The newest off-campus community has opened its doors, and it may be the last to do so in the near future.The Cottages, a student-oriented housing complex located on Ben Hur Road between Burbank and Nicholson drives opened for move-in Aug. 14. A dwindling housing situation in Baton Rouge may make it the last apartment development of its kind to be built around campus for years to come.The Baton Rouge apartment market had a jump start in 2005 when Congress passed the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act, known commonly as the GO Zone Act, allowing companies in Baton Rouge to write off 50 percent of the cost of new rental developments the same year they were built as long as the building was ready for use by Dec. 31, 2008.This law created a rental property construction boom in Baton Rouge. From the time Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 until 2008, roughly 4,000 rental units were built in Baton Rouge, according to a report by Cook Moore and Associates Real Estate Appraisers.”[The GO Zone Act] was quite an incentive,” said Wesley Moore, a Baton Rouge commercial real estate appraiser.Sterling Northgate and the complex that is now Campus Crossing Highland on Highland Road were both built in 2006, and Regent Apartments off I-12 at Millerville Road was built in 2007, according to the 2010 Cook Moore report.But since the end of 2008, “all construction has slowed greatly,” Moore said. In the past two years, apartment vacancy rates for large complexes around the University’s campus have gone from 0.7 percent in spring 2008 to 3.6 percent in fall 2009, according to Cook Moore’s report.There are no student housing development projects planned for 2011, according to the report.The Cottages plan to combat the weakening rental market by providing students with amenities and services that other apartment complexes can’t compete with, Young said. “Our entire product is different,” said Josey Young, property manager for The Cottages.Phase one of The Cottages sold out six months ago, according to Young, and phases two and three are expected to be completed by January and May, respectively.—-Contact Frederick Holl at [email protected]