510.8 Policy for College-Owned
Houses on College Avenue

Updated 2003-08-01

Preamble

As of 2002, the college owns 12 of the 17 houses located on College Avenue between Ninth Street and Twelfth Street.  The long-term master plan of the campus identifies that the intent of the college is to purchase all of the remaining houses in this location.  Eventually, these houses will be removed in order to provide an open, green space, welcoming atmosphere to the community along College Avenue.

In the short run, these houses, as they are purchased, are being amortized to the operating budget over a period of years, usually between 15 and 20 years, so that their cost does not have a huge negative impact to the operating budget in any one year.  At the same time, the rental income from these houses is being used to offset the amortization of their acquisition cost to the operating budget.  As a practical matter, the net effect of this is that the rental income produced by these houses is being used to pay down the acquisition cost of them over a 15 to 20-year period.

Basic Assumptions

  1. The houses that the college owns along College Avenue are to be used first to provide affordable married-student housing for Goshen College married students.
  2. As the houses are acquired, they must be rented out and produce enough rental income over their lifetime in order to pay off completely the acquisition cost.

Policy Statement

  1. When houses along College Avenue become available because of tenants leaving:
    1. First option is to rent the house to married students who are looking for college housing.
    2. If there are no married students looking for college housing at the time that a house becomes available, the Goshen College Housing Manager will begin to make efforts to rent the house to non-Goshen College students.  This will take place two weeks after the house first becomes available which means that Student Life has two weeks to put a claim in the house to be used for married students.
    3. Once rented, a particular house is considered to be out of the market of availability for Goshen College students for a period of one year since all leases will be written initially for a one-year period.  Once the initial one-year lease expires, the leases will be put on a month-to-month basis, meaning if a house is needed for Goshen College married-student housing, the tenants at that time could be given 30 days’ notice that they would have to vacate so the house could be used by the college.
  2. Once a house is rented and, therefore, unavailable, if a married student requests house:
    1. A student is required to make a deposit to show a commitment to rent a college house.  Once this deposit is made, for all houses that are on a month-to-month lease, the tenants will be notified that they may be required to vacate.  The married student desiring the housing will be required to wait the necessary 30-day notice period before the house would be available.
    2. The deposit received from the student as a commitment to rent the house must be made at least six weeks ahead of their anticipated move date because of the need to give 30 days’ notice to the current tenant and the need to provide 2-weeks turnaround time for physical plant staff to clean and repair the property.
  3. The overall goal for the houses that the college owns on College Avenue is to minimize vacancy to no more than two weeks in between tenants.  This explains the need for students to be willing to put a deposit down to show their commitment to carry through with the rental of the Goshen College property.