REXBURG — Partway through spring semester, music education student Haylee Johnson received a notice that her housing complex, The Roost, would no longer be student-approved housing for fall 2022.
The Roost is the latest of three Rexburg complexes changing from Brigham Young University-Idaho student-approved housing to multi-family condominiums. Brigham’s Mill and University View also received approval from the Rexburg City Council this year to make the change.
Johnson has been studying at BYU-Idaho since fall 2019.
“I just … came home and found a note on my door saying that we’re going to have to find another place to live next semester because this is no longer student-approved housing as of summer,” Johnson said. “They still honored our contract for this semester. But then we just had to find another contract for fall semester.”
Johnson was able to find housing, but says that housing options are limited at this time.
“I had to go to an expensive one. Some of the less expensive housing complexes have waiting lists at this point because a lot of places are closing down, and so the need for housing is great across the board. ... Everyone is looking for housing,” Johnson said.
In a letter to Rexburg Mayor Jerry Merrill and the Rexburg City Council dated April 20, 2022, BYU-Idaho Off-Campus Housing Association President Rachel Whoolery wrote that Rexburg’s housing market has become saturated with student housing. Whoolery represents a group of owners looking for solutions to maintain profitability. “BYUI has been building to and increasing enrollment for each Fall semester. They have continually requested and approved additional developments in the past decade without any restraint. Today, developers and investors have stopped building because the market has become toxic. A main contributor to our low performing market is that we have a closed system and can only rent to BYUI single students who are under the age of 26.”
Spring semester and summer break constitute a major challenge for BYU-Idaho approved housing providers.
“When there are only 71.1 percent students enrolled (in spring semester), there are no other options to fill our beds. The beds must sit empty for 5 months! Because the market has been overbuilt since 2018, many businesses have been struggling and COVID-19 consequences have only increased their financial strain,” Whoolery wrote.
BYU-Idaho’s historic pattern of repeated growth may also be slowing down. In winter 2022, on-campus student enrollment was down 6.3 percent to 23,703 students compared to 25,289 students in winter 2021.
On May 19, 2022, representatives for University View, formerly known as The Ivy, appeared before Rexburg’s Planning and Zoning Commission who unanimously recommended approving its plat change from student apartments to condominiums. The complex consists of 152 units and sits on 5.2 acres.
“The purpose of this plat is to take existing apartment buildings and change them into condos that can be sold individually. This will allow for more affordable housing for first-time home buyers. It’s going to diversify the available housing in the community and around the university campus. It’s also going to provide multi-family housing that’s not regulated by the university,” said Kindi Moosman, a planner with Horrocks Engineering.
Owner Beau Jaussi answered a question posed by Planning and Zoning Commissioner Jim Lawrence about University View’s present occupancy. “I think our current occupancy is 50 percent (or) 51 percent. I think the market is just around 70 percent ... for the spring semester,” Jaussi said.
Whoolery proposed converting existing student housing into condominiums to address the community housing shortage in Rexburg and Madison County.
“One solution to the lack of affordable housing units combined with underperforming student housing complexes is to convert several single-housing complexes to condos. Changing these apartment units from student housing to condos is a unique way to get individual units out of the housing market, into the community, and relieve the parking challenges by having less density per unit,” Whoolery wrote.
“Brigham’s Mill and University View are two complexes taking this route and represent 1080 beds. Based on current forecasts, the approved market could tolerate an additional 1200 beds converting to condos for a more balanced market,” she said.
The Roost property manager Ayden Rennaker said that the need for multi-family housing in Rexburg is one factor driving his complex’s decision to leave the student housing program. “There is more of a demand for housing on the community side than on the student side. Historical occupancy at the school is going to be dropping.” He cited tens of thousands of missionaries who deferred serving their missions during the COVID-19 epidemic as a major reason for this change.
While Rennaker does not believe that other apartment complexes will follow suit, he said, “There’s actually another 150-200 community housing units that could come online to help balance out the market.”
During deliberations over University View at the City Council meeting on June 1, council member Bryanna Johnson expressed concern that a complex so near to the university would be changed into condominiums.
“I’ve had some residents contact me, and they’re wondering why we’re allowing our real estate right by campus to change,” Bryanna Johnson said. “But our legal counsel has reminded us that we can’t discriminate based on who’s occupying the rentals, so we really don’t have an option to change that. We don’t have a zone that’s a single student housing zone, so our hands are kind of tied.”
The plat change passed the City Council unanimously.
In the interim, the transition from student housing to condominiums at University View is not yet complete. University View leasing specialist Kassidy Hart said, “We are still student housing for fall.”
Whoolery confirmed, “As of right now, all of the units are still on the market. The realtor is still showing them. They told their tenants that they are going to honor their contracts for the fall. Currently, it looks like the conversion is not going to happen for fall semester, but it is still going forward.”
“We would love to provide amazing housing, which we all do, but it’s at such an expense or a loss for investors that at this point, we don’t know what to do,” Whoolery said. “Everyone is just really struggling because the tracks aren’t level. Spring is so low... But they keep building in the fall, and we have five months out of the year when we don’t have the revenue to pay our bills.”
“Pretty much, we are just trying to look for solutions so we don’t all collapse,” Whoolery said.