In effort to improve town-gown relations and to provide information for students sub-letting houses and apartments in surrounding neighborhoods, Georgetown University will be publishing two lists, naming the landlords that they would recommend students to sublet from, and the landlords they would not recommend.

“We’re promoting good landlords to [students] and provide resources to them so they know the rights they have as a tenant and the expectations they should seek,” Vice President of Communications Stacy Kerr said.

Letters are being sent to landlords around the area, encouraging them to pledge their commitment to “maintaining the quality of life in our community to your neighbors publicly.” In return, the University would promote these landlords to students by publishing the names of landlords who sign the pledge on their website.

On the other hand, landlords and properties that receive multiple and unresolved “credible complaints” would be published on the a “List of Properties of Concern.” Credible complaints would include shoveling sidewalks or trash issues, said Kerr, but would not include complaints that a house is too noisy.

The letter to the landlords and pledge are included after the jump!

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Yesterday, the D.C. Department of Consumer Regulatory Affairs mailed letters to over 125 Georgetown University-area landlords it believes are renting properties without a valid business license. The letters issue an ultimatum: apply for a business license and have their properties inspected within 10 days, or DCRA will take “enforcement action.”

The DCRA has intensified its focus on policing university-area property owners since it launched the Collegiate Off-Campus Housing Initiative last Fall. When the school year began in 2009, it launched a website for student renters in the District, ThisShouldBeIllegal.com, a Twitter feed, and a Facebook page all aimed at helping students determine whether their landlords were properly licensed to rent to them.

Voice News will have more information on Thursday.

Photo from the Collegiate Off-Campus Housing Initiative’s Facebook.

GUSA will not stand for these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane campus

GUSA FUND: The big news from this week’s meeting was that the Senate passed the long-debated GUSA Fund, which will allow them to fund clubs directly. For more information, check out Vox‘s post from earlier this morning.

HATE CRIMES: GUSA passed a revised version of Senator Josh Mogil‘s (SFS ’11—Off Campus) changes to the Student Code of Conduct regarding hate crimes on a vote of 16 to two, with one abstention.

The new version of the resolution adds Hate-Crimes as a Category C violation, but keeps bias as a “parameter” for other violations that are not “criminal acts of hate,” but are motivated by the aggravating factor of bias.

Mogil said he decided to leave in the section on “bias-related incidents” after speaking with Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson about the resolution.

Senator Nick Troiano (COL ’11—Village A, A-D) still had doubts about the necessity of the resolution.

“There’s no practical difference between someone who’s adjudicated based on a criminal act that would otherwise fall under Category C violations and those that would now fall under the sub-category,” Troiano said.

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Last Thursday, the Burleith Citizens’ Association held its annual meeting.  Yes, annual.

“One per year? I love it!” exclaimed guest of honor Mayor Adrian Fenty (D). “That’s unprecedented, at least in D.C.”

With only one meeting per year, the agenda was pretty packed, with Burleithers (Burleithians?) discussing everything from 61-D citations to the University’s ten-year plan, parking changes, D.C. Public Schools and cracking down on neglectful landlords.

MPD and 61-Ds: Lieutenant John Hedgecock, who has been in charge of West Georgetown and Burleith since early August, talked about the neighborhood’s crime stats and how the Metropolitan Police Department has been using 61-D citations.

When Hedgecock announced that issuing 61-Ds has been “very effective in quelling parties,” the crowd broke out in applause.  According to Hedgecock, once MPD receives a call, they assume that there’s been a breach of the peace.  If they observe a party and the noise “is too much for a residential area,” they will issue a 61-D citation to the person on the lease of the house or in charge of the party.

Hedgecock says while last year there were six “problem houses” in the area (four in West Georgetown and two in Burleith), this year there is only one.

“When we see a party starting, we put an end to it or advise them what will happen,” Hedgecock said.

One neighbor voiced concerns about the citations saddling students with a criminal record; Hedgecock replied that those who receive 61-Ds can contest them in court.

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GUSA, protecting students from tyranical landlords

RATE MY LANDLORD?: During the Executive Briefing, GUSA Vice President Jason Kluger (MSB ’11) announced that  the executive wants to tackle the “lack of readily available information” about off-campus student housing. He said there is no official name yet, but the executive wants to create a “Rate my Landlord”-type website to help students with housing.

“It’s miserable, and it’s hard to get a house, and you always feel like you’re getting gypped, and you always feel like there’s so much pressure … Georgetown students are going to get screwed,” Kluger said. “So it’s just another initiative to get more information on it… for kids to know their options so they don’t have to pay as much as they think they might.”

In the rest of his briefing, Kluger mentioned that the executive should be part of an upcoming discussion with the administration about the main campus plan. He also updated the Senate on the free newspaper program.

HATE CRIMES AND THE STUDENT CODE OF CONDUCT: Senator Josh Mogil (SFS ‘11—Off Campus) introduced a resolution to start a discussion about updating the Student Code of Conduct.

Mogil wants to make hate crimes—“crimes motivated by race, disability, gender, gender identified, ethnicity, and/or sexual orientation”—a separate offense under category C.

Currently, bias-related incidents are only treated as parameters of other category C violations, but Mogil seeks to make them their own category of offense, and include in the definition of “bias-related incidents” those that are motivated by disability or physical handicap.

“It sends a message because I was a victim [of a hate crime,] and I couldn’t do certain things within the School Code of Conduct,” Mogil said. “I couldn’t face my attacker because it wasn’t its own thing. It was only a parameter. So it still isn’t treated as seriously. I was a victim of assault.”

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