Yet again, student housing opportunities are being quelled by East Lansing officials. In the most recent case, a plan to construct five new apartment buildings on the 700 block of Burcham Drive was denied approval by the East Lansing Planning Commission.

The proposition would keep students living closer to campus and eradicate the herding of cattle, err, the pushing of students, up to the Northern Tier. This would mean DTN Management would own even more buildings and property - something some would argue is a bad thing, considering an already large amount of DTN properties in East Lansing.

The commission rejected the proposed apartments last week, citing a need for housing that is geared more toward permanent residents. The thing is, the 700 block of Burcham Drive has predominantly student apartments, as is. The proposed apartment buildings actually would be located between existing DTN apartment complexes.

With that in mind, it's hard to listen to the planning commission's reasoning behind rejecting the apartment complexes. It's also hard to listen to the words of Planning Commission Chairwoman Roberta McElmurry when she says, "Anybody going to MSU can rent one of these. I have a hard time believing it would be attracting anyone else."

Perhaps McElmurry should just come out and say what those words really mean: "More student housing is a bad thing. We don't want students living in East Lansing."

The planning commission asserts the new apartments will present traffic problems, but there currently are few problems to speak of with an already large amount of complexes in the area.

The decision to approve or deny the apartment buildings now goes to the City Council. Whether the DTN apartment buildings are approved - and with the planning commission's denial, it doesn't look good - the anti-student message is what's ultimately important here.