East Lansing residents taking a stand against a proposed student-apartment complex on Michigan Avenue are sparking the wrong debate. It’s not a matter of noisy students versus peaceful residents, it’s a question of economics.

Campus Village Properties unveiled blueprints for a 222-resident apartment complex at 1153 Michigan Ave., on Wednesday at the East Lansing Planning Commission meeting, where several residents expressed their disapproval.

The proposed complex would be near The Oaks apartments, 136 Reniger Court.

Before any more plans can be finalized, the commission must recommend a decision to the East Lansing City Council on whether to give the builders a permit. Campus Village Properties has been denied by the council once before.

At the Wednesday planning commission meeting, East Lansing’s Central Neighborhood Association presented responses from a survey distributed to nearly 300 residents living near the proposed development site.

Eighty-five percent of those residents opposed a student-housing development and cited traffic, noise, lack of parking and students’ misuse of property as their main concerns.

While some concerns might be valid, their tactics and use of language at the meeting were both rude and unwarranted. Actions like that only foster negative feelings between students and residents.

Although they have concerns about their peace being violated, they are only reinforcing a negative student-resident atmosphere.

The question East Lansing City Council and the planning commission should consider in their decision is whether there is a market for a new apartment complex near the downtown area.

The city council should be concerned with the size of the proposed complex and whether its presence could enhance competition with other places in the downtown area.

East Lansing has plenty of houses and apartments that still have rooms for rent deep into the semester while newer, larger living complexes built further from the city’s center are filling up fast.

With more and more students moving to larger, more upscale places off campus and away from the city, landlords in East Lansing could be forced to upgrade the homes and leases.

In that case, competition could actually be healthy and beneficial. There could be a better selection for students searching for off-campus housing, and more might move back into town.

But maybe those large complexes on the outskirts of the city won’t prove to be major competition for downtown-area landlords. Maybe complexes like the proposed one for Michigan Avenue will be beneficial to East Lansing living conditions.

Looking at long-term benefits, a new student-apartment complex might not be detrimental to the East Lansing community.

East Lansing leaders should thoroughly consider the economic impact of a new apartment complex near downtown, and not the rants of a few student-hating residents.