Ohio State graduate students studying city and regional planning moderated a focus group of about 35 campus-area residents Monday night at the Northwood High Building to get feedback on problems associated with code enforcement issues in the University District.

The residents said crime, trash pick-up, property maintenance, noise and parking were among their main concerns. However, the issue they mentioned as perhaps the most detrimental to the social life of OSU students was couches on porches.   

The focus group said the couches were distasteful and provided shelter for rodents and a fire source for rioting students.

“The health code already says you can’t have stuffed furniture on porches, but it’s difficult to enforce,” said Ben Brace, vice president of the University District Organization, a group committed to improving the quality of life in the campus area.

“Do you waste your time to look at a stuffed couch (for rodents) or investigate other things?” he said.

There are bigger problems facing the University District than rodents living in couches on porches, said Jimmy Kelly, a sophomore in political science and participant in the focus group.

He said his 13th Avenue home has mice living in the walls.

“They should concentrate on the rodents inside the houses — not on the outside,” he said.

Kim Barker, an OSU alumna, lives in the University District and has a couch on her front porch. She uses the couch so her guests have a place to sit when she has parties during the summer.

Barker does not share the sentiments of the focus group.

“I don’t think there’s an excessive rodent problem in Columbus,” she said. “And couches are just as likely to catch on fire indoors as outdoors. If students are going to burn something, I’d rather see them burn a couch than a car. There’s a problem with Dumpster burning, but they can’t eliminate all of the Dumpsters.”

She said students use couches to make socializing as comfortable as possible because they have nowhere else to go since Campus Partners demolished most of the bars on or near campus.      

The couch issue is a hot topic in college towns across the country.

In Boulder, Colo., the city council voted to ban couches on porches in 2001 because rowdy students from the University of Colorado set them ablaze after sporting events. Conversely, students of Ohio University in Athens were instrumental in voting to defeat a city ordinance in 1999 that prohibited couches on porches.

Scott Hooper, associate professor of neurobiology at Ohio University, spearheaded the effort to defeat the couch-banning ordinance in Athens.

Hooper said couches on porches are a part of student culture, and permanent residents of college communities do not want to look at them because they are tacky.

“There are so many people who want to tell others how to live,” Hooper said. “It’s implicit elitism. These people with couches aren’t causing harm. They just have different values.”

Students need to take a stand against the city and vote if they want to protect their rights, he said.

Jennifer Cowley, assistant professor of city and regional planning and mentor of the focus group, said her students will draw the top three code enforcement issues expressed by the focus group and present recommendations on how to solve the problems to the University Code Enforcement Task Force on March 11. The UCETF is composed of citizens and city employees who enforce building, housing and health codes in the campus area.

Dan Trevas, spokesman for Columbus City Council, said none of the council’s members are advocating a ban on couches on porches at this time.

“The city is taking a neutral position,” Trevas said.