For years, Chancellor Victor Boschini said that he wanted TCU to be able to accommodate every student who wanted to live on campus. 

In 2013, the Board of Trustees committed to building a dorm every year until student demand for housing is met, according to TCU360 archives. Boschini started the academic year, by emailing students that the "university is hoping to become a 100 percent residential campus.”

At the time, the university could house about half the student population. During that time, the university remodeled the old dorms and added the Campus Commons and King Family Commons.

But TCU's growth rate outmatched it's housing stock. Over the last 10 years, the university's undergraduate enrollment grew 28 percent from 8,647 undergraduates to 11,049.

This fall, TCU housed 47 percent of its undergraduates. Juniors and seniors know there's little chance that they will secure on-campus housing. As this shortage has become more acute, some of the residential blocks surrounding campus have gone from single family enclaves to multi-family complexes meant for college students. 

Things used to look a lot different, said Bettina Pfeiffenberger, a residential property manager realtor for 24 Doors Properties, who has been leasing to students for the past 15 years.

Now students sign 2-year leases years in advance, where it used to be normal for students to lease within the same year, she said.

The multiplexes began sprouting up after Fort Worth adopted zoning changes meant to keep students from crowding into single family homes.

Stealth dorms used to be in “just regular single-family houses,” Pfeiffenberger said.

“We could lease a three-bedroom house to six people, because at the time you could legally have two adults per bedroom per property," she said. "They could put twin beds in there, man, and they could party as much as they wanted. But the people that were in the surrounding houses got tired of it.”

In 2014, Fort Worth created the TCU Residential Overlay Ordinance. To plan for what this proposed zoning ordinance would like look city staff held public meetings for affected neighborhoods and property owners in July and August 2014​.

“There was a lot of arguing,” Assistant City Manager Dana Burghdoff said about these first meetings.  

Burghdoff, who at the time was Fort Worth’s assistant director of planning and development, combatted this with a mediation group that met in October and November 2014. The goal? Compromise.

“Let's bring together some reasonable folks from all these different factions and see if we can reach consensus on what to do,” Burghdoff said. 

This group comprised of neighborhood leaders, investors/builders/realtors​, TCU Administration, TCU Student Government leaders and other stakeholders​.

“At that time, citywide, in all of our residential districts, we would allow up to five unrelated persons in a home. And then for parking, we required two spaces on the private property off the street for the single-family dwelling, regardless of the number of bedrooms,” Burgdoff said. “So then what the proposal was, is to limit the number of unrelated persons that could live together to three in the ‘A’ One-Family zoning districts.”

The overlay was “intended to try and protect the integrity of the single-family zoning, said W.B. Zimmerman, the then-District 3 representative, according to TCU360 archives. "It was never intended to put five unrelated people inside of a building in an area like that, particularly with the parking.”

The proposal also amended single-family parking requirements to match two-family requirements for new construction.​ The petition included: two spaces plus one per bedroom over three bedrooms​ and the need to require two spaces be behind the front building wall (in a garage or a side or rear yard).

The older properties that were already leasing to renters were grandfathered in, and allowed to continue to rent.

Newer properties for four or more students would have to be moved to zoning districts that allowed for ‘B’-Two Family housing, however, each rental would need a registration, and students signing a lease have to have some type of prior relationship with each other.  

Burghdoff said the registration detail is the key to keeping the students at bay.

“That was a way to provide some accountability for the property owners that if, whether it was students or just other occupants having parties, creating trash or nuisance, that there would be someone able to be contacted and help deal with the police or whoever was called,” she said.

Residents said this safeguard hasn't worked. Instead family neighborhoods now have "an apartment complex without a manager," President of the Westcliff Neighborhood Association Janet Williamson said.

"A hundred percent of the houses on my block used to be homeowner properties. Within the last year, it is now half rentals," she said. "Majority who have moved out have been younger families who are tired of the yelling and music."

Williamson even wonders about selling her own home today to avoid the noise.

"Can we put $100,000 dollars into the backyard and then turn around and have to move because we're fed up?" she said.

The Chair of the Property Oversight Committee for the Westcliff Neighborhood Association, Janie Franks, also shared the same sentiment. She explained her position was made in order to keep track of all communication and documentation of noise complaints in the area, in addition to whether or not those complaints were addressed.

"Let me be clear we have encountered some nice students," Franks said. "But it's the fraternities and their mass party events that are causing the bad name for students."

At the Spring 2024 Board of Trustees meeting, the Campus Master Plan was approved. The plan was developed with student-centered growth in mind, including seven core initiatives, one of them being, “making East Campus a thriving residential and campus life hub.” 

Two new residential halls, Hill and Walsh, have started to open. When the halls are fully operational, this will add 292 beds for first-year students to TCU's housing stock. 

Executive Director for Housing & Residence Life and Fraternity & Sorority Life Craig Allen said with increased enrollment most juniors and seniors who apply to live on campus get put on a waitlist.  

Allen said student apartment complexes such as Village East, Liberty Lofts, and University House all have master lease agreements through TCU and the property owners and are majority lived in by seniors and juniors. 

Allen mentioned that if TCU had housing for students who had to move further from campus because they could not grab a spot in one of the duplexes, they could market towards having them live on campus. 

He also mentioned that because the neighborhoods have become so saturated with students, construction east of campus for new dorms could potentially balance the strain. 

Pfeiffenberger said that new dorms do not worry her about business, due to what she’s seen as a campus tradition. 

“You live on campus your freshman and sophomore year and then you go do your own thing," she said. “And so even though they're like, 'we'll have room for everybody,' I don't think they will, because I think they're just going to continue to work to increase their enrollment, which will push the juniors and seniors out on their own. Whether that happens or not, I don't know.”

The shift is creating an off-campus student center. Allen called McCart Avenue and Forest Park Boulevard “Sorority-row.”

Pfeiffenberger said these nooks are some of the keys to also keeping her business alive. 

“When I can lease a house that's got five on this side and five on this side, and they can get in with a group of 10, yeah, that's really appealing,” she said. “It's like the coming out of the sorority house, but they still get together and have their own space versus going and just trying to figure life out on their own.”