Opinion Staff Editorial

Staff Editorial: Voicing viewpoints on The Vue

[alert type=”yellow”]Editor’s Note: A previous version of this editorial ran, saying that UH was partnered with The Vue on MacGregor. The Vue is a private company completely independent of the University.[/alert]

With the Student Government Association passing the freshmen housing requirement last week, and The Vue on MacGregor once again delaying the move-in date, housing has been in the news more often than usual.

What is not so often heard are the students voicing their complaints — via Facebook, phone calls, emails or pictures. As “tenants,” they do their part in addressing the cracks in the walls, the water leaking from the ceiling and the delays due to construction.

The reason students’ voices go unheard is The Vue not addressing the real problem.

A father of a concerned student contacted The Cougar and discussed the multiple delays and unruly management team. All of the wall posts currently on The Vue’s Facebook page make it seem like nothing is wrong, unless you catch a comment that has yet to be deleted.

In fact, some employees have even taken the liberty of posting reviews on Facebook in order to boost the star rating on their page. Deleting valid complaints is not the answer; the problem will not go away.

There are not enough beds for the record enrollment population, yet future Cougars may be required to live on campus.

The quality of life standards are not being met. Some say it’s because the speed of construction was too fast, and the building’s flaws weren’t known until students moved in.

Still, students were forced pay for their first month’s rent, despite many of them not having moved into The Vue yet.

How can a Cougar live on-campus if the quality of life is low? Students pay enough out of their pockets for tuition and books as well as day-to-day necessities.

Future freshmen could be expected to live on a campus because statistics promise a better GPA, but they will be unable to focus on their studies if building malfunctions distract them.

If a new resident building is going to be built, taking the time to make sure all the utilities are operational before anyone moves in will not only make the students happy, but will also contribute to better focus, putting students’ attention on where it needs to be: maintaining a good GPA and graduating.

However, the question begs answering: what is the reasonable amount of time for a reasonable number of students when it comes to building a new home for the next four years?

As the saying goes, “You get what you pay for.”

The sad thing is, the private partners can take as much time as they want, because the ink has already dried on the leases — quality of life not included.

4 Comments

  • It is unfortunate the owner and developer of the property,
    Fountain Residential Partners, was not contacted for comment for this article.

    Over 40 student housing projects across the country have
    been delivered late, both on and off campus, due the an extreme shortage of
    construction labor and materials. The US economy has rebounded significantly,
    but construction industry has not been able to keep up with the acceleration.
    In Houston alone, there are over 30 high rise residential developments in some
    phase of development and construction; enough to double the size of the center
    city at one time and an increase of 75% since last year. It has not helped that
    in some of these latter weeks, it has rained 5 of the 7 days of the week as we
    tried to complete the exterior amenities and landscape.

    I note this to put into perspective that the construction
    delays that have occurred at the Vue on MacGregor are not isolated. This does
    not reduce the amount of extreme inconvenience that the new residents have been
    put through. As the father of two students in college myself, I am completely
    empathic to the situation that many families have been experiencing for the
    last several weeks. We have done everything possible to reduce the
    inconvenience, including providing hotel accommodations for those displaced,
    paying for meals, supplying transportation, credits for delayed move in, and
    “inconvenience checks” or gift cards – all of this costing the developer
    approximately $1 million.

    Some of the issues have been those that are normally
    attributed to new construction. Though not lessening the inconvenience, new
    building systems such as the high speed wifi provided throughout the property
    and the 50” flat screen TV’s with included cable have had occasional outages,
    and fire alarms or power inconsistencies have been attributed to final
    connections and inspections of the building systems for building inspections.

    Regarding
    Facebook comments, as you can see, there are negative comments posted. Those
    comments that have been taken down included email addresses, phone numbers,
    personal information, or vulgar language. This is consistent with most major
    review websites.

    We can only reduce the negative experience of this first
    month of the fall semester. This was certainly not our preferred situation, but
    the construction team will continue to work 7 days a week to have all of the
    construction completed as soon as possible. We promise our residents that, once
    fully operational, they will find that this is the best living environment and
    experience available serving the students of the University of Houston and TSU.

  • … If freshmen were required to live on campus, this housing would not be at the Vue which is not affiliated with the UH campus. This article makes no sense.

  • In Texas it’s shoddy workmanship and construction supervisors and poorly trained laborers which account for later problems with residential housing. Construction contractors enjoy the benefits of our cheep, unregulated labor pool; residents usually pay the price in housing which is subpar Inspectors don’t catch every mistake, and there are, generally too few of them to go around, increasing delays. The folks like an employment environment which goes virtually unregulated so they can brag about how Texas is so “business friendly.” What they usually leave out is how the labor force is more typically exploited in the name of building fast, cheep, and with little oversight.

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