strategy will be primarily funded through rate increases of 3.7 per cent, meaning that the price of housing will increase in order to fund the new endeavors.
Robert Cerjanec, vp operations for the York Federation of Students (YFS), says that while the YFS recognizes it is important for the university to renovate the existing stock of housing, they maintain that housing prices should continue to stay low.
Cerjanec also says that the YFS is vehemently opposed to private housing, noting that since the university cannot control what the private operator charges for residences, the fees could exceed upwards to $10,000. One would only need to look to the University of Toronto or George Brown College to see examples of such outrageous fees, he adds.
Brewer says that based on the reviews, students would be willing to pay more for housing if it provides them with what they want; having private operators on campus will provide more funding to renovating existing student housing through a lease fee, he says.
According to Brewer, another aspect of renovating housing on campus is that it motivates more students to choose campus housing as opposed to housing in the Village, where campus housing provides a safer environment for students who have access to staff 24/7, security cameras, and much more.
However, Cerjanec says that cost is an important factor in students’ decisions on where to live.
“Cost is a major determining factor for students,” he says. “What we see are a lot of students going to live in the Village really doing it based on cost.”
Changes to student housing on campus will most likely begin this summer after the housing strategy is approved by the York Board of Governors, which is necessary to approve the rate increases.
