In my opinion, there is already more than enough college student in Harrisonburg.  That said, a developer will soon be starting a new student housing complex on South Main Street near Valley Lanes.

So....maybe Harrisonburg needs a student housing moratorium?

Joe Fitzgerald states (at the link above) "We can’t flat out ban student housing, but we can stop rezoning more land for it."

I never considered that a moratorium on rezoning could be enacted.  Several questions then come to my mind....

Is local government overstepping its bounds to create such a moratorium (via *not* rezoning)? 

Perhaps not --- local government wouldn't be prohibiting development, just the rezoning for development.

So, local government is now making rezoning decisions based on market conditions?  Isn't a landowner entitled to make that part of the decision?

If a surplus of student housing creates a burden on the locality in some way (based on the new use or non-use of the old student housing??) then perhaps local government ought to factor in market conditions?

What does this sort of a moratorium look like?

Is this an unspoken stance of local government?  Or a drafted and approved policy?  Could this be challenged legally?

So, perhaps this all comes back to property owner rights?

Certainly, a property owner has the right to use or develop their property as the zoning ordinances allows them to do so.  But does a property owner have any rights when it comes to rezoning?  Are there reasonable, and unreasonable factors that can and cannot be used in a zoning decision?

Weight in if you have an opinion -- this raises more questions than answers for me.