COLUMBIA — It's an oft-heard sentiment around Columbia that there are two versions of the capital city: one with students in town and one without.
That half-joking gap is only widening as the University of South Carolina enrollment continues to grow — along with its campus and student housing through the recent opening of the new Campus Village dorm complex and the planned purchase of two downtown office buildings.
The Campus Village project was intended to help fill the ever-increasing need for on-campus student housing, bringing 1,800 beds to the south side of USC's campus when it opened in August 2023.
But the four dorm buildings have also served as a flashpoint for Columbia residents who see the growth as harmful to neighborhood tranquility, suing USC and the city of Columbia in March over claims that the university reneged on promises to a trio of neighborhood associations just south of campus.
Their suit comes as city officials were already moving to take a deeper look at the relationship between Columbia's universities and the city, forming a Town and Gown committee in April meant to spur greater cooperation amongst officials and the public.
"We know the neighborhoods were very stressed, lots of anxiety that 1,800 freshmen were going to come take over our neighborhoods, park their cars … The angst was there, but there were no communications," Columbia City Councilman Will Brennan said at a Columbia Chamber of Commerce forum in October 2023. "And I learned that from that we need to strengthen our communications with our universities, our colleges."
A growing Carolina
USC's undergraduate student body has grown by more than 4,200 students in the past decade, up to 28,429 in the 2023-24 school year. Enrollment was 24,179 a decade prior.
That's a 17.6 percent increase, and it doesn't appear to be stopping. The 2024-25 freshman class is expected to be similar in size to this year's, according to spokesman Jeff Stensland, which was its largest ever.
Such growth has spurred an increase in student housing, according to data provided by USC, with the university increasing its offering of on-campus beds from 6,171 in 2013 to 9,445 in 2023.
But even that 53 percent increase isn't nearly enough to house the undergraduate body on campus, with most upperclassmen turning to the blocks of private apartments that are ubiquitous around much of Columbia.
"Demand for on-campus housing is still greater than its availability, but that isn’t new and certainly isn’t unique to USC," Stensland wrote in a message to The Post and Courier.
The Campus Village dorm complex at the University of South Carolina houses about 1,800 students in four buildings.
USC is still looking to address that demand, though, with the design firm Sasaki estimating that the university will need 2,000 to 2,500 more beds on campus by 2033 to meet future freshman class needs.
After Campus Village's opening, the board of trustees has heard early proposals to replace the aged, male-only McBryde dorms on Blossom Street and add a third wing to the Honors College dorm, though such projects are tentative.
And as those housing proposals work through the approval and planning process, the university has said it's looking to break ground on South Carolina's largest-ever higher education infrastructure project — a new $300 million medical school campus in the BullStreet development — around the end of the year.
Neighborhoods lawyer up
Not all in Columbia are on board with USC's growth plans.
Residents of the Wales Garden, Hollywood-Rose Hill and Wheeler Hill neighborhoods have been concerned about the Campus Village project since before it housed a single resident, warning before its opening of "the herd" of students it would bring to their doorsteps.
The three neighborhoods sit to the south of USC, effectively bridging the gap between campus to the north and Rosewood Avenue to the south.
Their anxieties hit the court system on March 26 in the form of a lawsuit alleging that residents' fears of "students cruising the area looking for the nearest most convenient parking space" had been realized.
That lawsuit — filed in Richland County court by resident Kit Smith and the three neighborhood associations against the university, its university architect, the city of Columbia and its Planning Commission — asserts that the Planning Commission allowed USC to go back on documented promises to the neighborhood associations, bringing more residents and fewer parking spaces to the dorm complex.
For years, the lawsuit asserts, the neighborhoods met with the university to reach a "win-win" agreement, particularly concerning the parking and traffic situation.
That agreement was included in the city Board of Zoning Appeals' go-ahead for the university to start the Campus Village project, the lawsuit says, but when the project reached the Planning Commission, things changed. USC's submission to the commission included more beds and fewer on-site parking spaces than previous versions, but the commission approved the plan anyway — an alleged reversal the lawsuit says is a breach of contract with the university.
Residents' "ability to peacefully enjoy their homes and neighborhood has been harmed" because of those now-constructed changes, the suit asserts.
It asks the court to declare that the commission's approval of the changed project was outside of the commission's authority, order that the city and university include the neighborhoods in future Campus Village development, and require that future development comply with the terms of the agreement between USC and the neighborhoods.
USC and the city of Columbia declined to comment on the pending litigation, and neither have filed responses to the lawsuit in court. Smith, the plaintiff and a former Richland County councilwoman, did not respond to requests for comment.
A common forum?
Tensions between an expanding USC and Columbia neighborhoods aren't new.
As far back as the 1960s, as USC was coming to terms with its post-war, baby boom growth, residents of the tree-lined University Hill neighborhood to the campus's immediate east pushed back against the university's expansion their way, which became the now-iconic Capstone tower dorm.
Around the same time, the university's westward growth was a major contributor to the displacement of families from the predominantly Black, working-class Ward One, where the campus fitness center, business school and Carolina Coliseum now stand.
But as tensions continue, Columbia city leaders are looking to potentially head off future friction. Council voted unanimously April 2 to approve the establishment of a Town and Gown Advisory Committee.
That new committee will include representatives from city government divisions, the hospitality administration, some neighborhoods within a mile of a campus and the administrations of the area's colleges and universities.
After a "strategic planning session" to determine its exact focus, the committee will share regular reports with City Council.
"A big part of this committee is it not just being the city and all of the schools," Payton Lang, policy and programs adviser to the mayor, told council April 2. "It's also incorporating the neighborhoods and the business community."
Josh Archote contributed to this story.
