The University of Rhode Island Student Senate’s External Affairs Committee recently conducted a survey on the new housing ordinance that allows no more than four unrelated persons to live in one household in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Participants in the survey included the URI community, local residents and landlords to create a full sense of the impact on the community and how we can move forward.
Senate received approximately 240 responses to their survey over a two-week span, according to External Affairs Committee Chair Andrew Donnelly, including responses from outside the URI community that they were pleased to see. Members of the External Affairs Committee will continue to work on drafting a plan to move forward based on the survey results during winter break.
“We’ll be working more on trying to find more solutions, what exactly the input is from students on solutions, and then working with our administration here to implement such solutions,” Donnelly said. “This won’t be an overnight process, once again, but we will be working here as well as in Narragansett all throughout the break. I’m not going to be going back home. I’m living down here in Narragansett. It’s the perfect place- that way we can get things done over the break when there are no academic proceedings.”
The results of the survey will only be used for internal use, Donnelly said. The information Senate gains from the survey will be used to map out how the ordinance affects both URI students and the rest of the Narragansett community. Donnelly said that they have not yet reached out to the Narragansett Town Council to meet, but will create an executive report and presentation once they have finished analyzing the data. He believes there are potential solutions, and Senate plans to reach them by continuing to meet and work with Narragansett officials.
“We are not here to be any disturbance, we are not here to cause any problems, we are here to find solutions,” Donnelly said.
In Cigar coverage earlier this year of the Narragansett Town Council’s meeting on March 9, prior to the passage of the ordinance, members of the Ad Hoc Committee on URI Student Rental Problems were present to speak neighborhoods without the implementation of such restrictions. Committee member Harry Schofield said his reports surrounding the then-proposed housing ordinance were focused on density control and putting too many people in family-oriented neighborhoods, not students.
“No more than four is a good compromise all around,” Schofield said, at the March 9 meeting. “We don’t hold URI students accountable for this. It’s Narragansett’s problem. We are not down on students.”
Though Donnelly was unable to elaborate on any specific solutions that Senate has in mind just yet, he said that they will be related to housing accommodations and financial affordability. He added that the surveys will help to show where there is the greatest need for improvements.
“Solutions don’t happen overnight, and of course our local government doesn’t work faster than a snail,” Donnelly said. “So, moving forward, there will be a lot of extensive meetings to understand how to implement some solutions… We will have a stance on some solutions to help our student body. We’re elected by you folks to do so.”
The importance of this survey lies mainly in the need for communication between URI and Narragansett residents, as well as possibly working with URI administration. Donnelly said that Senate and URI students as a whole may not have recognized the importance of working together to make improvements in the past.
“Maybe we haven’t been at the table as much as we should have, so that’s why this survey is so important; so that we can understand the effects to our whole community, not only URI students, but how do residents feel about students, how do students feel about landlords, and vice versa for all different aspects of people,” Donnelly said. “It doesn’t only set a precedent about how our student body should be treated or how our student body should act, [but also] really sets a precedent for how can we move forward in future years to come.”
Also present at the March 9 meeting were members of Narragansett 2100, who spoke mainly on behalf of landlords opposed to the then-proposed ordinance. Ray Kagels, founder and president of Narragansett 2100, suggested that a better option for the housing issues was to engage students – since they would be the ones most affected by its passage.
“We can’t have two different sets of citizens in this town,” Kagels said, at the March 9 meeting. “We don’t condone bad behavior by our tenants or our landlords.”