Apartment shortages in Rexburg due to growing BYU-I community
Community housing is in high demand in Rexburg but there is not enough because of BYU-Idaho’s growing community. As result, there is a huge shortage of apartments.
Many families and married couples are being shut out of community housing, or housing for families, due to lack of room.
Many have no choice but to move to Idaho Falls or St. Anthony for housing.
The Village property manager, Lindsay Torgeson, said the situation is not getting better.
“We have around 40 people on our waitlist just for April. Unfortunately, we’re not going to able to accommodate all of those people. So, you know, people are definitely having to look for places far in advance,” said Torgeson.
All 207 units at The Village have been full of capacity, for the last six months.
Couples are sending in applications for the fall semester and even for January 2018.
Places such as The Village give people who have been taken off the waiting list a 24-hour window in which to decide to take an apartment, so people have to think fast.
“I think it’s important that we start building more units. That means the school is growing here. We are community housing. We do offer housing to anyone. Here, especially, we are helping students as well as the community,” Torgeson said.
Val Christensen, with the city of Rexburg, said the city is being selective when it rezones so that it can get as much density near the campus as possible.
“Probably upwards of 200 or 300 apartments that are actually in the works,” Christensen said. “We also want to see redevelopment in certain areas and so we also don’t want to try to get all of this on the periphery of town. We’d like to keep it, as much as we can, close to the university.”
The city has developers looking at building an additional 1,000 apartments, with construction set to begin this summer. Apartments are already being built on University Boulevard.
“The fact that they’re in framing stage and at that level, the ones that are the farthest along could be up and running in a month or two,” Christensen said.
