President's Postings: What I learned from the saga of SB582
April 7, 2007: Recently, the SGA, GSG, and Rethinkcollegepark.net worked with city, county, and state officials to negotiate a compromise on SB582/HB697. Never having been involved in politics at those levels, the process was extremely educational for me and I wanted to share what I have learned. But first, I'll try to give a summary of the bill without getting too esoteric. (More info at the end of this post.)
Lesson #1: The GSG cannot rely on the University to fight for us.
Lesson #2: The GSG needs to engage with local and state politicians.
Lesson #3: The GSG needs to engage with local and state politicians.
Lesson #4: Don't believe everything you read in the Diamondback.
Background information
Bill Summary:
As things stand now (before this bill was conceived), there is a strong incentive for developers of student housing to build near campus. The incentive is a waiver of a large fee for developers of student housing near campus. SB582/HB697 would have taken away this incentive for many key, developable properties near campus, therefore making student housing even less likely to be built than it already is.
Most development in Prince George's County is subject to a one-time School Facilities Impact Fee. In 2007, this fee is $7671 per unit for development inside the Beltway (the fee is over $12,000 per unit for development outside the Beltway). This means a developer of a 200-unit housing development pays an additional $1,534,200 to Prince George's County. This does not include property taxes or any other fees.
However, if this developer builds student housing within 1.5 miles of campus, the developer is exempt from paying this large fee. This means there is a very powerful incentive for developers to build student housing (as opposed to strip malls or luxury condos) within 1.5 miles of campus.
Because of the current on-campus housing crunch, most students live off-campus and drive in to campus from all directions. Most students would prefer to live near campus, but the supply doesn't come anywhere near to meeting the demand.
If we want to alleviate this problem, we need to specifically encourage student housing (over other kinds of development) near campus. Concentrated student housing near campus means fewer cars on the road, less time spent in traffic, a greater sense of community, and often lower rents.
SB582/HB697 initially proposed severely restricting the Fee Waiver Zone to an area barely larger than campus. When we (GSG, SGA, and Rethinkcollegepark.net) found out about this, we resolved to fight this bill as originally written. (See the end of this post for more background on the chain of events.) We sat down with decision makers involved, and negotiated a compromise.
The compromise we negotiated allows for a much larger Fee Waiver Zone than was initially proposed. This means the incentive to build student housing is preserved for many key properties along Route 1 in College Park. I'm really proud of the work we did on this, and I feel that we accomplished something important. In the process, I learned a great deal about the role of student government, what we can expect from the University, and about politics on the local and state level.
Lesson #1: The GSG cannot rely on the University to fight for us.
The bill as originally written would have been detrimental for students. If passed in its original form, student housing would be even harder to build than it already is. There is a major housing crunch right now for students, both graduate and undergraduate, and this impacts the University's ability to attract the best students. But despite this, the University did nothing to fight this bill. They didn't even expend the effort to make a public statement. The University certainly spends a lot of time and effort on engaging state politicians, and the University is very good at making its voice heard in Annapolis. But for this, they did nothing. No effort whatsoever.
This was very disappointing to me, but I learned a valuable lesson from it. We cannot passively sit back and wait for the University to do what they deem to be best for graduate students. They have proven that they will do what's in their own best interest, and if this happens to align with students' interests, then we benefit. But we can't always rely on this. The GSG needs to be aware of what's going on in Annapolis, and we need to take the lead in acting in the best interests of graduate students. The University has proven that they will not do this for us.
Lesson #2: The GSG needs to engage with local and state politicians.
The GSG must make connections with city, county, and state politicians. These people affect us much more than we realize, so they must know who we are. We need to make them aware of how their actions affect us, and we need to emphasize to them that we are important constituents.
All politics is personal. It helps to know the people involved. The politicians I've worked with are certainly impressive, but they are regular folks just like you and me. They make decisions based on the merits, but they are influenced by the people they interact with.
Lesson #3: The GSG needs to work with the SGA, and organizations like Rethinkcollegepark.net.
We could not have accomplished the compromise on SB582/HB697 had we not worked together. All three organizations were at the table (literally!) presenting a united front. Together, we represent all UMCP students, and therefore have a much stronger voice.
Rethinkcollegepark.net, particularly David Daddio did a phenomenal job of explaining and analyzing the bill and its impacts. He knew the bill better than the people who wrote it. We needed the SGA and Rethinkcollegepark.net on our side. As a coalition, we achieved a great deal and gained a lot of credibility with the decision makers involved.
Lesson #4: Don't believe everything you read in the Diamondback.
The Diamondback did several stories on the negotiations surrounding this bill, but most of them missed the point. (See our Letter to the Editor explaining this.)
I realize reporting is not an easy task, and these are certainly complicated issues, but I've been appalled at the Diamondback's inability to grasp some very basic facts. In initial articles, the reporters' sole focus was to find out if any student leaders had testified in Annapolis against the bill as initially written. The articles suggested that not testifying at that stage meant that we had done nothing or taken no action. This was entirely wrong, and reflected a lack of understanding of how things work in Annapolis.
The Diamondback did make the effort to correct things, but even the clarifying article had misquotes.
Pubicly denouncing a bill is not the only way to fight it or shape it. Taking a look back, I know we did the right thing by negotiating instead of letting things play out in public.
Laura Moore
GSG President
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Background information
Coverage of bill:
Language of bill:
Diamondback coverage:
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