Columbia neighbors felt betrayed by USC’s Campus Village. A lawsuit was dismissed
Several Columbia neighborhoods sued the University of South Carolina after a massive student housing development allegedly caused “student intrusion” that disrupted residents’ ability to enjoy their homes.
It was dismissed in December 2025.
City resident Kit Smith, along the Wales Garden, Hollywood-Rose Hill and Wheeler Hill neighborhood associations filed the complaint against the university and the City of Columbia in March 2024, just months after Campus Village, and 18-acre property on Whaley and Bull streets, welcomed 1,800 students for the first time in August 2023.
Fears of traffic and parking nightmare, which had been vocalized for years, had been realized, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit said students could be found traversing through nearby residential neighborhoods to find a spot for their cars.
The State has reached out to USC about the dismissal and any potential settlement agreements that may have been executed. A University spokesman responded with “we are pleased with the outcome.”
Planning for Campus Village, a $240 million began more than a decade ago.
The university reached out to residents near the site to discuss the project, and over the next few years they worked collaboratively to avoid any negative impacts on the surrounding community, with the hope of a “win-win” situation, the lawsuit said.
Both USC and the neighborhood associations entered into a cooperative agreement. In exchange for letters of support from the neighborhoods, USC promised to ensure collaboration for future planning and problem-solving efforts. The university was supposed to revise parking and construction plans to reduce traffic in the area, create walkable routes to its main campus and mitigate “student intrusion” in neighborhoods, the lawsuit said.
Building Campus Village required a special exception from the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals. It was approved in February 2017, but that approval was contingent on the agreement with the neighborhoods, the lawsuit said.
But when a site plan review was submitted to the city’s planning commission in December 2019, things had changed. The number of beds had increased by more than 400 from the proposed 1,399. Original plans for a 945-space parking garage had changed in favor of a 237-space “transportation hub.”
The State previously reported that when USC came before the state Legislature to get funding and approval for Campus Village, state former Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a Richland County Democrat and Wales Garden resident, objected to the parking garage. He said he believed it would only make things worse. So the parking garaged was scrapped.
Neighborhood leaders previously told The State they weren’t notified of such changes until construction began. Though the university claimed that there would be “sufficient” parking for Campus Village residents, they disagreed.
Traffic in the surrounding area had “worsened,” the lawsuit said, and students can be found “cruising” the area to find parking, along the edges of the neighborhoods and within the neighborhoods themselves. The lawsuit also called the “uncertainty” of further development in the area “troubling.”
The university has said Campus Village may have two more phases, though its future is unclear.
