I'm sure this happens in a lot of "university towns". Near campus here, the "slumlords" that would rent 4-5 or more 3-4 bedroom houses, near campus, let them run down to the point they go to the city council, cry about it being a blighted area, ask for permission to tear them all down, request a tax waiver for 10-20 years to build "luxury" student housing. Well, the city goes along with it, and now we have so many student housing condo/apartments or whatever you call them within a few blocks of the campus, it's just mind blowing. And they are outfitted with gyms, pools, saunas, movie theaters, free tv/internet. The apartments are fully furnished, huge flatscreen TV's etc. They rent by the bed, 500,600, or more PER BED. This is in a smaller city, 150,000 population, 20k students.
Of course with all these that popped up within the last 5 years, the city isn't really getting any tax money on the property, because of the abatement waivers.
So they suck up the resources, electricity, water, (yeah, figured into the rent), infrastructure wear and tear, but the city isn't getting any money, so what does the city do? Beg and beg for sales or property tax increases. The builder got their money, sold it to a property management company most likely not local, so the money paid by the kids parents doesn't stay in the city. When the waivers run out, they will probably try to offload them onto a local developer. They got their piece of pie.
It just amazes me that parents are willing to spend that amount of money on their kids to live in a place like that, when they can live in a dorm for a heck of a lot less.