Students should be appreciated
Unspoken contention between Laurier students and Waterloo locals has surfaced again with April’s Northdale Strategic Planning session. The compiled results of the session propose ways to solve the housing problems that arise within a student-dominated environment.
Waterloo – hosting two major universities and a college – is undeniably a student city.
For eight months of the year, chaos tornadoes through, slowly bludgeoning property by way of over-occupancy, non-existent maintenance and the infamous kegger.
The inconvenience of students to the local population has led the City of Waterloo to re-evaluate its legislation and by-laws within the university neighborhood.
Limiting overcrowding in houses, improving housing layout to encourage green lifestyles, increasing fines for by-law infractions and re-evaluating rental licensing laws have all been proposed to find a long-term solution instead of punishing students via by-law tickets.
In the past, the finger has been pointed at students, who are told to take more responsibility for their housing and to have consideration for their neighbors.
Although this is true, the local population too often sees only the bad and forgets about the majoriy of students – who do care about their community.
The local population can also be too quick to judge, as students bring life into the city, providing jobs and bringing in business; WLU and the University of Waterloo are two institutions that employ huge numbers of Waterloo community members.
Waterloo also promotes itself as a smart city, having won the Most Intelligent City award two years ago, which it can only do because of the high number of academic institutions and innovation that begins with the average student.
Some students are always going to party and some locals are always going to complain.
Heading toward a more co-operative relationship between students and the Waterloo community that seeks long-term solutions is the only valid way to overcome the issues inevitable in a university town.