Student housing developments reshape College Park amid affordability concerns
By: Tyler Quattrin
College Park has been on a student housing building spree over the past decade.
From 2013 to 2023, housing in the city got newer. In that time, the city’s median housing age dropped by nearly 20 years, according to U.S. Census data. That statistic led real estate website PropertyShark to rank College Park as the sixth most changed U.S. city during that decade.
The city’s surge in student housing developments contributed to the drop in housing age. College Park now has 14 student housing complexes, according to the city’s 2025 economic development report, with more on the way.
One upcoming development, led by LV Collective, is set to add 299 units on the former site of the Campus Village Shoppes. It’s scheduled to open in the fall of 2027.
Additionally, during an April 15 meeting, the College Park City Council unanimously voted to support a rezoning request from Landmark Properties, advancing the company’s plan to redevelop the College Park Towers on Hartwick Road.
Landmark, which previously developed The Standard at College Park, purchased the property in September and plans to replace the College Park Towers with two high-density student apartment buildings, called The Mark at College Park.
If the Prince George’s County Planning Board approves the rezoning, Landmark will return to the City Council to negotiate final details for the development.
During the council meeting, several council members raised concerns about affordability in Landmark Properties’ proposed redevelopment, citing the loss of one of the city’s few affordable housing options.
“We have an affordable housing crisis in our country, which is also the case in our state, which is also the case in our city,” said District 3 Councilmember Ray Ranker, after the meeting.
Landmark’s proposal agrees to set aside either 200 beds or 10% of the building’s units for moderately priced housing. Those units are aimed at students whose household income is below 80% of the area median income, according to the agreement.
But some council members think that is not enough to meet the high demand for affordable housing in the area.
“Eighty percent [of the area median income] is still quite high compared to the challenges that we’re trying to address,” said District 1 Councilmember Jacob Hernandez. “I would be happy with 60%.”
Michael Williams, College Park’s director of economic development, said the redevelopment could be a missed opportunity to create more affordable housing specifically for seniors and people with disabilities.
The City Council approved the rezoning request without finalizing the affordability terms. Ranker said voting to support the rezoning keeps the city in a position to negotiate elements of the project moving forward.
New affordable housing opens in College Park this month
Aiming to address the city’s affordable housing shortage, a new affordable housing complex, the Flats at College Park, began its first phase of opening the week of May 5.
Located on U.S. Route 1 just north of the University of Maryland campus, the Flats will include 317 total units.
According to Danny Copeland, vice president of RST Development, the company that developed the project, rents are adjusted to be an average of 60% of the area’s median income.
The rent limits in the apartments range from 50% to 80% of the area’s median income to meet federal affordable housing credit guidelines, Copeland said.
He said the project is nearly four and a half years in the making, starting when his team saw a chance to redevelop three dilapidated motels and respond to the area’s affordable housing shortage.
“Supply and demand,” he said. “We knew there was a huge need that needed to be served. We knew it would create a positive impact on the community, which we care deeply about, and then there are other financial incentives that help support affordable housing that are out of the federal level.”
Some of those incentives, Copeland said, include programs like the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, which provides dollar-for-dollar tax credits to offset development costs, and the Payment in Lieu of Taxes, or PILOT, program, which allows developers to negotiate reduced property tax payments.
“We probably wouldn’t have been able to make this deal work without the PILOT,” Copeland said.
The Flats will also include a 3,000-square-foot commercial space, which is expected to become the new headquarters for Food for Maryland, a nonprofit that prepares and distributes meals locally.
Despite the addition of The Flats, Williams and other city officials said they don’t believe it’s enough on its own to fully address the city’s demand for affordable housing.
Copeland said the difficulty of developing affordable housing is likely why there isn’t more.
“There are a lot of hurdles to developing affordable housing, which I also think speaks to why we have such a shortage of affordable housing in our country today,” Copeland said.
Some of those hurdles include lengthy approval processes tied to zoning laws, local pushback from communities and complicated financing systems unique to affordable housing, he said.
Copeland mentioned that expediting zoning processes specifically for affordable housing and broadening the PILOT program would serve as an attractive incentive for developers.
Built up, priced out: Overdevelopment concerns
As the Campus Village Shoppes and College Park Towers redevelopments move forward, the city’s 2025 economic development report states that student housing demand has waned.
Williams, who wrote the report, believes College Park already has an oversupply of student housing.
“I think we’re there. I think we’ve met the demand,” he said.
Williams said he expects a continued drop in demand for student housing and remains unsure how challenges will need to be addressed in the future.
Hernandez, one of the District 1 councilmembers, said he is concerned about overdevelopment because of the lack of affordable housing and low occupancy rates.
“At what point have we priced out the people that need to live somewhere, because there’s no way that folks are paying $1,800 to $2,000 a month,” he said.
District 3 Councilmember John Rigg disagrees.
He argued that increasing the overall housing supply by adding more student housing should help lower rent prices citywide.
However, Hernandez said that rent prices for student housing in College Park have remained high, despite the addition of new developments.
The 2025 economic development report said the cost per bed remains prohibitively expensive.
The benefits of the growth in housing complexes
Approximately 35% of the city’s tax revenue comes from housing developments, Williams said.
Ranker, one of the District 3 council members, emphasized the importance of that revenue for public services.
“The seven largest apartment complexes in College Park bring in more tax revenue to the city than all the residential properties combined,” Ranker said. “It’s with those funds that we’re able to have some of the best trash collection and snow removal in the county.”
Ranker said tax revenue from those housing complexes also helps keep property taxes low for citizens.
While Hernandez agrees that the city benefits from that profit, he said the addition of more market-rate student housing developments also impacts the city’s strategic goal of keeping housing at an affordable rate.
“To a certain extent, the city depends on the tax revenue earned by these complexes,” Williams said. “But at the same time, our leadership has got to figure out where they’re going to draw the line in the sand and limit the buildup of these kinds of places.”
Note: This story combines three stories that aired during the spring 2025 semester. The individual stories are linked in the body of this article.
Additionally, Hernandez is referenced as a District 4 councilmember in the audio stories. This is incorrect, as he represents District 1. The web story has been updated to reflect this.