Neighborhood tensions mount over USC’s growing student body. Will a town hall help?

Neighborhood leaders have hit a boiling point over student rentals and what they say is the failure of Columbia officials to rein in landlords and developers.

Trash in yards, students passed out on residents’ front porches and students parking in residential areas and partying into the wee hours of the morning simply hasn’t stopped, the neighborhood leaders say.

The University of South Carolina’s Columbia campus sits in the heart of the city. To the east, south and west, the campus is surrounded by Columbia’s historic neighborhoods.

Neighborhood leaders are pointing a finger at the city, accusing leaders of failing to enforce the very ordinances it enacted several years ago to fix the problems.

The question of where students can live has stretched across decades. But USC has been adding more and more freshmen to campus, pushing older students out of dorms and into new private apartment towers built nearby or in neighborhood homes. The crush has some neighborhood leaders saying the city isn’t doing enough to enforce existing ordinances and the city’s mayor saying some residents’ concerns are unfounded and that students don’t always feel welcomed.

Density is part of the issue.

A city ordinance prohibiting landlords from renting to more than three unrelated people in a single home, including students, was upheld in the state Supreme Court. But the city doesn’t scrutinize rentals to enforce that, neighborhood leaders say.

One residents group has scheduled a town hall. They’ve invited two City Council members and residents from across downtown. The university is not invited.

A new neighborhood group

Residents of Columbia’s historic neighborhoods are concerned that student housing rentals could take over their neighborhoods.

They say it would damage the history and character of the neighborhoods and lower property values.

Jim Daniel, president of the Wheeler Hill Neighborhood Association, assembled a group of eight neighborhood leaders to advocate with city and USC officials. Each leader represents a neighborhood in the vicinity of USC’s campus. They met on April 7 to discuss their concerns with student housing.

They have many concerns, directed toward both USC and city government. The “three unrelated” ordinance is one of their priorities.

The ordinance has a storied history. It was upheld by the South Carolina Supreme Court in 2011 after a legal challenge led by Gov. Henry McMaster, then a private citizen. McMaster, who owns student rental houses with his wife, argued the ordinance would destroy the university area’s real estate market. But the court upheld the ordinance unanimously.

Columbia’s zoning department and the police department’s Code Enforcement Division work together to investigate code violations, such as the “three unrelated” ordinance. Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann said this is often a difficult and lengthy task.

“Well, that means you’ve got to know people are living there,” he said. “So obviously inspecting, you can’t just walk into somebody’s house unless you have proof. So, you have to figure out the proof. And that takes some time, because people come and go.”

The city can’t limit the number of bedrooms in a residence, Rickenmann said. They can only enforce the ordinance after investigation.

Code enforcement officials provided 2024 data to the Carolina News & Reporter for some neighborhoods around USC, including University Hill, the Vista, Wheeler Hill, the Whaley Street area west of Assembly Street and USC’s campus area. Of 216 total cases, 64 were found to be violations. The data doesn’t show how many were “three unrelated” ordinance violations.

The neighborhood leaders are frustrated by student behavior in their neighborhoods.

Bambi Gaddist, a resident of the MLK/Lower Waverly neighborhood near Five Points, said her neighbors often deal with disruptive students.

“This is the day-to-day trauma that some people have when you talk about people urinating in your bushes, or finding someone on your porch,” she said.

Charles Dibble, president of the neighborhood association for University Hill, which directly abuts USC, said he has had to shut down student parties at 2 a.m. and 3 a.m.

Rickenmann said students are a valuable part of the community and the student rentals are not a new phenomenon.

“I think sometimes students are an easy target,” he said. “And they’re also a very big part of our economic impact and a good part of our community. It’s our future workforce, our future leadership. … But some of these neighborhoods that are right there, they’ve had rentals with students in them for five decades. It’s not like it’s new.”

Students often feel uncomfortable in neighborhoods, Rickenmann said.

“I met with a bunch of the students, and they shared a lot of information with us, and it was very enlightening,” Rickenmann said.

USC student David Agresti lives in a duplex just outside Five Points, between the Wales Garden and Shandon neighborhoods. He said he and other students in the area don’t do anything disruptive, except for the occasional loud music.

“I’ve heard things but nothing to the point where ‘all right, this is getting ridiculous,’” he said.

USC student Josie-Gray Koval lives in the MLK neighborhood. She said every student she knows in the neighborhood is cordial and has a good relationship with the community.

Columbia in 2016 enacted a landlord ordinance designed to rein in student behavior by penalizing landlords. And it moved the codes enforcement division under the police department to give the ordinance teeth.

More recently, Columbia and USC collaborated in 2023 on an ambassador program to address student behavior. Police officers regularly patrol in-town neighborhoods, looking for behavioral code violations. Director of Code Enforcement David Hatcher said the program has been successful.

“We’re finishing up the second year of that,” he said. “Now, from everything I hear, it has been successful. And I thought the neighborhoods (were) pretty happy with it. I haven’t heard any negative feedback about it.”

Still, some neighborhood groups are frustrated by what they call a lack of communication between them, the city and USC.

The Town and Gown Commission, a commission within Columbia’s city government intended to facilitate discussions and planning between the groups, is a point of contention, according to Gaddist, who is a member and says the group has no sway with USC.

“Even at Town and Gown, it’s never anyone of authority,” she said. “It’s just someone (USC) sent to the meeting. There’s no connection between what they hear at that table, how it ends up in the presence of people of leadership at USC, and with the feedback mechanism.”

Rickenmann said the commission is less than a year old and developing. The neighborhood leaders are too focused on USC, when six other universities and colleges are in Columbia, Rickenmann said.

The commission has four neighborhood representatives and two USC representatives, including USC President Michael Amiridis as co-chair alongside Rickenmann. Five representatives from other Columbia schools and two student representatives are also on the commission.

The neighborhood leaders say USC is the problem, not the other schools. USC’s Columbia student population – undergraduate and graduate – is greater than 38,000, while the other schools have less than 3,000 each.

USC has a masterplan for its growing campus. The plan calls for a 2% growth in the freshman class each year until 2034. The population at that time would be 44,000 students. USC plans to add 2,000-2,500 beds for those students, in part partnering with private developers. About a third of USC’s 28,000 undergraduates live on campus now.

April Barnes, executive director of USC’s housing department, said USC is on track to complete this goal.

“I think we have a great start going on right now with the Sumter (Street) project,” she said. “So, I would say that with our leadership and the direction we’re moving, we could absolutely do that with the foundation we’re laying with this project right now.”

The Sumter Street project includes the addition of a new wing to USC’s Honor College dorm and the rebuilding of McBryde dorm. The project aims to add 900 beds, according to university architect Derrek Gruner.

A town hall

The Association of Five Points Neighborhoods will hold a town hall on student housing issues on May 8.

The group has invited any resident who wants to come as well as two Columbia City Council members, Will Brennan and Ed McDowell.

Kit Smith, former president of the Wales Garden Neighborhood Association, helped to organize the town hall.

“We’re trying to get City Council’s attention, and all we want is for them to admit that, ‘Yes, it’s a problem, and yes, we will work with you to find a solution,’” she said. “And the same challenge goes to the university.”

She has been involved in student housing issues before, including being party to a lawsuit against USC over what she said is a violation of an agreement between the university and neighborhoods surrounding the four-dorm Campus Village project. The lawsuit is ongoing.

Smith and the association put together a list of concerns and ideas to share with attendees. High on the list is a request to council to ensure every resident of a rental has their name on the lease. Smith said this could help with enforcing the “three-unrelated” ordinance.

“We feel like if we could get tougher penalties for violating (the three-unrelated ordinance) and then an easier way to check on it, make it easier for them to know who’s supposed to be living there, we could possibly enforce it more easily,” Smith said.

Smith suggested that enforcing the ordinance on several violators would make landlords think twice about running afoul of the ordinance.

Rickenmann disputes the idea that the ordinance is not being enforced.

“We’ve caught some folks there,” he said. “I mean, one of the houses that is over there, near Wheeler Hill, got in trouble for pre-leasing it to four students, … and they ended up not being allowed to live there.”

Other concerns of the Five Points group include:

• The proliferation of student housing rentals
• Student parking overflowing into neighborhoods
• Neighborhood residents having to police disruptive student behavior themselves

Ideas listed include:

• Having USC promote living in neighborhoods to university faculty and staff
• More neighborhood input on the ambassador program
• Sharing of behavior infraction data for off-campus students by the university
• Better communication between neighborhoods and USC’s administration

Smith said she wants better communication with USC’s administrators on these issues.

“We do need to have better dialogue with the university, with the decision makers,” Smith said.

USC’s internal communications manager, Collyn Taylor, provided a statement to the Carolina News & Reporter.

“USC’s Office of Off-Campus Housing and Neighborhood relations not only helps students find off-campus housing but also communicates with surrounding areas about events that could impact community members in those neighborhoods,” the statement said. “The university has met with any and all neighborhood groups who have sought to work collaboratively in the mutual interest of students and city residents.”

The town hall will be at Rose Hill Presbyterian Church, in the Hollywood-Rose Hill neighborhood at 6:30 p.m. on May 8. It is open to the public.