Any USC student who has graduated in the last decade or so can list off the same list of chronic problems students face on campus.
Parking is undeniably one of the most complained about issue every year on Yik Yak, during university forums, in dorm rooms and during Student Government elections. The availability of quality, reasonably priced housing comes next. During football season we'd also have to add the ticketing process. The new housing project that developer EdR wanted to put up on campus wouldn't have done anything to help with that last one, but it certainly would have improved on the housing and parking situation, if the university hadn't helped to kill it.
It's important to realize just how much this complex would have brought to campus. It was going to include 704 beds, making it the largest dorm on campus. The 556 parking spots would have had a dramatic impact on parking. There's not much data available on how many spots are on campus (probably for fear of sparking a minor riot), but a purchasing solicitation from the University in 2013 suggests that there are a total of 15,150 spots between the garages and surface lots.
By that calculation, the new housing project would have increased available parking by almost four percent university-wide. That may not sound like much, but the number of spots accessible to students today is certainly lower than 15,000, since many of those are reserved for faculty and staff or have been destroyed by construction, like Carolina Coliseum lots near Greek Village.
For students, those 556 slots may have meant more time in class and fewer parking tickets.
Why on earth, then, would the university oppose a project that could improve the lives of hundreds of students without the school having to pay a penny? The answer can actually be found on that penny: 650 Lincoln.
650 Lincoln is the university's newest and most premium housing option, complete with a pool, gaming lunge, yoga studio, outdoor movies and more. It's shiny and new and expensive, and the university would like to keep it that way. If the EdR complex had gone through it would have been a major competitor on campus with 650 Lincoln and the university (and its other dorms) for students and their rent checks.
The choice for the university was simple: let students benefit from new housing and parking options or try to block those options and protect the bottom line. USC's fabricated argument in opposition to the project because it was "ugly" and would cast "shadows" (while continuing to support the giant eyesore Humanities building even closer to the Horseshoe) does little to mask their decision.