Residents of Ward 5 met Monday, March 2, at a public meeting to discuss the apartment moratorium the Auburn City Council passed Feb. 17. The moratorium has stopped the development of apartments, condominiums or any other form of ownership or operation within the University Service zoning district located east of College Street.
“There is a lot of concern that there is a possible oversupply of apartments in the city and that’s ultimately what led the City Council to ... establish a moratorium for new multi-family housing,” said Kevin Cowper, assistant city manager. “The purpose of the moratorium is to provide time for the city staff to prepare some studies about the development and redevelopment of the area.”
Cowper spent the majority of the meeting answering questions and addressing concerns the residents had about the implications of the moratorium.
“We’ve got a lot of apartments in our area so that’s why it’s such an interesting topic to those who came,” said Lynda Tremaine, Ward 5 councilwoman.
Many citizens wanted to learn about a possible incentive program the city might enforce to solve the problem involving older apartment buildings.
“We have apartments that are 100 years old,” Cowper said. “Those apartments don’t meet the standards that today’s college student want to live in.”
To prevent these older apartments from becoming vacant because of students moving to up-to-date apartment complexes, Cowper said the city is considering certain incentives for the owners of the older buildings.
Cowper said since most of the older apartment buildings are paid for, they are bringing in a lot of cash, so it’s difficult to get those property owners to redevelop their property because it will make it more expensive for them.
To encourage property owners to redevelop, Cowper said they could use things such as financial incentives or regulatory incentives.
“The regulation type incentives would probably be the way to go,” Cowper said. “A lot of the older units have problems with various codes and zoning regulations so there are a lot of regulatory incentives that we could offer to kind of take that off the table.”
Brandt Tucker, citizen of Ward 5 and owner of Willie’s Wings and Stuff, said he has talked to some people who are considering suing the city because of the moratorium.
“There’s always somebody in the process of developing property and you’ve got money invested,” Tucker said. “There was a couple of developers that had pending contracts on properties to be developed ... who are now going to be out money and lose those contracts because of the moratorium and I was told that some of them were probably going to be suing.”
Cowper said to his knowledge, they had not received any formal legal complaints against the moratorium.
“We feel very good about the moratorium in terms of its legal standing,” Cowper said. “Everything that needed to be done in order to legally implement a moratorium was done.”
Tucker said it seemed arbitrary to say one side of town could build when the other side could not.
“I think the city is not as averse to lawsuits as they act like they are,” Tucker said. “I think they don’t mind if they get sued because it doesn’t cost them any money, it’s our money they’re fighting with.”
Tremaine said the majority of the people in her ward she has spoken with support the moratorium, and are mostly concerned with overbuilding.
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