Area landlords claim they are losing potential off-campus housing business due to UW-Eau Claire’s policy of placing overflow on-campus students in hotels and overflow dorm rooms.

Dale Goshaw, president of the Chippewa Valley Apartment Association, said between 350 to 400 off-campus vacancies are available now in the student housing areas of the city.

Goshaw, who helped start the writing of letters to legislators about the situation, said he believes this is due to students choosing hotels over living off-campus.

“We can’t compete against swimming pools and maid service,” said Goshaw, who added the university basically is “putting a new dorm in a hotel.”

The effect of the hotel housing option, Goshaw said, coincides with the opening of the 324-person Chancellors Hall on upper campus, which started in the fall of 2000. He said it is a loss of 324 potential off-campus residents.

Vice Chancellor Andy Soll said the university is not trying to compete with the landlords by offering the extra off-campus housing, which is controlled similarly to residence halls and charges the same housing fee.

Eau Claire officials are trying to provide university housing to those students who want it, he said.

“We think we offer a good experience (on campus),” Soll said, “but we don’t put any barriers up that would hinder students from moving off campus.”

University officials said they should know if they will need to use hotel housing again by July 1.

Sophomore Reed Dopp transferred from UW-Stout last fall and lived in the Ramada Inn due to being an overflow student.

“It was a lot better than the dorms,” said Dopp, who added the commute to campus for classes and meals was annoying at times.

Another reason for a rise in off-campus vacancies, Soll said, could be competition from new housing developments in the private sector. Including all of its expenses from on campus and hotels, the housing department usually ends with a neutral annual revenue.

“We don’t put students in the motels to make money,” Soll said.

Goshaw said university officials promised the opening of Chancellors Hall would stop the placement of overflow students in hotel rooms, which university officials deny.

Chuck Major, the university’s housing director, said the increase of more upperclassmen deciding to stay living on campus has affected the on-campus population.

“We really thought (Chancellors) would satisfy most of our demand,” he said, “and that certainly helped.”

Usually the university does not use the hotels during the spring semester, Major said, because there are many vacancies in campus dorms left by graduates, study abroad students and residents transferring elsewhere.

Last fall on-campus housing opened at 106-percent occupancy and now is at 98 percent, he said. For four out of the past five years, the university needed to place students in hotels, Major said.

The lack of student interest is causing some landlords to start turning their rentals into single-family homes, Goshaw said.

“We’re going to be forced to do something to get rent,” Goshaw said.

Major said he has empathy for landlords, but doesn’t feel responsible to provide them with customers.