
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.