Hopefully you had a chance to sign up if you're here to speak.

Welcome to committee on ordinance.

Today is November 13th.

And the time is 610.

Madam Clerk, would you please call the royal?

I need to call the role, but that's just wonderful.

All right.

So tonight with us, we have our committee members, uh Council Woman and Vice Chair, Councillor Peterson, as well as Councilman Vargas and one of councilman uh Royus.

And I also like to welcome Councilwoman Athera Grades who has joined us tonight.

So our councilman Goncao to our policy team and our city uh solicitor.

Tonight we'll be hearing testimony on student impact fee.

Uh there will be no vote taking.

We're just here to listen to uh your testimonies and your comments about this issue, which we know it's it's uh very important to a lot of people.

Um Madam Clerk, I have documents that was submitted to us.

Uh letters in opposition, letters in favoured, uh petitions, and also uh including a letter from Councilman Gong Cows, who will no longer be the main sponsor for this bill, but actually it'll be councilwoman Peterson.

Uh, would you please enter all of those into the records?

So noted.

And what that's sayed uh, we'll go right into the um item number one.

Madam Click, would you please read it so that we can continue?

Item number one is an ordinance amending chapter 13 housing of the Providence Code of Ordinances to add Article 10 student impact fee.

Thank you.

And before I call anyone, so I'll have the who is now the sponsor, Councilwoman Peterson just to give us an overview of what it is that she's presenting tonight.

Counselor Peterson.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Um, thank you everybody for being here.

We very much appreciate the opportunity to provide you the chance to come and speak on on this particular uh ordinance.

Um the quickest overview of this particular ordinance is a $300 student impact fee put forward to the property owner, very specifically property owner that has exclusive student housing.

The additional piece to this is data collection that we're requesting of the colleges to be able to understand how to navigate and mitigate the continued student expansion in all of our neighborhoods.

Um it's something that I believe all of us, whether we live in Elmhurst, Wanscock, College Hill, or Washington Park.

I think the opportunity to be able to weigh in as to how this looks like for the rest of the city and how the city kind of expands with this particular situation.

Um should be we should be able to do that and provide some substantive um policy or ideas moving forward about what expansion does in our neighborhoods.

The last piece of this is um excuse me, the data collection is actually we're going to be requesting that from the colleges as part of um some of the things that they should be offering the city with information.

I think as their um enrollments expand, I think it's really important that we understand exactly how their expansion is going to um to affect us.

And then the last part of this is the non-compliance.

The non-compliance of this is if you do not comply with the provided fee, it becomes a violation put forward by the DIS director at the discretion of the DIS director to then be able to up to $500 a day create a penalty.

Um this is specifically for non-compliance.

So I want to make sure that I read a couple of things.

These are the very basics of this um of this uh ordinance, but I do want to make sure that I hit on a couple of things because I understand that the narrative, at least in my neighborhood, has been a little bit forceful in in terms of trying to impact students and a lot of fear-mongering has gone on, and I don't necessarily want to um continue.

I'd like to make sure that we dispel as much of that as possible.

So thank you, everybody, um, for coming out to testify tonight.

I'm sure your emotions are high, and I know that not everybody agrees with what's being proposed.

Um, but disagreement is part of the dem of part of democracy, and if we're going to move forward as a city, we do have to start by facing the truth about what's happening in our neighborhoods.

What we're discussing tonight isn't about politics or personalities.

It's just about fairness.

It should be about accountability.

It's about whether we believe that everyone who benefits from our city should also share in the responsibility of taking care of it.

To dispel a very immediate rumor, student impact fee is not about punishing students.

It's about holding accountable the landlords and developers who profit most from student housing while contributing the least to the neighborhoods that they reshape.

In Ward 14, we've had to install more than 200 new parking signs.

We've had to clear drains more often in those particular areas, and we've had to respond to more police and sanitation calls than any other part in the ward.

Those are real costs and the cost that the city covers so that they can keep profiting.

Let me be clear.

This fee applies to the landlord, not the students.

It's $300 a year.

That's the number they're fighting.

And yet, in my neighborhood, the largest landlord collects more than $7 million using very modest numbers in rent in Elmhurst alone.

They tell students that this fee will be passed on to them while continuing to charge extra for cleanups, for adding fees to whatever property that's already in the in the apartment and charging you fees for whatever might be going on with the with whatever's in there.

There's added fees for pretty much everything that you guys have, right?

Um that's actually not necessarily really good execution of what it is that you're doing or what you're supplying them with at a modest fee of $550, which was reported by the largest landlord.

At 1,200 students, you're looking at $660,000 a month.

We know very well that very few students are paying $550 a month in rent, at least in Elmhurst.

This is not transparency, it's actually manipulation.

The money collected here won't go to the general fund.

Um it's not gonna get lost in red tape.

What I'm proposing for this particular fund for this opportunity for this revenue is that the funds go directly to the home repair fund, the home repair program that was started this year.

It helps our low-income homeowners fix code violations by making repairs and staying in their homes.

In a city where the median household income is 66,000 and the cost keeps rising, too many of our neighbors are one unexpected bill away from losing everything they've worked for.

This particular fund helps families rooted here, helps preserve, help them preserve in the neighborhoods that make Providence Providence.

This is something that's really important to neighbors in the city.

It's something that the city should consistently be providing for because we should be helping out our neighbors the most vulnerable whenever we possibly can.

Now let's talk honestly about the students.

Contrary to everything that they've told you, the city does value you.

The truth is that you've been caught in the middle.

Some of the people who told you to oppose this proposal are the ones who actually have fought from actually giving you this opportunity to speak today.

They're not protecting your interests.

That's them using your voice to protect their bottom line.

Democracy is about inclusion.

It's about giving everyone the same chance to be heard, the same stake in the outcome.

And that's exactly what this ordinance stands for: a fair, transparent and responsible approach that keeps our communities livable for everybody who calls them home.

This isn't about drawing lines between residents and students.

It's about drawing a line between fairness and exploitation, between community and corporate greed, between those who build a neighborhood and those who strip it for profit.

We're grateful for the donations, the holiday drives, and all of the symbolic gestures.

They do mean a lot.

They're generous, and they should always receive proper commendation.

But none of that offsets the displacement of longtime residents or the decline of neighborhood of the neighborhood quality of life.

That shouldn't be the price to pay if you're living in Elmhurst, in Wanscock, in College Hill, or in Washington Park.

Neighbors, students included, deserve to wake up and still recognize the street that they live on.

Students deserve housing that's safe, responsive to their needs, transparent and respectful.

Our city deserves leaders who stand up for both.

Eisenhower once said, a people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

Providence has a choice to protect privilege or to live by principles.

Because when we value our neighbors and we demand fairness, when we make sure that everybody gives back to the community that sustains them, then we can all move forward.

That's what this ordinance really represents.

This is what this movement is asking for.

One last thing before I end.

There's a paper over here that kind of dismisses the myth and a truth, or dismisses myths and adds truth.

Anyone can review it.

The definition of transient is a person who's staying or working in a place for only a short time.

It's literally the definition of the business model for this particular property.

And I'm sorry if it has become an incredible waste of time to continue receiving those emails.

That's all I have to say.

I look forward to all the commentary.

And I am always available to sit and hear the concerns.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Peterson.

Okay, so there's still time to sign up if you want to speak tonight.

So the first person that I'll call it, uh Mr.

John Garrihe.

Good evening, John.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, uh, for the record, my name is John Garrahee.

I'm an attorney uh representing Mr.

Walter Brownhart.

Mr.

Brownhart provides many residents of the city of Providence, including students with a place to live.

This proposal will obviously increase rent paid by many residents of the city of Providence, and is certainly counterproductive to the city's stated goal of providing more housing at lower rent.

As proposed, the so-called student impact fee directed at owners of property who lease two students is in fact a tax assessed not to recoup the costs of a specific service, but rather to collect revenue to fund broad government services and activities.

The classic definition of a tax.

It is punitive and discriminatory.

Why not charge all senior citizens like me for the use of the fire department more than others?

Is that next?

Why not?

I would point out to you that a similar student impact fee was proposed by the city in 2009.

It sought to assess a student impact fee of 150 dollars per semester on out-of-state students.

Notably, the legislation was before the General Assembly and not the City Council, because the city recognized then that this type of action is a tax, which requires General Assembly approval.

It was not approved then by the General Assembly, and this should not be approved now by the city council.

Furthermore, an impact fee levied by a city was before the United Supreme Court just last year to determine its constitutionality.

The Supreme Court held that such a fee imposed by the municipality is unconstitutional unless the fee charged was proportionate to the property owner's impact on the land use impact of the municipality.

The Supreme Court said that such an impact fee must be directly related to the purpose.

The Nexus requirement, the court said ensures that the government is relegated to further its stated purpose, quote, not leveraging its permitting monopoly to an exact private property without paying for it.

Notably, the Rhode Island legislature has enacted the Rhode Island Development Impact Fee as Chapter 22.4 of Title 45 of the general laws.

It contains several requirements that must be established before a municipality can impose an impact fee.

Many many of which are not included in this proposal, including the requirement that the impact fee cannot exceed a proportionate share of the cost incurred by the government entity in accommodating the development.

In this case, each property must be evaluated to do to determine the impact a single student has on the particular municipality.

This proposal fails that requirement because it is not possible to evaluate a particular student's cost to the municipality without engaging in pure speculation.

Mr.

Chairman, for the foregoing reasons and many others, which you will be here tonight, this legislation is flawed, and we urge this body not to adopt it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, thank you, Mr.

Gary He.

Uh next person will be David Baskin.

Good evening.

Good evening, uh members of the city council.

Um my personal background.

I am an owner at College Hill, you know, Brown University, RISD.

Um I immigrated to the United States in 1979, came here to Providence.

I grew up in Providence and went to classical, I went to URI.

I'm not an out-of-state landlord.

I am a person who grew up here and has not only invested in in the city of Providence, but I've worked very closely with a lot of you and try to make the city of Providence a better place to live, not only for students who live in housing, but also others.

In the early 2000s, between and somewhere between two 2010 and 2020, a lot of the buildings on College Hill were transformed.

Those areas were invested in.

We put a lot of effort and a lot of money and a lot of um sweat into that area.

And what we did was we come we made sure that we were taking care of those students.

And the amount of time, effort, and money that was put into it also increased the value of the properties, which increased the tax burden on all of the uh on all the investors.

Um there's a huge increase not only in the capacity of College Hill and the number of students living in a very small amount of area, and they're not expanding into the neighborhoods any longer.

You have an increased revenue for the city of Providence.

That tax revenue is as John Gary, he mentioned has been increasing every pretty much every three to four years.

The amount of tax revenue, the amount of utility tax revenue, the amount of sales tax revenue is really related to the amount of investment that we put into the city.

That tax is the tax that's being paid that that we're paying into is taking care of all of those facilities buildings that are five or less.

Some of my buildings are larger than five units, so I pay for all of my own waste removal.

I've calculated the amount of waste removal I spend a year is $50,000.

So the city doesn't do any of that on my behalf.

If a fire is called, I get a fee.

And we pay them.

The what I call unintended consequences.

What happens when you when you put a fee like that or other fees that you might be thinking about or rent control or any of those other things, what you're doing to us is maybe what you might not be even considering.

When you take a student impact fee, you're driving students to possibly live on campus instead of off campus.

We know that kid that students on campus have a have a meal plan, so they don't spend as much money in the restaurants, and there's an a down, uh there's a domino effect on the income of restaurants, like for example, in College Hill on Thayer Street or Hope Street or Brook Street.

We know that kid that students on campus have a have a meal plan, so they don't spend as much money in the restaurants, and there's an a down, uh there's a domino effect on the income of restaurants, like for example, in College Hill on Thayer Street or Hope Street or Brook Street, there's an actual domino effect where that revenue is going to go down.

If they go down anymore, they might actually close their doors, and all the taxes that are paid by those restaurants will no longer be paid.

There's already um open areas, there's open open restaurants closing on Ther Street, there's uh plenty of availability for rent for commercial real estate in that area in upright on Tair Street.

It's a very busy place, and there's still availability to rent.

You don't the unintended consequences that that might close even further.

The next thing that I want you to consider is as an investor in Providence all these years, there are gonna be we're not the only one, we're not the ones investing all of our money.

There's people that are supporting us.

There's the bank systems, other investors, and I've talked to them, and they said that if there's an unknown additional set of fees that are gonna come from the city of Providence, we cannot invest in you.

And that's me.

So if they can't invest in me, I can't invest in Providence.

So what you're doing is with those unintended consequences is you're pushing a kid that came from the Soviet Union in 1979 who grew up in Providence, invested in Providence, lives in Providence, provides incredible housing for students and non-students alike, takes care of them.

You're pushing me out.

Because I can't afford to invest in City of Providence without that support, without the banks, without the investors.

What you're also doing is unintended consequences is you're telling me that maybe I should sell student impact fee, rent control, sell.

That's what you're telling me.

You don't want me around anymore.

You want me to go to a different state.

You want me to go to a different place.

Should I go invest at URI?

I love College Hill.

I grew up here.

I invested in here.

I know everybody here.

You're asking me to leave.

If I sell to Brown University, there's no longer a student impact fee at all those kids because they're on campus.

There'll be no more tax revenue from me because there'll be a Brown University on campus housing.

This is a short-sighted proposal.

Please reconsider.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Joanne Ridge.

Good evening, Council Chair.

Um and committee members and counselors.

Um, I apologize, I have a tremor, so if you see me shaking, I'm not afraid.

It's just a medical condition.

Um, so my name is Joanne Rich, and I am here to speak in strong support of the ordinance to charge an annual $300 per student fee to commercial entities that provide student only off-campus housing.

And counselor Peterson was just lovely in explaining it.

Um, but I've been at other meetings where I've heard her speak about how difficult it is in her ward because of the student housing.

Um I'm I'm sort of bringing that perspective to this.

But um I want to thank the council for coming up with this ordinance and why, and I think this might be a different perspective.

Um, because sometimes the executive branch of government overreaches in a particular way that requires the legislative branch to step in to rectify a problem the executive branch has created.

In this case, I'm talking about Mayor Schmiley negotiating pilot payment in lieu of tax agreements with no impact input from the council, the state legislature, or the community.

Behind closed doors, he left millions and millions of dollars on the table in a way that proves yet again that he does not care about the working families of Providence.

All this money is not going to fund the very things that the city needs.

And I want to be clear that I have no complaint with any individual who would sell their property to one of the corporations near Providence College.

Who could blame them when they're faced with some combination of bullying and mile high purchase offers when their neighborhood has already been converted to an unruly, unmonitored extension of the PC campus with underage drinking, where emergency vehicles can't even fit down the crowded streets, when PC won't even meet with neighbors and just shrugs its shoulders when students misbehave and say, well, it was off campus.

I want to be clear that this applies only to dwellings exclusively inhabited by students.

That's it.

The real estate developers are explo around PC.

I thought it was very interesting what the gentleman before me just said, but I'm speaking about the area around PC, the real estate developers are exploiting students by charging incredibly high rents and putting stress on neighborhoods that were never intended to support the density that the off-campus student buildings are creating.

In fact, um, Strive is has found a way by right to construct a building.

I don't remember how many units it has, but it will have absolutely no parking.

I heard neighbors talk about that at the last Ward 14 community meeting.

So these off-campus buildings are permitting the colleges to grow their enrollments at the expense of the neighbors.

Of course, these corporations don't want this ordinance.

I saw the representative for the 02908 come prepping these young men as we were waiting for the student of the mismeeting to start.

Of course they don't want this ordinance.

As a representative of Strive said at the last World 14 community meeting, quote, our company exists to make money.

Of course, they want the students to be worried that their rent will go up by $300 per year.

I would argue that by buying up so much affordable housing in Providence, these corporations shoulder some of the blame for driving up rents citywide, such that working families have found that their rent has gone up by 100 per month.

Providence has the highest rate, it's the most expensive city for renters in the country compared to median income.

Yes, rent is higher in Boston and New York, but compared to the median income in Providence, the rents are the highest here.

Um Peterson mentioned, unless you're a greedy corporation.

If the corporations don't pass it along to their student tenants, it shows that they can be good neighbors and operate in good faith.

If they do pass it along, and this is a little snarky, I apologize, but I was pretty riled up.

If they do pass it along, I would suggest that the students, um, impacted students simply spend eight dollars less a week on alcohol, which might go a little way toward lessening the nuisance towards their neighbors as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Shannon Russell.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Um, Shannon Russell from the 02908 club, operations manager.

Um, it's my company that's being attacked and lied about here tonight, just to put that out there.

Um yeah in business, we've housed tens of thousands of college students, all of which have a choice of where they're gonna live, if they're gonna live on campus, off-campus, at home, in an apartment, wherever they choose to live.

99% of the time, if they do choose to live on campus, the fees are higher, the meal plan that they have to get, the room and board costs, um, things of that nature, plus they don't get to stay there for the entire year.

They do have to go home during the summertime, and not all of them want to.

Some of them do have uh summer classes and so on.

If I'm selling a product for 200, but somebody else is willing to pay $2,000 for it, I think we're still in America, and I think that people still have the right to decide what they're going to pay.

If the students don't want to pay $500, $600, $1,000, they will go to another landlord.

But that's not happening.

They choose to live in the area that we have created with student housing so that they are surrounded by themselves, but they do have regular neighbors as well.

Um, I'd like to clarify too that I did not need to prep any of our students to be here.

They know the facts, and in spite of the myth busting that was going on over here, which is not um the truth.

I have never exploited any of our students or anybody else that we do business with, any of the neighbors that we help, any of the community organizations that we participate with as well.

Um, so I did not need to lie to them, manipulate them, exploit them, or any of those those words that suit another person's purpose.

The emails that I send, I stay in regular communication with thousands of students as well as their parents throughout the course of the year.

And I tell them the truth.

It is not the landlord impact fee.

If the landlord is the one who's being punished here and being put these fines on, then it should be called the landlord impact fee.

And maybe that needs to be a landlord impact payment that we receive due to the fact that we are, as my company is, paying over one and a half million dollars a year in taxes that the city is receiving as a result of whatever we're being accused of of taking over communities and taking over neighbors' houses.

And prior to this past year, in 22, 23 years, the O908 Club has never knocked on a door and said, hey, sell us your house.

Things changed this past year when another developer came in and started expanding into single family houses in an area of the city in the neighborhood where we had promised the neighbors, look, we're not expanding.

When we're done building our houses here, we're putting a wall up and it'll shield you from the issues that you have, whether it be the trash, the parking, the student behavior coming in and out.

We were trying to shield everybody from that.

The other developer came in, uh, kind of blew that away.

So we have since, for a significant amount of money, purchased those properties so that we can have that same commitment that we made to the rest of the neighborhoods, and we can move the wall.

Well, we haven't built it yet, but to push the wall development over to another street again to preserve the neighborhood and to help control the issues.

Another thing about the student impact fee is if it's not about students, it shouldn't be called the student impact fee.

And when this whole ordinance first came to be discussed, everything that we were hearing was the kids, the parties.

People were showing up with pictures of parties that the kids were having on my properties.

Um, and it was being used against them by people who don't live amongst the college kids.

Um I don't know if there's anybody here.

I've never been at any of uh Councilwoman Peterson's meetings who've actually spoken against the students who actually live amongst them.

But every meeting I've ever gone to has been, you know, with people outside of the neighborhood uh who are trolling and watching them on their social media, whether it be bar stool or yik-yak or any of the other things, and using information that kids are sharing with each other as a tool against them.

Um so no, it's not a waste of time, them getting emails from me.

Um they don't always read them.

Um I wrote a tenant handbook that I've developed over the past 23 years.

It's about 76 pages, and it does include a lot of information in there about living off campus and then student life.

Um, the majority of people who show up at the parties um are on-campus students, and unfortunately, we have no control.

We also do have a magnificent relationship with the schools, with the students, and with the police force.

Uh, and if any of them were here right now and they have said it in front of many groups, that the cooperation that they have gotten from the college students, the landlords in the schools over the last six, seven years, especially has improved significantly.

And if anybody here is familiar or has ever experienced the neighborhood over the past 22, 23 years since we came up there, I'm sure you can see some major, major differences that that have happened.

So I had a much longer presentation, but I I used chat GPT for the first time today, and they consolidated it for me.

But those are just things in response to some of the other things that were said.

Um so this fee, like I said, is unfairly targeting students and landlords, and it's being framed now in a totally different way than how it was first introduced, and it was introduced as a punishment to the kids for the parties.

And if there's trash fines, the students pay for them.

If there's parking violations, the students pay for them.

If there's parties, if there's loud music, the students are paying for them.

The money that is needed has been switched a couple times as to where it's going to go.

It's been said city services and specifically the police, the fire, and the ambulance.

Um, for those of you who do not know, Providence College, and they're not here, so I don't think they're.

So I don't want to speak for them, but I can tell you for sure, Providence College and Johnson and Wales collectively pay over $300,000 a year for police details so that they can be out managing when the active times for the students, typically between Thursdays and Sundays.

Um if they were here, the police would tell you that any issues with the kids have been, like there's been weeks that there hasn't been any issues.

Then you have the months where the kids are inside because it's too cold and not months at their home for vacations and so on.

Um you got a million and a half in property taxes, 300,000 that PC and Johnson of Wales collectively pay for the police details to be out there.

And now the H908 Club is putting 100,000 into that pot as of this coming year, in addition to the other measures that we've taken, including security.

Um, as far as fees that are charged to our kids and so on, it's said as if it's a bad thing, but I think that that was what the city would want that if the kids violated any rules, if they destroyed our property, that of course we're going to charge them for that.

I don't know any businesses that wouldn't.

I don't understand why it's an issue with how much rent we're paying, and to be said that we are just I can't remember where the word was now.

Um but again, just exploiting is the word that just can't get out of my head right now.

That's the word that's bothering me the most.

And transient, yes, that was used as a very negative word.

It was it was said in an attitude and a mannerism to make it sound like it was a four-letter word.

And the word only came before that as well.

And it was in a negative light.

Uh, I was at the meeting when that was said.

Um the justification for this definitely rests on shaky assumptions.

The Halloween event that I'm sure most of you heard of, I actually supplied the four-minute video that my daughter's friend took because she was trying to cut through to go somewhere else and she got stuck there.

Our college students had nothing to do with it.

The police have since said that.

The media has since said it, and so has the mayor.

And yet the first thing that happened the morning after was that I received an email blaming my company.

Um, I received personal and professional insults and slurs and misinformation on the neighborhood Facebook page the following day where I was being personally attacked and blamed for this.

And in spite of the fact that it has come out that this had nothing to do with a college student, I've not received an apology from anybody who has made those false claims about it being us or the college students.

And I don't even personally care about an apology for me.

I care about an apology for the students because they have call logs showing that they called 911.

And I'm not saying the police didn't do what they could because they absolutely did.

But to have them be victimized and to have emails and calls and videos that these kids took showing that they were trapped in their houses because they were too afraid to come outside.

Um the Halloween event has got to stop being brought up in these conversations where we're trying to show and prove that this impact fee needs to be to be assessed.

We did surveys, we did a petition.

Over 1,700 people signed the petition against this ordinance passing.

As I'm sure you can see over here, there are several hundred letters of opposition to this.

And I think in support, there might be 10, maybe less.

I didn't count them.

If you have that much of a significantly different view on the subject, if you have that many people, and it doesn't matter what percentage of them are college students, they're the ones who are going to be affected by this.

And legally, yes, we have the right to pass on any fees that are that are attached to our properties for college students.

We do have the right to pass those fees on to them.

And if you're selling a business, if you're if you're selling a product at a business and the price from your distributor goes up, the price you're passing on to your customers who are coming in and buying your product or using your services.

It's economics 101.

It's simple, it's basic.

Ums frost okay.

I gotta wrap up.

Yeah, I gotta that's fine.

That's fine.

So um, anyway, I just I don't feel that the money should be going.

If there's money, there shouldn't be any money being coming from the kids or from the landlords.

Um I guess that's all for now.

Thank you.

Okay, next would have uh Kevin McKeaney.

Good evening.

Oh, good evening.

Uh, my name is Kevin Kevin, and I am a senior at Providence College studying finance and business management.

I want to begin by thanking all of you on the uh council for giving my peers and me the opportunity to speak on this proposed $300 tax for all off all off-campus students.

Uh first and foremost, I want to emphasize as non-home, or excuse me, I want to emphasize that as non-homeowning residents, we already pay significantly more, often two to three times in taxes than many of our homeowning neighbors.

Additionally, an additional flat fee on top of these existing burdens raises serious concerns about fairness and equity.

I also want to address the implications this tax would have on our local economy.

Many students are spoken with are genuinely worried about the financial strain this proposed uh plan would place on them.

The stereotype that college students are broke exists for a reason.

Many of us are working multiple jobs, budgeting tightly, and struggling to cover basic living expenses in some cases.

That extra $300 could otherwise be spent on supporting local businesses, uh, like restaurants and shops and services that rely heavily on student patronage.

Redirecting that money into another mandatory fee feels discouraging and counterproductive for a city that benefits from a vibrant student population, as you said.

Additionally, I want to highlight the disproportionate impact this would have on our in-state students who make up roughly 9% of our undergraduate population.

One of my housemates, uh, he was born and raised in Warwick, just 25 minutes from here.

He couldn't attend tonight, but he asked me to share his perspective.

He told me that that uh this proposal this proposal, excuse me, feels like a slap in the face, as if the city and the community he grew up in have turned their backs on them.

In closing, I just want to express my sincere concerns about this proposed tax.

While $300 may not seem like a substantial amount to those who are fully employed, it represents a significant financial burden for college students who are already stretched really thin by tuition, rent, and just everyday expenses.

Most importantly, the rationale behind this tax feels unclear and unfounded.

Why should students bear the responsibility of funding fire code updates for neighboring houses or whatever this may go towards?

Why should this burden fall on the population that is already contributing, as you stated, so much to the vibrant community of Providence, academically, financially, and culturally.

Uh, that's all I have to say, but I just sincerely ask the council to reconsider this proposal with these concerns in mind.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, just a quick question.

I apologize.

Um, thank you for your testimony.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, of course.

Um, if you could tell me what um what do you pay per month in rent?

Uh my rent is 1290 a month, I believe.

Okay, thank you.

And then how many um how many uh how many other people live in in your house?

Uh it's eight housemates.

Okay, thank you.

1290 a month for each.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Dexter Strong.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Can you hear me?

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in favor of the ordinance.

Um, I'd like to give you a little perspective uh from College Hill, what our experience has been in College Hill.

Uh, I've lived in College Hill for 13 years.

Uh, in the last eight years, we've had five single family houses in my immediate neighborhood converted to high density student housing.

Um it's also noteworthy that in the 10 years between 2014 and 2024, Brown has increased its undergraduate enrollment by 18%, according to the New York Times.

So, with these changes, we have seen a significant increase in noise and garbage problems in our neighborhood.

The biggest problem is really the outdoor backyard parties.

Um, even small gatherings of six to twelve students can be very noisy when alcohol, drinking games, and loud cheering is involved.

Uh, they get increasingly noisy as the students get more intoxicated.

These gatherings can occur at any time of the day or night, and during the warm weather months for several days in a row.

During one week in May, last May, we called the police three out of four days and twice on the same day regarding a single house.

The second biggest problem is raised voices and shouting in the street late at night.

On Friday and Saturday nights, we were woken up by shouting rate and raised voices at 10 to 11 p.m.

as the students head out to their parties, and then again at one to two a.m.

when they return from parties.

If there's a party at a house on the street, there can be large unruly crowds in the street around one to one to two a.m.

when the party ends.

We have tried talk, we have tried asking the students to quiet down.

We've tried appealing to their coach, asking the landlord to intervene, filling out prown community complaint forms, calling Providence police, calling Brown police, and filling out 311 forms.

We've had multiple meetings with Brown and city officials, and nothing has changed.

Since May of 2022, we have reported 89 student incidents to Brown and called the Providence Police 43 times and reported 48 incidents on the Providence 311 system.

60% of these incidents are from a single location.

Uh, two side-by-side houses with a shared backyard.

These two houses have been inhabited by Brown sports teams for the last three years.

Certainly, not all student housings create a problem for the neighborhood, but clearly there are a small number of repeat problem houses that create the majority of problems year over year.

We've been told by the Providence Police that they cannot provide the level of service that we require, and that they cannot issue citations for noise ordinance violations because of a lack of resources.

We've been told by the mayor's office that the nuisance task force only considers houses with cramp criminal activity, and there's no way to sanction or penalize repeat offending student houses.

We've been told by Brown police that they have no jurisdiction off campus.

Brown residence life does not have specific behavior guidelines for off-campus housing like it does for on campus.

For example, quiet hours or appropriate use of common areas, and therefore has done little to discipline the students.

What we have is a fragmented, reactive, broken system where no one is accountable, and the same problems keep repeating year after year with no improvement.

Unfortunately, the buck stops with local police, and it's a very inefficient use of city resources for the police to keep going back to the same houses over and over and over again.

Councilwoman Shelley Peterson's student housing ordinances are attempt to design a comprehensive, proactive approach to solving the problems created by student housing expansion.

Mainly noise and public safety.

She's researched what has worked in other cities with high student populations like Boston and Philadelphia, and has proposed a framework that makes property owners more accountable for the behavior of their tenants.

The student impact fee and the student housing licensing fee will provide much needed additional funding for changes, such as issuing citations for noise ordinance violations, sanctioning repeat offending houses through the nuisance task force, and providing additional patrols during the peak periods at the start and the end of the academic year.

If it works in Boston, why can't it work here?

It's very likely that the universities will continue to expand in the future.

What will happen if Brown expands its enrollment by another 20% in the next 10 years?

We need a much more systematic and proactive approach in order to protect what's left of the quality of life in neighbor in neighboring communities.

Shelley Peterson has done the hard work to create just such an approach, and I strongly support her proposed ordinances.

Thank you.

Nina M.

Hi, I'm Nina Markov, and I also live in College Hill, and I'm president of the College Hill Neighborhood Association.

We don't want to single out students or make rent less affordable or a burden to students.

That's certainly not the goal here.

But I do think the student impact fee has merit, especially as part of a package of measures to help regulate investor-owned student housing in Providence neighborhoods near universities, something we have been trying to do in my neighborhood for almost 10 years.

Students have always lived in apartments on College Hill, and that's great.

We love the mix of students and uh older people.

But in recent years, because of loopholes and ordinances and the rising profitability of this business model, landlords have been gobbling up family homes on the streets where we live, kicking out working families, turning common spaces into bedrooms, and renting these houses out by the bedrooms for by the bedroom for very high total rents, rents that are far above the market value.

For example, um a six-bedroom house was converted into a 12 or 14-bedroom mini-derm, bringing in something like 15,000 to 18,000 a month because they charge uh like a rent of something like 1,200 or 1,400 per bedroom.

So this is far more than these homes could fetch unless uh rented to ordinary families.

They can only fetch these rents by renting, buy the room to students.

Uh, given these enormous profits, there's no need for the landlords to pass on uh the student impact fee to students.

I mean, I know that it's economics 101.

Enormous rents, enormous profits.

So working families are being pushed out, rents are being pushed up, and students are paying a much higher total rent per house than the landlord could otherwise get.

It has a negative impact on the neighborhood when houses house after house is purchased by student housing investors and stuff with students in order to maximize landlords' profits, especially when there are several of such houses in a row with a total of 50 or 60 undergrads, these mini dorms can be quite disruptive to the neighborhood.

We can call police on large parties, but police can't control the other constant noise and other nuisances that so enforcement is not sufficient.

I would argue that such private dorms are a type of commercial enterprise that does not belong in residential neighborhoods.

We don't allow investors to operate Airbnbs in Providence residential neighborhoods unless they are owner occupied.

We also don't allow rooming houses or apartment dormitories in residential neighborhoods, and there aren't many other commercial enterprises we don't allow in residential neighborhoods.

In addition, these historic homes are not really designed to house 20, 10 to 20 students, and they're not safe from a fire hazard perspective.

Despite the efforts of two Ward II council persons, two consecutive ones.

We have not succeeded in getting city council to pass any regulations, primarily because landlords vehemently oppose any and all proposals.

Over the last 10 years, investors have been rallying students to come out and testify against any type of regulations, sending out mass emails to students to gin up oppositions.

Students should understand that they are being used to help the landlord defeat regulations that would appropriately hold landlords accountable for the impact their properties have on the community.

Because we have not made any progress in decades, in a decade.

Thank you for listening, and I hope we can work together to pass some ordinances.

Thank you.

Boyang Yang.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Yes, I'm Boyan Zhang, and uh so I mean, I know we like to say transient a lot, but Providence is the place that I've lived the longest out of any place in my life.

And uh many years ago, I took my life savings, scrounged it up, and I bought a home here because I love Providence so much.

I serve as a poll worker for Providence elections, and I try to do more than the holiday drives because I really do believe in Providence.

I also happen to be a student, and like my fellow grad students, I pay income taxes here, which I believe is fair, and I'm happy to do it.

But this proposal as it is right now is essentially double taxing uh both our fellow grad students for who pay for city services already for through rent and through taxes, because I don't think it's a narrative.

I don't think it's fear-mong to acknowledge that landlords will pass on any blanket fee straight to students, no offense to whoever's there, because that's what landlords do.

And I don't think it's being misled to acknowledge that many students aren't actually living in the large residential complexes that I think this bill is trying to target.

Um, especially if, like I think it sounds like sound is a problem, things like that, but this bill as it is isn't actually able to do that.

It's a blanket thing, and it doesn't take into account the very many different ways that Providence students make a life here.

It's you know, it doesn't even say like graduate, or if I as a homeowner would have to pay this, it says rental, but it's not clear.

And so I worry that because of this blanketness, because it is not completely thought out, it ends up being a double tax on the students who are essentially captive populations.

We like we are not able to leave and move somewhere else because we don't like being double taxed because we chose Providence to follow our dreams here.

And I do think you can be well-intentioned and still end up engaging in rent-seeking behavior that ends up being inequitable, despite being well-intentioned.

And so, as this is, I don't think this is what Providence wants to be.

And I don't think the council wants to be that either.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Daryl Cena.

How are you doing?

Uh my name is Daryl Son of the Chocolate.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Um I came here because I'm a resident on uh 39 Venice Street, and I've been there for 29 years.

Today I came up the street, and when I when we and my wife moved in there 29 years, it was 13 families on that street.

It's a dead end street.

And today, another street, another house across the street from my house was taken down.

So there's only five houses left on the street.

And uh I came here because it's the garbage with the students.

Because there's only one house, but there's two houses there, only one house that's got children, you know, students in.

And I don't have no problem with the kids.

So they don't take care of the garbage and stuff.

The garbage picked it up this uh yesterday because we had a holiday, right?

I had a call, uh, one of the realtors, and he told me to call that lady Shannon that was here for 02908 to pick up the garbage.

I got pictures, it's on the grass.

We're talking about like seven, eight bags of garbage, rats, you know.

This is this is a dead end street.

Really nice.

Uh and I've just listened to everybody talking about, you know, so all these guys that came up first, the lawyer, the first, you know, they're representing business and stuff like that.

And I ain't got no, you know, this is America, do your business.

But some gotta be a whole accountable to, you know, I mean, I live on that street.

I seen it.

I see what was happening.

I see the street over, I'm two streets over from E Street.

So now they try to make this this big pod where they all could get in and potty at, you know, in the back of my house.

So I'm I'm witnessing all this stuff.

And you know, there's some people that got up here, I wasn't very favorable.

They didn't tell the truth.

Because uh they they they came to my house.

The same lady I said she didn't go to nobody's house, you came to my house to sell my house and stuff like that to my wife.

I so she's not being very too far on that part.

Um I just telling you that I think these kids, you know, and they are charging them a lot of money.

They are.

They one of the kids say they're like $1,800 a person, and it's like three people on each floor.

So they're making a lot of money.

And uh, but the garbage, now who pays for that?

You know, I mean, I mean, I I paid for already for my garbage, so now I got another guy, you know, the rats coming out, they're coming out.

My wife comes home, she's a school teacher.

There's a rat that'll sit in my driveway.

Well, never before.

And I'm I'm right, I'm on a dead end street, and PC's fence is right there.

Like it's like from here to that window.

So I'm at the every end, and I see it all.

Yeah, I think that you know, I'm I'm for this bill.

I'm I'm you know, I think that you know, them guys are making a lot of money, and I I don't want the kids to pay for it because they're paying enough to go to school and all that stuff, you know.

But somebody's making a lot of money, and I live in there and I'm getting really jaffed right now, you know.

But so I'm just telling you, that's why I came here.

I didn't have no speech.

Uh I wrote down a few things.

I want the the rodents, and then she said something about the cops.

PC cops.

Okay, here's a fact.

PC cops can't come off the campus, so they can't do nothing.

Them kids are off campus, they live off campus, so they don't have to go on the the PC's uh property to to have any kind of ruckus stuff.

They're on their off-campus.

And PC cops can't go over there and touch touch them because they're not they just don't have that power.

You know, so there's a province police.

I don't know.

I mean, that's not you know, that's that's something for the city to decide.

You know, I just think that they should uh somehow.

All right, let me get take it back.

Snow comes.

I'm on a dead end street, and there's only you're not supposed to be parking on the street, right?

No pocket on this on the sides.

So they so they're parking on one side now.

What happens when it when it's snowed out?

We're the last ones that get snowed in.

I mean, to get plowed because I'm on a dead end.

And where the kids are gonna go with the car, with the pocket, you know.

What's gonna happen with that?

There's a lot of stuff here, and you know, I don't know.

Um I'm for this proposition.

I uh you know, there's a lot of people making a lot of money, but nobody's looking at the people that's been infected like me.

You know, I live on that street.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Andrew Poyan.

How are you doing?

Good evening.

Good evening.

Hi, my name is Andrew Point.

I live in Ward 14.

I've had a very long conversation when I ran for city council with Daryl three years back, and many of our neighbors over that time as well.

Uh I appreciate this hearing and that you're coming up with solutions to address this.

I do have several concerns.

I um the way that is set up, I see it being passed down to the students.

I would love when I talk to folks knocking doors, I would love for this fee to be put on the colleges.

I feel that the fee needs to be put on them and it should go up every year in order to incentivize them to build more on-campus housing.

This the way that this is set up right now, it essentially is gonna be a fee that's gonna be put on to the students.

Uh it's uh, and as we heard, I mean, paying 1290 a month for a room is insane.

Uh having this before rent stabilization, having having a hearing for rent stabilization means that that will be passed down to them.

Um I think if if this was a fee put on the colleges, and I appreciate one of my questions was where is the money gonna go?

I appreciate where you said the money is gonna go.

Uh if if that is put in there, that's great.

I would I would say, you know, another one of the issues.

All of us are feeling the effect of Strive and the other big companies buying up these single family and multifamily houses and making it way too expensive for all anyone to rent or buy because who can compete with them.

Uh we have uh in the most recent budget, we have a tiered system for apartment buildings uh as far as how they're getting taxed.

I would love to see the mega landlords get taxed at a higher rate than the smaller landlords, and that way it would decentvize them who have 50, 60, 70 multifamilies and single families to be paying a higher rate than those that only have a couple.

Um, I think that would address you know the cost of housing, the cost of renting and buying, and it would address the the issues that we're having if we're building if the colleges decide to build more on campus housing, it would alleviate the pressure, you know, the quality of life for the people that are living right next to it, and it would put the pressure of the college security to deal with that instead of Providence Police.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Royus.

Andrew?

Thank you, Chair.

Uh Andrew, I don't have a quick question.

I don't really have a question for you.

I just, you know, you just uh got some thoughts in my mind going here.

I just want to express them.

I think the the challenge, as you probably already know, is that we can't actually as a city charge a fee to the colleges because it and I I did not support the pilot agreement for this reason, but the current pilot agreement that we recently approved of makes it pretty explicitly clear that we cannot charge colleges fees, or we would be in breach of the pilot agreement.

And uh there's other provisions such as we can't tinker with the zoning laws, we'll be in breach of the pilot agreement.

We can't even under the tenure of that agreement, if the city asks for more money, we would be in breach of the pilot agreement.

If I go in my capacity as an elected official, if I even go to the state house to say, hey um representatives of the senators, please tax these colleges.

In my capacity, using my political voice, it's clear in the pilot agreement that we would be in breach of the agreement.

There is it, it was a I think um there's there was many problematic provisions in the pilot agreement.

And so if we and we're also in a very difficult, you know, finite financial state, but if we ask if we feed them, if we if we feed them uh charge them fees, um we would be um they would almost certainly uh we would we would be undoing that that agreement.

And so um I just want to put out there for the the challenges as to why that would be very difficult.

But there's no way within within the pilot to be able to do that.

It would it's pretty clear we would be in breach if we if we tried.

Yeah.

That's pretty absurd that smiley approved that.

Thank you.

Uh Ron Barron.

Good evening.

How are you?

Uh, my name is Ron Barron.

I am a resident of Ward 14.

Um, I realize this is a citywide ordinance that's being discussed here, but I'm just going to talk about my experience in my neighborhood.

Um, we recently moved in to a house on Radcliffe Avenue, about a block away from PC.

Uh it's the house that my wife was born and raised in.

Um, so we have a lot of history.

We've seen a lot of what's happened on the street, how it's changed over the years, both good and bad.

We've also seen a lot of the parties that have happened.

There's been a lot of discussion about this event that happened on Halloween weekend.

Uh, I was there, not at the party, I was home when it happened.

Um, we walked by afterwards, and like I said, my wife is from that neighborhood, and all the years she's lived in that area, she's never seen anything like it.

It was absolutely devastating seeing that.

And that includes me being in the neighborhood at the time that somebody dragged a couch out in the middle of Pembroke Street and lit it on fire.

Um, but that's another story.

That being said, I cannot tonight support the bill that is before you for the ordinance.

Uh, there's some reasons why.

I do think that while I agree with the the good councilwoman that somebody should be accountable for some of the things that happened, I think there's a difference between accountability and impacts.

And I think that the way this is being presented is conflating those two.

The problem in my street, as I see it, is that there's a small number of students that are throwing very large parties, and sometimes those parties get out of hand, and they get very, very much out of hand when they do.

And when it happens, nobody is really being held accountable for that.

But I have to ask if this impact fee was in place when that party happened, would it have changed the outcome?

I don't think it would.

I think that party still would have happened.

I don't think it would have changed anything.

So what I do think though is that a broad-based fee is going to impact all students, whether or not they are the source of disruptions or not.

Whether the students pay it or developers pay it, it is going to be an added cost that is going to come down to the students one way or another.

I do agree that somebody should be held accountable, but I don't see how a student impact fee levied on all students is going to accomplish that.

It won't hold the party organizers accountable, and it won't hold the college accountable for continuing to allow this kind of behavior to happen in the neighborhood.

What I do see is that this is going to be a burden on all students, and it is going to be a potential burden to the city as we continue to be reactive towards these problems rather than proactive and trying to stop them before they happen.

So those are my thoughts on that.

So thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Sam Levy.

My name's Sam Levy, and I've just been making notes along the way.

Excuse me.

Um I'm against this for a variety of reasons, but some of them some things seem to be exorbitantly clear.

Number one, if it's a tax on students, it's taxation without representation, because they can't vote for or against any of this.

Uh, as far to begin with.

Second, uh this is no rhyme or reason in uh in order.

Um, it's clear one way to solve the problem for the colleges from wherever the college ends, just buy the any and all properties that are but it and just continue the campus out, which does two things.

Puts all those houses into the college campus where they have the authority to take care of things, it also makes all those properties tax exempt, which I don't think anybody wants.

Uh, as far as the number of people in any particular apartment or house, just imagine that it's a family there.

I got I have income property, I live in uh Washington Park, and my properties are all in Washington Park.

I had a property with a two-bedroom apartment, and had the girl that was living there, had four children, young children, going to public school.

So I mean that that means there was five people in there.

So, what's the difference between five people that that are living there that are the city's paying the taxes pay for the her kids to go to city schools and five college students?

Um, I don't see any difference in any costs either anyway for the city, um, except that they would be the city would be paying out more for her students' educations instead of collecting money from students that are you know presumably from out of state going to the local bodega, the club around the corner, things like that, and paying effectively paying a sales tax in one form or another, going by sneakers, and the city would be better off with the students, in my opinion.

Um, as far as alcohol and parties, that's a police problem.

If the police don't go there and arrest them and charge them and put whether fines, put them put them in jail overnight or whatever, you punish the person that's perpetrating the crime, not anybody else.

Um it's been uh same thing for noise.

Um to put it on the landlord.

I don't, I'm a landlord.

I don't know any way that I can uh control a tenant that's having a party.

Um I can't arrest them, I can't find them, and I can't affect I cannot evict them uh for doing that.

There has to be a police activity, there has to be a police report to do that.

Again, it goes back to the police.

But the students or slash tenants are already paying an exorbitant fee to the city because it's as a non-owner occupied property, it's taxed at a higher rate.

Therefore, there's a tenant tax already in place.

It's not called a tenant tax, but that's exactly what it is.

If I'm paying just to pick a number, ten dollars a thousand for my single family house that I live in, and I have an identical house across the street that's non-onor occupied, it's $20 a thousand.

So where's the extra $10 per thousand go?

It goes into the city coffers to cover fire, police, rescue, whatever.

Um, but basically the tenant is paying that tax.

Anything that's gonna cost a landlord any a dime gets passed on to the tenant, whatever kind of building it is, whether it's a single family house or a hundred unit building.

Um my granddaughter lives by herself in one of my apartments.

If she decides to go to Johnson of Wales, because it's not too far away.

She's now uh a student only housing.

Do I have to pay an extra three hundred dollars for her to go to school?

I mean, she lives there, she's my tenant.

It's a tenant only house because she's the only one there.

Does she have to pay it or I have to pay an extra three hundred bucks?

Uh it's been said that the all this $300 is going to go to the general fund.

It's not going to anything that anybody has said is that's going to be a cost.

If the concern is the cost for fire, uh police, sanitation, anything else, it doesn't do the city any good if it's going to a general fund.

It should be if there's going to be anything like that, it should go to those three or more specific entities.

Uh uh, see, I'm trying I'm lost my tri train of thought here a second.

It's okay.

Um $500 per day, it's just stupidly exorbitant.

Uh you know, for for a fine at the end.

But I I think this whole thing should be just thrown out.

And if they if you want to have um quieter neighborhoods, have a police presence.

If you have to hire a hundred, two hundred, a thousand more police, then it goes then it gets paid out of the property taxes there.

If it's there's not enough money coming in from property tax from all the property in the city of Providence, then simple, raise the tax and say, okay, this is what it is.

But the police should be there should be enough police to be able to go down any street, whether they go in a car, a bicycle, a motorcycle, or on horseback, or walking, they should be able to get into any particular kit place.

If there's part, you know, somebody says something about parking on the street that these vehicles cannot get through.

That's what they make tow trucks for.

If they're illegally parked, tow it.

The student will learn pretty quickly to find a more proper place to part their car.

Uh all right, Sam.

And I think that's it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hogan Wagner.

Do I have a Hogan Wagner?

Oh, coming up.

Good evening.

Evening.

Oh, yeah.

I'm a student at Province College, and I am a tenant as well.

And while I do agree that we do pay exorbitant amounts in rent, we do choose to pay those amounts in rent.

Um we're not angry with our landlords about it because we have a specific community that we do want.

Um but this is a tax that's going to get passed on to us, whether you like it or not.

It's supposed to be a landlord tax.

It will get passed on to the student.

And it's getting put into a fund, which is not gonna directly go into the municipality.

Like it's not gonna go directly into the police department because how you're there's gonna be a lot to keep track of that money.

So I propose that if you're going to go at least remotely through with this bill, you need to change a lot because it's gonna get taxed directly under the students, which you have said that you do not want to happen.

You'd like it to be the landlords.

And if it's going to go, I also don't understand how is it monetized?

How do you put a monetary amount?

Like why is it $300 annually?

How like have you worked out the amount that it costs for the police force to go there?

If that's the case, it has to go directly to the police force.

It shouldn't go directly to the government.

Um as well, the students of Providence, we do maintain the neighborhood as best as we can.

And with the event that happened on Halloween, it was not the students at the most for the most part that did cause the disruptance.

I believe that it should be passed up to the community and the the entire community should be held accountable, not just the students, just because happened on our property, it just makes us more of the victim for that event.

Um as well.

This trash issue.

A ton of the houses in that community offer rent, not even just for students, and it's a lot of people packed in the same place.

It's garbage all over the place, not just because of students, but because there's many people packed into these neighborhoods.

I argue for more efficient uh waste services rather than just charging students money and not having it directed anywhere.

So I think that if you want to go through with this bill, it should be rewritten completely.

It's not as efficient as it seems, and I think that just imposing a student tax is really not right for us.

We have to pay a ton of money in student loans after we leave college.

And yeah, it's really off to say.

Thank you.

Quick question.

I'm so sorry.

Um, just as a curi just a curiosity thing.

Um, you talked about the trash.

And one of the things that often comes up just in talking to other students, um, they're saying that the trash bins aren't big enough.

Would you say that that's accurate?

I wouldn't say they're not big enough.

I'd say that we need more, and oftentimes the trash is not fully picked up.

Okay.

So we will put our trash out on Tuesday mornings, and it will not even be picked up in the first place.

We'll have trash men still left full.

Like a lot of the time, we don't even have enough place to put it.

And I understand we're packing 14 people, eight people into smaller houses.

It's gonna be a lot of garbage, but more trash cans and more better waste services will help this be more accomplished.

Thank you.

Noah Rosa.

Uh good evening.

Um Noah Rosa.

Um also a senior at Providence College and a tenant as well.

I'd like to begin with the fact that I've been around Providence going on my eighth year now.

I went to high school at LaSalle Academy, so I've been around the neighborhood that we're talking about for again eight years since I was 13 years old, and I've seen it develop and change.

And in my opinion, seeing it from 13 years old to being a college student, really experience it firsthand.

They've had an overwhelming positive impact on the community rather than a negative one.

Um we're also, I just want to quickly mention that we were handed out this packet here, seemingly trying to correct some misinformation that is not misinformation at all.

I'm glad that many people here have been able to read through uh what I see to be as a lie, saying that this is going to be a landlord fee.

This is directly passed on to us, and I find it to be a mistake that it can be told to us as students with a straight face that this is not going to be passed on to us.

Second.

If it's going to be a landlord fee, then I again it's been I'm just echoing this before.

It's a it's called the student impact fee.

What that says, I've already mentioned how it's inflationary in nature, it's also discriminatory in nature, as this is targeting one group of people, college students, just for living off campus.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, and the last person used us demonish.

Good evening.

Good evening.

And thank you for this opportunity to uh address city council.

My name is Eustace Devinish.

Um a small landlord.

And uh over in uh ward 14.

I think that what I've heard tonight since I've been here, everyone seems to believe that the students are nuisance and a problem, and I don't see that see it that way.

I see the students here is what's adding to the city.

A lot of them stay in this city.

They are our customers.

They come from all around the world, all around the state.

They come to this to the to the great city of Providence to attend school here.

We have some of the top schools here.

The way things are being addressed this right now, I see it as a direct impact to the smaller landlords.

Everyone's talking about the bigger landlords and all the money they're making.

I think that between the first of all, the increase in property value.

I believe that more majority of these cities receive the windfall from that.

Because when the property values go up, so does the property taxes.

And there was nothing that was done to get this windfall.

Then there was an increase in taxes that was applied to the landlords.

The bigger landlords, of course, they can absorb something like this.

The smaller uh two family, three families, we really can't.

Then on top of it, you're saying that, oh, if a student lives on your property, well, now you have to pay an additional fee.

So are you trying to discourage us from renting the students?

I I like I said, if it wasn't for the students coming here in this city, where would the economy of the city be?

We already lost uh a major manufacturer.

Uh we lost even Pawtucket lost the Pa Tucket Sox.

So we're losing industries because we're pinching people that are here that are providing resources and paying taxes to the city.

And I think this is the wrong way to go about it.

If there's a problem uh with certain landlords, and it was said that it seems like it's the same landlords and same buildings that have a problem.

Why isn't that being directly addressed instead of uh applying it to every small landlord in the city?

Um I don't think that is fair.

I think that uh, for example, what was said was parking is an issue.

I can only speak in my neighborhood on uh Pembroke Avenue, a wide, very wide street.

Um it was parking up and down on both sides.

Just recently, they decided that they were going to just have parking on one side of the street.

That caused everyone in the neighborhood in the community to scramble.

We don't even understand why there's only parking on one side of the street.

It's not a narrow street.

There's no speed bumps now that it's even uh now it's a raceway because it's the city this the street is wide, but there's no parking, so now cars go up and down the street very quickly.

And now where is once again, where's the small landlords?

Where do we fit in here?

Where do we fit in into the city?

Are you have you forgotten about us?

Are we gonna pay the $300 a student uh fee?

I think that's unstable fair to the students.

I think that's unfair to the landlords.

Um I think when I read that letter, it said that it was gonna go to cold violations for people who are not in compliance.

So I took that to understand that people that are not taking care of their places that are receiving that are receiving violations left and right, all of a sudden you're gonna take from students and from landlords that are doing the right thing and reward the ones that are not.

That once again doesn't seem fair.

And uh what do they say?

Uh a loan that's forgivable, so they don't have to pay it back.

So where are we doing here?

And I think that if the students need a place to have a uh a recreation because they're in the neighborhoods, maybe we should be looking into something for them to be able to uh be students.

I mean, we were all students at one time, we can't forget that.

I think that um I think this is unfair.

I'm totally against it the way it read.

I don't know if if this was a quick, you know, someone mentioned knee jerk reaction, but I I don't see this as anything that's gonna help the city, particularly my neighborhood.

I know that the children sometimes get a little rowdy and it impacts all the neighborhoods, all the landlords and stuff like that.

I think that yes, something should be addressed, but I don't think additional fees hitting people with more additional fees is gonna help.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Councilman Royus.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for your testimony, uh, sir.

I just want it's on my mind to share, and um, you had asked a question in earlier in your testimony, uh, subject along the lines of is the intent to discourage more student housing.

And for me, not representing this committee here, but I can say for me, the answer is yes.

Now what is happening, I'm I'm not from you, sir.

I'm not uh don't want to put words in your mouth, but the the overall emerging theme that I'm hearing is the poor poor students, and it's not in a way that I believe is genuine.

You know, and a student earlier disclosed how much he's being charged rent.

There's eight people per unit, 12 over 1200 a month.

A triple decker would is, I'm doing rough math here.

A triple decker would produce over 370,000 a year in rental income.

That that tells me that they don't care about the students.

And for me, it's about when we talk about housing and density, we have absolutely have to increase our housing supply.

But if we're increasing it just for students and wiping out neighborhoods at the same time, what we're doing is displacing families who have been ruined in the city.

We're also raising rents.

I would argue that the student housing developers in Ward 14 specifically have had a monopolizing effect on the neighborhood.

They've actually set the market.

And if we allow that to continue in the city, and we you know, we've uh heard you know, shared commentary around how we are seeing the fastest rising rents in New England.

Student housing is only going to accelerate that.

And so respectfully, I for me at least, I look at this ordinance as one of very few tools that we even have as a city to discourage student developers from continuing this business model.

And I want to be very clear.

This is it's not mixed, you know, housing, it's not a student on the first floor and the family on the second floor.

This is exclusively student housing that this ordinance targets.

And so I want to be clear about that.

I guess I guess the question is mine is what exactly is student housing.

Mr.

DeMonis.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Let me just you can answer if you like.

But you don't have to.

You were you came here to render your testimony and you did it very well.

Now, this is a public hearing for the people to render the testimony, which we take very seriously.

We listen to all, we we uh read all the letters, and I encourage you and anybody else that still wants to write to us to do that.

It's not to guide you or make you believe one way or the other.

It it the councilman is just expressing his opinion.

So you if you want to reply, yes, but you don't have to.

No, I the only question I had because and and and it and it may be other people also have that concern when we say student housing, are we talking about buildings that are designated as student housing, or we're talking about housing where students live?

I think there are diff, well, if I could I'll just answer your question from my view.

There are it's pretty clear on specific student developers.

I you know, not to you know, pick on the 02908 club, but it's pretty clear their business model is almost exclusively student housing.

And so how I read this ordinance is that um it's a specific business model, and um, that's what this ordinance tries to target.

If you go on their website, it's it's pretty clear out in the open.

But in when you say you're trying to target, are we gonna have collateral damage here?

Because most of the people that I know that are small homeowners, two family, uh three family, smaller uh landlords, they it seems as though we will also get caught up in this wave of trying to, in a sense, uh hold the larger student rentals accountable that they can afford to absorb something that the smaller uh landlords can.

So that'll be the end of this.

Hold on.

And that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Is there anybody else that just came in that would like to come up and speak?

Uh more than happy to uh uh sit here and listen to you.

Your your comments are very important.

Uh okay, so uh before we conclude, I'll open up to a council colleagues that came to visit a Ms.

I fear.

Is there anything you would like to say?

Okay.

Fine.

Well, thank you so much.

So again, I I like to thank my colleagues, Councilman Royus, Councilman Bayer, Councilwoman Peterson, um, for accompanying us here tonight at this public hearing, uh, city clerks, everybody that was here, and to you all for being here tonight.

Uh, this will conclude this uh public hearing tonight.

Uh and thanks again for writing to us for coming over.

Uh your points uh well taken.

Thank you for uh respectful and fruitful dialogue.

Uh thank you all.

Good night.