I believe that Commissioner Sticka and Kara Brandeisky have exposed what is perhaps a, if not the most, fundamental issue of this debate.

Were the University to provide attractive housing on campus, and a “social” center there, then students would be attracted to living on campus and not to live in the nearby neighborhoods. As it is now, there is strong motivation to live off-campus where there are few, if any, rules, and fewer enforcement efforts, short of being branded with a life-long MPD arrest.

As Jake and Kara suggest, students are caught in the squeeze between the University and the neighbors. I’d suggest that students look closely at this and decide if they are just pawns in the debate between the University’s need to expand revenue and the neighborhood interests. The Watergate-era mantra of “follow the money” is applicable.

Thanks to Jake and Kara for their excellent piece.

@Muse

Thanks for your praise, but I don’t know if I would agree with your analysis. I am very frustrated that the University has made so many concessions to the detriment of student life (changing the GUTS bus routes, giving up the 1789 block plans, not improving the smokestack to keep it from spewing emissions over campus, etc). But to say students are “just pawns in the debate between the University’s need to expand revenue and the neighborhood interests” is to ignore the reality that the University NEEDS revenue to improve student life. Providing attractive housing on campus and creating quality student centers costs money. I don’t fault the University for wanting to expand its graduate and continuing studies programs. I do wish that the University would fight harder to address current student needs, but it’s difficult for the University to negotiate on anything when the neighborhood powers have been so persistently unreasonable in their demands.

Moreover, it is not the case that students would all necessarily choose to live on-campus (keeping in mind that the neighbors’ definition of “on-campus” excludes any university-owned townhouse, and perhaps LXR and Nevils as well) if only there was more housing and a “social” center on campus. Harvard has more money than God to spend on student activities, as well as plenty of nice residences. Nonetheless, plenty of Harvard undergrads choose to live off campus. There are pros and cons either way, and students have to make a choice. Forcibly removing that choice is not an ethical action.

This is all addressed to Muse.

1. A life long MPD arrest is a pretty big deal. There is plenty of police activity at parties and even relatively tame social gatherings as any Georgetown student with a moderate social life can attest to.

2. There is a “strong motivation to live off campus” because you cannot get on campus housing for all of your undergraduate years. When Georgetown tries to build housing closer to the front gates than LXR (a dorm that Jennifer Altemus fondly recalled living in and described as a model for the university) they are shut down. This is, in all likelihood, because residents have dreams of banishing students to satellite housing in Arlington. This is a sad reality that has gone largely unnoticed in the debate. It would also have immense consequences for the university and students forced to live in that housing, since no one would voluntarily agree to live a 15+ minute bus ride away with uncertain traffic.

3. Georgetown has very small graduate programs compared to peer schools. The decision to expand graduate enrollment is much more than a pure cost/benefit calculation. Georgetown aspires to truly be a top flight research institution (in many ways it is just with small graduate programs), but this cannot take place without the ability to enroll more graduate students. Based on events in recent weeks, it’s clear neighbors want Georgetown to resemble a small liberal arts college that houses all students on campus. This is a sad and unnecessary reality that doesn’t allow an institution with top ranked programs to live up to its full potential.

4. It’s unclear what Muse wants students to do. There are no places to build housing on campus as he seems to believe. The famous 400 bed study has Georgetown putting dorms in some ludicrous places. If we are pawns, as he asserts, it’s only because the neighbors do not allow Georgetown to better serve students and students can’t do anything about it. I’m following the money and it leads me to believe that people bought houses in West Georgetown/south Burleith because they could not afford to live farther away from the university (and wanted to say they reside in tony Georgetown). Either they chose to ignore the implications of moving next to a 200+ year old university or had some really unrealistic ideas about what that would entail. So much of the debate over the campus plan ignores this reality. If you don’t want to live next to a university, there are 25 other comparable neighborhoods in northwest DC alone you can move to. Don’t fool yourself by buying a house that is way cheaper due to its proximity to Georgetown and then denounce the university and loudly organize to “oppose” it.

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts in response.

If you’re serious about following the money, you would start at Washington Fine Properties (place of employment of one Lenore Rubino) and trace that money to the various public and legal campaigns waged against the university. Those campaigns have produced results like the Wormley School (which was – duh – a school building) being denied to the university for use as… a school building. Apparently, it was fine for the education of children, but using it for public policy graduate students was BEYOND THE PALE. “They’d have parties every night!” it was claimed.

So instead the university has to sell the building, at which point it gets turned into luxury condos sold by… Washington Fine Properties.

And the neighbors Campus Plan proposals want the university to be disallowed from buying any property in 20007 without ANC approval. Hmmm, now who would that benefit?

Indeed, they’re not even trying to hide this – during the last hearing, it was made explicitly clear that student rentals are reducing the number of home sales in the neighborhoods. Guess who earns a commission off of home sales, which they miss out on when the houses get rented?

Yep, follow the money indeed, all the way to the accounts of CMs Jack Evans, Mary Cheh, and Vincent Orange and their cronies.

Dizzy makes another good point about Lenore Rubino. Didn’t want to bring that up for fear of making it too personal. But the fact that her bottom line is threatened explains some of the truly bizarre and baseless accusations that have been leveled against the university and students. “Single women who live in the neighborhood are threatened…”

@ Dizzy-

http://www.lenorerubinogroup.com — It appears she’s affiliated with Coldwell Bankers. I don’t know much about real estate agents, but I can’t see any affiliation with WFP here. Or perhaps she’s also employed at WFP but has her own group as well. Can someone provide clarity on this? Thanks!

@2011 grad

If you go to the website you provided, (or go here: http://www.lenorerubinogroup.com/findproperty.php) and click on our listings, you are brought up to a site that has many WFP listings on it. If a house is purchased after finding it through Lenore Rubino, Lenore Rubino’s group gets a commission. That said, it took me ~2 minutes to make that connection. If I cared enough I would look more closely at this matter.

@2011 grad

Either way, the president of the Burleith Citizens Association shouldn’t be a real estate agent, especially when said person is against expanding the university’s student base (think: renters) and is for home sales. I believe that’s the definition of “conflict of interest.” On top of this, any person who is against expanding higher education for our nation’s youth is a terrible human being.

I graduated last year and definitely feel for the students.
It’s outrageous that Lenore Rubino is the President of the Burleith Citizen’s Association and is also a real estate agent for the area. Unfortunately its not surprising. The BCAssociation is a joke.

From what I gather:
1. Lenore Rubino is a real estate agent
2. Back before my time the group submitted a false map of student housing to the district government which was a criminal offense (they should have an MPD arrest warrant)
3. Again before our time, a few notoriously bad activists, including Pat Scolaro tried to intimidate homeowners to vote against students in an ANC election and got a huge fine for it.
4. They’ve petitioned to shut down Hoya Kids Daycare
5. They wouldn’t let Gtown use what was a school building on prospect street for Grad classes (how does that make sense?) which has sense been converted into Wembley luxury apartments – see Lenore Rubino
6. Resident Bonnie Hardy and others even tried to disrupt the annual GU Senior Auction because of parent parking…
7. There are several residents who rent to students and make a killing yet still complain (hypocrites!)

Enough is enough. Most of the residents are great but the ones in power are conniving, disingenuous, spiteful greedy stiffs!

I wished we’d done this when I was on campus but here are a few suggestions:

1. Organize and Protest – get large groups together. Attend the meeting in numbers, be vocal about it and bombard the district with articulate yet dispassionate articles about why the parts of the 10 year plan benefits the city. Try getting 100 1-paragraph letters a week to send.

2. Step up the pressure on Georgetown. Hold big protests outside Healy on a constant basis to make sure the university is fighting for your needs.

3. See what Gtown can do to pressure the district (withholding taxes might be a bit extreme but there are definitely trump cards that Gtown can play that will negatively effect the district). They didn’t have to change the bus routes etc.

4. Talk to your neighbors! Most of them are awesome, that was my experience, so work something out. Talk to them about supporting you and show them you are serious about their needs as well. Be considerate and make it clear that if they ask you to turn down the music or call off a party, you will. If you get drunk screw up and leave beer cans on their lawns, apologize and weed their garden the next day. Show them we aren’t bad people.

5. Start a student watch. Every August elected a group of 10 students to self-police the neighborhood. Have them be the first response unit, have them mediate any disputes and have them hold students accountable. They can be in charge of making sure students pick up the beer cans etc… They can also work with the university to leverage fines (paid to the university) on students rather than metro arrests.

6. If all else fails, wage war. If the neighborhood is going to put up signs demonizing the students, then make your own signs that read something like:
“Hey potential buyers, don’t buy here – we party hard and pee on your lawn” or “Thinking about moving in? Don’t. Buy in Dupont because its too loud to live in this neighborhood”

Then, if they call the police on you, get them back. Create a list of all the bad neighbors and make sure to only target them. But if they are illegally parked? Call the police. If they are walking a dog without a leash? Call the police. Any time they trip up, return the favor call the police!

Stay strong and carry on Georgetown!

Hoya Saxa.

The solution to this problem is simple: vote. I’m a bit fuzzy on voter eligibility in DC, but I all you need to do is provide a proof of residence. If Georgetown’s student body actually voted, none of this would be happening. Georgetown’s student body could change the face of DC politics, from the neighborhood gadfly organizations all the way to the council. Hold registration drives and organize get-out-the-vote efforts on election day. No need to protest, just show up at the ballot box.

asuka has it completely right.

I’m glad to have followed up on Commissioner Sticka and Ms. Brandeisky’s article and to see so many actually thoughtful responses. I was following the Zoning Commission hearing last night and have only just caught up with the posts here.

I will respond to the specific comments when I get a chance. There are some good questions and I’d like to respond to them carefully.

In the meanwhile, I’d like to comment on the last two posts by asuka and JS. You can moan and groan all you want, but the best path to having your voice heard is to register to vote and elect candidates who share your concerns. If you believe the numbers being used, if all the GU students who live in Burleith were registered to vote (or even half of them) then the GU students’ point-of-view would control not only the ANC seat, but also the Burleith Citizens Association. Imagine that! When students who reside in the neighborhoods don’t bother to register to vote, it just underscores their lack of commitment to the neighborhood.

I’m pretty you have to give the BCA money if you want to join. I’m also pretty sure that if enough students tried to join, it would find a way to keep them out.

An civically-engaged GU student body is the neighborhood’s worst nightmare. Register and vote.

The open secret of DC student voter engagement is that DC sucks in terms of national elections. Students living in swing states — or even in states where local seats are contested — will have their vote count much more than in DC, which is reliably Democratic and has no voting seats in Congress. The challenge is convincing students to sign up to vote en masse here — and getting students specifically off campus to do so.

That having been said, in the last election, the representatives for ANC 2E01 (Burleith) and ANC 2E02 (Cloisters/Visitation area) and ANC 2E03 (West Georgetown — outside the gates to Wisconsin) could be potential up for grabs.

Ed Solomon, 01: 263 votes out of 273 cast
Ron Lewis, 02: 172 out of 185 cast
Jeffrey Jones, 03: 133 out of 137 cast.

Unfortunately that was on an off-Presidential election year. In 2008, for example, the totals were:

Ed Solomon, 591 out of 609
Ron Lewis, 400 out of 423
(Write In for 03), 140 of 140.

Even GU’s Rep, Aaron Golds, got 48 out of 52 votes (when GU’s seat averages 5-10 votes, tops).

So I imagine 2012 will be difficult to beat with those numbers.

However: There’s still some hope.

You see, Georgetown University is not completely within the 4th District. As a matter of fact, they’ve parceled it up as so: http://anc2e.com/images/gusmdlarge.gif

Henle and Darnall are in District 2, and Harbin and Copley are in District 3. Nevils and LXR are in District 5. District 5 is home to Bill Starrels, who won 154 out of 169 votes in 2010, and 389 out of 410 in 2008.

A sufficiently targeted drive toward students in those dorms, plus Burleithers, may stand a halfway decent chance of succeeding in registering enough people.

It would require a hell of a lot of effort, but I think the anger generated by the neighbors this time around may just have tipped the students in the edge. Utilize it.

@Eileen

The BCA website says that a “Household” can join for $25 per year. So if you have a student house that probably comes to less than the cost of a round of beers at the Tombs.

I’m not advocating a hostile takeover of BCA, but rather suggesting that if student residents of Burleith joined the BCA and attended their meetings, etc., it would be a positive step in town-gown relations. Joining up would show your willingness to be a part of the community. And, I might suggest, it is a lot easier to slam student residents when they aren’t sitting in the room.

Step up and show your willingness to be a part of the community. Volunteer to be on BCA committees. It could be fun!

@Dizzy and others

Re Leonore Rubino : some seem to misunderstand the way the real estate market works. If I own a property which I wish to sell, I hire a real estate agent (the listing agent), who works for a broker. The broker lists the property on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) to expose the property to all the real estate agents in the area. The MLS agreements call for the split of the commission between the listing and selling agents on sale of the property.

So there is nothing at all unusual for Ms. Rubino to list on her website properties which are “listed” by other firms.

Just fished around for former bed # stats. Note — these date from 2008, not sure if they’re 100% accurate, but they should be pretty close.

Alumni Square 348
Copley 320
Darnall 318
Harbin 440
Henle 459
Kennedy 305
LXR 289
McCarthy 289
Nevils 226
New South 392
Reynolds 206
Townhouse 288
Village A 494
Village C East 288
Village C West 391

That means, in the following districts, here are the approximate numbers of GU students living in them:

District 2 (Henle & Darnall): 777 (2008 vote total for Ron Lewis — 400/423)
District 3 (Harbin & Copley): 760 (2008 vote total for Jeffrey Jones — 140/140)
Distict 5 (LXR & Nevils): 515 (2008 vote total for Bill Starrels — 389/410)

Thus, for any voter drive, you’d need a little over 54% registration from Henle and Darnall, around 18% participation in Harbin and Copley, and around 80% participation from LXR & Nevils, in order to have enough votes to oust these three. District 3, however, also includes Magis Row and basically the rest of the non-GU owned townhouses in Georgetown east of them below P and above N streets. Districts 1 and 2 have all the off-campus Burleith apartments.

So, if students were really organized, they would have a potential chance of picking up up to 4 seats on the ANC. That’s 4 out of 7 — a majority. That means student interests would be in control. I think that, combined with the campus plan frustrations, could potentially get students to switch their voter registration to DC.

Nice research Matt, and like you said, “USE IT”. Someone in the student body could make a hell of a name for themselves if they could successfully pull off a strong voter registration and get-out-the-vote effort. Aren’t you tired of being stepped on and insulted by these neighborhood nutters? You’re all smart, ambitious kids, so stand up and send a message.