The Chapel Hill Town Council also is looking at decreasing the number of unrelated people who can live together. It approved an ordinance Monday that temporarily bans construction of duplexes, allowing existing ones to remain.
The proposed Raleigh ordinance would reduce the allowable number of unrelated residents in a single dwelling from four to two. People living in the area say the new limit will decrease the number of students whose off-campus living habits are incompatible with residents.
"We have lots of people complaining that college people are overrunning the neighborhood," said Raleigh City Council member Neal Hunt.
Residents argue that college students are noisy at night, have unattractive houses and cause heavy traffic, said Lanier Blum, director of the Center for Affordable Living for the Triangle J Council of Governments.
Hunt conceded that the new ordinance will result in a dramatic loss of revenue for landlords because they can charge higher rent when more people are living in a dwelling.
But he said he does not think the new limit would pose a problem for college students living off-campus. "We have an abundance of student housing," Hunt said. "We have large apartment complexes catered to students. Personally I think the impact would be negligible."
But Blum argues that the new ordinance will result in a housing shortage for N.C. State students. She said that while enrollment at the university has increased, not enough residence halls have been constructed to house all students.
She added that students who can afford an apartment if they split the rent with three others might not be able to afford the same apartment if they divide the rent with one person. "This will have a very negative effect on low-income students."
The ordinance will force students to live farther from campus, which would not reduce Raleigh's extensive traffic problems, Blum said.
