With a standing-room only audience and emotions running high, Georgetown ANC commissioners by a 6-1 vote gave a failing grade to Georgetown University's proposed campus expansion plan after releasing a 13-page summary of troubling issues.
(Photo by: The Georgetown Dish)
Linda Greenan, GU vice president (left) spoke for the University, with Ron Lewis, ANC chair
ANC Commissioners described concerns including: The University's objectionable impacts on the community, the need for enrollment caps on all categories of GU students and limits on the number of GU students living off-campus in zip code 20007, objectionable transportation-related impacts of the proposed campus plan, and issues relating to GU’s management and control of off-campus student conduct.
Speaking for the University, Linda Greenan, Assistant Vice President for External Relations, said, "We’ve listened to the community and made changes” including how undergraduates are counted in the plan, not building in the 1789 block next to the campus and eliminating a tall smokestack. In addition, the undergraduate and medical school enrollment is to be frozen with a “modest” increase in graduates students of 2100 over the ten years of the plan. While “students have a right to live” off-campus, she said, “they have an ‘obligation to community norms and standards.”
(Photo by: The Georgetown Dish)
Burleith residents showed their opposition to the GU expansion plan: (from left) Linda Brooks, Ross Schipper, Lenore Rubino, Glen Harrision and Candith Pallandre
"We cannot continue to live like this," said CAG President Jennifer Altemus. "The viability of Georgetown and Burleith as residential communities is being threatened."
Lenore Rubino, president of the Burleith Citizens Association, said, “GU has behaved like a stealthy corporate Goliath” unwilling to “consider viable and important solutions [with] specific means to reach the positive accord we have repeatedly requested.” She added, “Burleith homeowners are losing their basic rights to enjoy our homes, protect our property values and maintain a balance of diversity.”
(Photo by: The Georgetown Dish)
Robin Diener, president of the Dupont Circle Citizens Association, shows her solidarity with her Ward 2 neighbors in Georgetown and Burleith.
Shen said the University's proposed expansion was justified by the D.C. Human Rights Act because the law prohibits discrimination “based on matriculation." Shen, whose online petition, most of whose signatures came from Georgetown students, said the University's expansion would benefit the surrounding neighborhoods by strengthening GU.
4 Comments For This Article
The fact is that the only diversity in the area comes from GU students. In zip code 20007, student residents are much more likely to be people of color than non-student residents, and many activists know that limiting the number of students will make their neighborhood even whiter.
The only thing that will make Rubino the real-estate agent happy is more opportunity for her to sell homes...something that ain't happening as long as landlords have willing renters. The demonization of students and the Orwellian recommendations by the ANC are shameful. How do these un-civic 'civic' groups get away with such garbage? Is Georgetown still in America?
@Not Student,
I disagree- Lenore Rubino is advocating a segregationist agenda that goes far beyond selling homes. Ironically, it's the extremist activists who might be causing the biggest harm to home sales -after all, Ken Archer recently referred to the neighborhood as a "ghetto" in an attack on GU and its students. No one wants to live near ranting, hysterical neighbors (including the creepy Burleith photographer who stalks fellow residents).
It's a shame that too many students have demonstrated a disregard -- or even contempt -- for long-term neighbors, especially the elderly and those with young children. Yes, many students are polite and respectful, but student slum houses packed with more unrelated people than the law allows create noise, overflowing garbage, rats and faltering property values.
When you stridently protesting kids finally have fully mature brain, a job and a mortgage, you will probably begin to comprehend how some neighbors might find the courage to stand up and protect their rights.