Amherst College (named after the town, not the General)
So the already squeaky tight rental housing market in Amherst, everybody's favorite college town, will get a little tighter this upcoming school year as the construction projects at Amherst College, our #1 landowner and property taxpayer, displaces 60 students from on-campus housing.
Sure, losing 15 apartment units out of total rental stock of 5,000 doesn't sound like much, and since the apartments normally rent for $2,540 + utilities, not overly affordable for families.
But in a town with a vacancy rate of only 3.5%, described by the Housing and Sheltering Committee as "well below state and national levels and representative of extremely tight market conditions," every unit matters.
At least the neighborhood will not have to worry about rowdyism.
9 comments:
Do you seriously think that Amherst College students don't drink or have the capacity for having a loud party? What planet do you live on? No need to respond. I know. The great Larry Kelley - always right. He's the only perfect human being I have ever met. Or at least the only one who has never admitted being wrong.
Okay, then I will not respond. (At least you spelled my name correctly.)
Yes, even anonymous posters know how to spell you name, Larry. Not too hard a hurdle to surmount. :)
You would be amazed how many reporters have misspelled it over the years (last I looked I come up higher in Google with the misspelled version).
If Amherst is to survive -- if it is to remain economically viable, it needs either more housing and/or bigger/better roads for an increasingly commuter workforce.
In terms of housing and transportation, the college kids are workers -- and the Amherst economy depends upon them being in Amherst and spending their money in Amherst.
Over the past half century, the big department stores and many employers have moved out of the congested urban cities because of the hassles of being there. Boston's "Downtown Crossing" -- Winter/Summer at Washington Street -- used to be a shopping mecca with lots of high-rise department stores. Filene's is now a big hole in the ground...
It is said that the UMass Students are smarter than MIT students -- while one has to have a high SAT score to get into MIT, one has to be a true genius to find a place to live at UMass. This is a hassle that already is encouraging people to "telecommute" and/or only be in Amherst a few days a week -- and eventually it is going to make other academic institutions more attractive to students.
The Commonwealth has too much of an investment in the 500 buildings at UMass to move the institution elsewhere. Oh really? These are the same folks who abandoned a lot of then-structurally-sound buildings at Northampton State Hospital. This is the same state government that ignored no fewer than three studies suggesting that the Medical School should be in Amherst, and that they had already built the housing for it (Sylvan), and put it in Worcester instead for political reasons.
Amherst is 2 hours away from anything a young person wants to do - and 2 hours away from where most of them live.
Let Northampton State Hospital go
The buildings represented abuse and mistreatment-
Their abandonment (and demolition) was well overdue
Are you actually contributing to society yet Ed?
Amherst College is on par with UMass percentage wise regarding such problems in town.
The only difference is that they have the money to keep the town happy. It's good when Daddy is the king.
But read it, they have to get Faculty references for each of the students looking to apply. Certainly that should help with the selection. Maybe UMass needs to consider something like that, or the apartment owners around town could. Perhaps part of the new "registration/license" process.
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