Anyone who has been here for more than a semester has probably heard the term “great and good,” a term which stems from University President Jim Ryan’s 2030 plan. The plan seeks to position the University to be the leading public university in the country. A key part of this plan is establishing second-year residential communities on Grounds and requiring second-year students — in addition to first-year students — to live on Grounds. To accomplish this goal, the University plans to build two new residence halls on Emmet Street and Ivy Road for second-years.
The first site is on the intersection of Emmet Street and Massie Road, a 16-acre area next to the Lambeth Field Apartments and the former site of the University Gardens. This project will be the site of 900 to 1,200 beds as well as a dining area. The second site is located in the Emmet Ivy Corridor near the new School of Data Science, with the expectation of housing 600 to 800 students. These new developments and the broader requirement, if successful, will hopefully help alleviate some of the existing housing challenges in the Charlottesville community while also fostering tight-knit, student communities on Grounds.
But while the University has taken up the responsibility of alleviating housing prices, there is no reason to unequivocally trust the University’s ability to house first- and second-year students. Right now, the current state of on-Grounds housing paints a foreboding picture for the future requirement for all second-years to live on Grounds — from low quality of infrastructure to a lack of transparency from administrators. In fact, expanding the housing requirement from first year to second year may only exacerbate these challenges if the administration does not begin to adapt more appropriately.
From a student perspective, the University’s current housing system is ill-equipped to handle an influx of more students. Currently, the University requires that all first-year students live on Grounds, but these living experiences can be adequately summarized as a lottery — students’ housing experiences can range from beautiful modern interiors, to infrastructural nightmares. For example, issues with mold plague student housing. First-year dorms, including but not limited to Woody, Cauthen and Fitzhugh, are perpetually permeated with mold — at least for every fall semester I have been at the University. Upperclassmen dorms such as Bice House and Lambeth Field Apartments have experienced renovations to heating systems and additional refurbishments. Yet, upperclassmen residents continue to grapple with similar mold issues that first years know all too well. And while this issue may be written off as a humorous rite of passage, this remains a serious health concern for residents to which administration has not responded.
Besides the pervasive mold issues, other daunting incidents demonstrate the University’s failure to maintain the safety of housing and health of residents. In Spring 2023, Brown College flooded with sewage, endangering students with contamination and damage to personal property. Last semester, Bice’s basement flooded with half a foot of water. Even the brand-new upperclassmen housing on Brandon Avenue, Gaston and Ramazani Houses, have faced constant fire alarms for seemingly no reason. These problems cannot be fixed by remediation or “changing resident behavior” as the University has previously argued for, nor can they be fixed by passing the problems to Facilities Management. The problems are systematic. It will take proactive action on the University’s part — such as they did with the $95 million Old Dorms renovation — to improve the existing housing options currently open to second-year and upperclassmen housing.
Instead of improving the dire state of existing infrastructure, however, the University has shifted attention away from it and chosen to expand. The goal of building enough housing to house all second-year students as outlined in the 2030 Plan cannot be accomplished, considering the current condition of upperclassmen housing. Expanding without upholding basic expectations of health and safety is a clear failure of maintaining a safe housing environment for all of the students choosing to live on-Grounds.
Considering the state of upperclassmen housing options, the ambitious second-year housing requirement fails to account for infrastructural issues in dorms. But perhaps what is most ironic is that this project also neglects University’s obligation to the Charlottesville community, one of the main stakeholders meant to benefit from this project.
Last year, the University opposed the proposed development at 2117 Ivy Road exemplifying broader tensions between the University's growth and local residents and raising serious concerns about displacement. The University’s engagement with the community appears limited, sidelining voices from historically marginalized neighborhoods who are most affected by these changes. While the University touts its commitment to relieving the housing crisis it helped create, its lack of inclusive dialogue undermines this claim. True progress requires addressing the housing crisis in a way that uplifts all members of the community, rather than perpetuating inequities under the guise of development.
Moreover, current buildings, and future housing plans, promote an inefficient use of space which not only makes it harder to house all second-year students, but also facilitates a larger encroachment onto local communities in Charlottesville. A clear example of the inefficient use of space are the two new upperclassmen dorms, Gaston and Ramazani. These dorms combined only house a fraction more students than their elderly neighbor on Brandon Avenue — Bice House. Despite the size of Gaston and Ramazani, the two dorms combined house only 58 more students than Bice House — a dorm that takes up a significantly smaller amount of real estate on Brandon Avenue. If the University wanted to actually increase the amount of second-years living on Grounds in line with its goal to fit all second-year students, it should plan to make these brand-new dorms double occupancy instead of single occupancy.
In this way, it seems that the University is positioning its new on-Grounds housing to directly compete with surrounding apartment complexes iInstead of providing students with community spaces and affordable living options and instead of minimizing displacement in the Charlottesville community. The competitors that come to mind are The Standard at Charlottesville, The Flats at West Village and other luxury developments. These apartments appeal to students with single occupancy rooms as well as luxury features like swimming pools and fitness centers.
Considering that higher quality competition exists, the University’s goal to build new housing is virtuous — it is about time that the University increases its standards for on-Grounds housing instead of subjecting its students to mold and flooding. But while the University and its administration claims to champion both student well-being and affordable housing, its actions suggest a penchant for competing with luxury apartments rather than addressing the systemic issues it has promised to address. The primary goal of building these new dorms should be to reduce the potential impact a growing student population has on rent increases in Charlottesville, not to position the University to compete with leasing giants.
In addition to these community-based concerns, the development of new second-year residential experiences comes at the end of multiple other proposals by University administration which have upended the residential experience. Among these, the most notorious is the idea of dissolving on-Grounds residential colleges to transform them into designated second-year housing. Residential colleges currently host students of all years, each having an overarching goal to their residential experiences and communities. With Brown College providing an intellectual and quirky atmosphere, Hereford College focusing on sustainability and cultural diversity and the International Residential College housing 30 percent international students, each community is a unique, beloved experience by their residents.
However, last September, leaders of Brown College made their residents aware that the Office of Student Affairs would be voting to eliminate the residential college program. This led to meetings between student representatives and administrators, who said that no final decisions would be made for the remainder of the year. It quelled the panic at the time, but to this day, there has been no clear information about the administration’s course of action regarding the status of residential colleges. The primary issue here is the way the University’s administration has decided to make these decisions. Students, who are the voices of these communities, have not been given a seat at the table. There is a lack of transparency in the decision making process regarding this major decision.
The lack of transparency also raises concerns about the priorities of the University in regards to other living and learning communities, such as the language houses on Jefferson Park Avenue. These include La Maison Française, Casa Bolivar and Shea House, where students are encouraged to fully immerse themselves into their chosen language. Like other residential colleges, these spaces exemplify the importance of a well-balanced residential experience — one in which community and camaraderie is empowered.
Shutting down the residential college and language house programs to accomplish the goals of second-year housing would, however, be ironic for the University to do. The University’s objective of having second-years live on Grounds is to give students the opportunity to live and learn together, supported by their common location to develop meaningful relationships. This is the entire purpose of the existing residential college and language house programs. Though the land which the language houses are on could be more efficiently used if converted to second-year housing communities, the University will be setting itself back in its mission to support and cultivate student communities.
Through the “great and good’ plan, the University aims to redefine student housing. Yet its ambitions seem at odds with its plans and current execution. From mold-infested dorms and inefficiently utilized space, to a lack of transparency behind pivotal housing decisions, the University’s actions to remedy housing needs raises serious concerns. If the University actually wants to lead as "great and good," it needs to first clean its own house — literally and figuratively.
Apal Upadhyaya is a senior opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
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