The Landing: The Real Issue is Communication

OPINION

The beginning of this semester has been filled with drama, disappointments, and a lack of communication. Well, at least for those students who signed leases at The Landing. 

The story started when The Landing announced early in the Spring 2019 semester that they would be building South’s first “upscale student homes” as described by their website. They began marketing and recruiting students for the Fall 2019 semester to become residents of their new homes. This was a big move in a good direction for student housing at South, mimicking popular living styles from bigger campuses in the state, like Auburn. 

Everything took a turn for the worst in late July when communication between the management office and their residents began to slack. Students were beginning to question when move-in would be, whether they could come see their soon to be homes, and the biggest question, will they be ready in time?

The way communication has been handled in this situation is, to put it softly, unadmirable.  

Students were not told that the houses would not be ready until just weeks before move-in day, with no option given to rethink their choice of living at The Landing. To try and mend the obvious issue at hand the management team announced that they would be providing hotel rooms for all the residents and storage units for each one to store their belongings in the short time period until The Landing could finish construction. 

When students arrived on move-in day there were no storage units. Just employees shuffling their belongings into the leasing office. The only students who received storage units were ones that paid for them themselves. 

We are now two weeks into September and residents of The Landing are now living in other student housing options like Campus Quarters and paying The Landing’s rent rate. 

The idea that a brand new construction was not able to be completed in a few month’s time is not the most frustrating aspect. That is common, and can even be recalled by some South students of past years in other apartments. The residents of The Landing have been misled and kept in limbo. Some of the students who are graduating in December wonder if they are ever even going to get to step foot in the houses they are currently paying for. 

College is stressful enough, feeling like you are misplaced in your own “home” and that you can not get any of the answers you need to help the situation should not be added to that. At this point, the students should have a choice to move and change their situation if they want. These leases have become a cage with no welcome mat and it is time to open to the door for these students.

Link to the original story: https://jagmedia.org/the-landing-the-real-issue-is-communication/