When University officials spoke to neighbors in May and raised the possibility of building a new housing complex on the “1789 Block” (the area between Prospect and N Streets and 36th and 37th Streets), neighbors said they didn’t want to see undergraduates living in that area. So the University decided the new residences would be for grad students and faculty.  When officials at the May meeting said they were hoping to put 200 to 250 beds in the complex, neighbors said that would be too much density.  So the University lowered the projected number of beds to 120.

Even with the concessions, though, neighbors still aren’t enthusiastic about the proposal, which was presented Monday night by University Architect Alan Brangman.  While there were some quibbles about the specifics of the plan, most of the objections stem from one essential conflict: many neighbors don’t believe the land the University owns outside the front gates counts as “on campus;” University officials do.  And so does D.C.: Georgetown University’s legal boundaries, as defined by the the National Capital Planning Commission, include portions of four blocks West of the front gates.

“It’s a misnomer and it’s a deception,” one neighbor said of the University’s practice of defining the campus as including these areas beyond the front gates. “They [the students] are living amongst us!  They’re on the left of us, in the front of us, on the side of us, and they’re in the back of us … They’re not really within your gates, although you’re hiding behind the fact that [the boundaries were] approved.”

Brangman was having none of it, though.

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University administrators held the first of five November meetings with neighbors about their new draft of the 2010 Campus Plan last week. There seemed to be a fair amount for neighbors to be excited about at the meeting (whcich covered enrollment, student housing and off-campus life), such as the University not increasing undergraduate enrollment and the creation of “Community Advisers” to live in West Georgetown and Burleith.

But it seems the Burleith Citizens Association is less than enthused by the plan.  Yesterday BCA President Lenore Rubino sent an e-mail out to the Burleith listserv detailing the organization’s objections, which mostly focus on the proposed increase of graduate student enrollment:

There is no proposed new housing planned except for possible a small dorm for grad students on the “1789″ block which is opposed by the Georgetown community.

The possible 58% increase in grad students could have a significant effect on housing, parking, traffic and transportation.

The e-mail exhorts Burleith residents to attend the rest of the meetings (the next of which, incidentally, is tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Georgetown Visitation) and “go on the public record” about the plan.

During the last ten-year plan process, neighbors caused trouble for GU by raising objections with the Board of Zoning and Adjustment, the body that reviews campus plans, and the e-mail hints that the BCA will be going down the same route again this time around.

While the BCA is working to formulate a plan of action, please make best efforts to attend the GU upcoming meetings as we need to go on public record that we oppose their plan.

GU’s campus plan is subject to review by the Board of Zoning and there will be a period of public comment and testimony. This process will most likely take us well into 2010.

You can read the full e-mail after the jump.  Make sure you check back later today for Vox’s reporting on tonight’s 2010 Campus Plan, which will deal with transportation.

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McMahan and Iraheta in Iran

Two Georgetown grad students, Justin McMahan and Andrea Iraheta, have been traveling through the Middle East and keeping a blog, Dispatches from the Region, about their journey. Things were going well, and “Dispatches from the Reason” seemed like your run-of-the-mill travel blog with a slight political bent, with posts about them enjoying Istanbul, witnessing an election in Beirut, et cetra. But then the couple ended up in Tehran during the Iranian election and its resultant chaos.

On June 11th, a day before the election, they wrote and oddly prescient post entitled “Something big may be about to ‘Pop’“. Two days later, they wrote that they could see plumes of black smoke and protesters. Later that day, they wrote:

Just outside of our hotel, supporters of former PM Mousavi set fires and broke windows in protest of the results of yesterday’s election. Motorcycles race up and down the street as protesters play a game of cat and mouse with security officials. Smoke is everywhere. Protesters have broken windows of the Bank of Tehran across the street …

Just within the past hour, when we try to access social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, a message in Farsi indicates that the sites are no longer accessible. Cell phone access seems to have been shut down throughout the entire city.

They were also able to get a 30 second video of the scene outside their hotel.

After a brief trip to Shiraz, a city in southwest Iran, they returned to Tehran and witnessed the crackdown in full effect, writing, “[P]olice employed water canons, tear gas and batons to break up the rally.”

The couple is now in Cairo and were recently interviewed on Good Morning America Weekend about their experiences.