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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Update: The full report of the Office of Planning is now available after the jump.

The District Office of Planning filed its report to the D.C. Zoning Commission today, recommending that Georgetown University house 100 percent of its traditional undergraduate students on-campus by the fall of 2016, according to the Georgetown Dish.

The Office of Planning recommends that the University accomplish this by “incrementally reducing the [traditional undergraduate student] enrollment […] until the TUS enrollment equals the university-provided housing.” The report obtained by the Dish stated concerns about the “adverse impact and objectionable conditions due to the number of students” in Burleith and West Georgetown.

Unsurprisingly, Advisory Neighborhood Commission chair Ron Lewis told the Dish, “This is a strong, thoughtful, well-documented report.”

This outcome seems to support Georgetown Metropolitan writer Topher Matthews’s theory that the University made last-ditch changes to the plan—including the addition of 250 beds on-campus and reducing the total student cap from 16,133 to 15,000—in an attempt to win over the Office of Planning, and by extension, the Zoning Commission.

If so, it didn’t work.

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Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson joined Jorge Abud, American University’s assistant vice president for facilities development and real estate, on the The Kojo Nnamdi Show on Monday afternoon.

Olson and Abud took part in the WAMU radio show as another way to connect with D.C. residents about the campus plans that both universities recently filed with the District. Both plans are facing strong opposition from residents who live near the universities.

Burleith Citizens Association President Lenore Rubino didn’t miss the opportunity to let her opinion on the Campus Plan be heard.

“I think that students need to, especially on the undergraduate level, need to be brought back on campus and live on campus where they can have a full college experience,” she said in one of two calls she made to the show. “We find many instances where the students are in peril, where we find them drunk, passed out on the streets.”

An audio recording of the show can be found here and a transcript of the show is available here.

A group of Georgetown students launched stopcrimenotparties.com on Sunday, giving students the opportunity to report encounters with local residents, the Metropolitan Police Department, the Department of Public Safety, and the Student Neighbor Assistance Program.

The website’s goal? To document any instances of “questionable behavior” observed by students during those encounters — especially in the wake of an amended disorderly conduct law that outlaws any loud noise between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. that could be considered “likely to disturb one or more persons in their residence.”

Although no students have been arrested under the law since it took effect last month, it inspired the site’s launch.

“Obviously the new noise law means that things are changing a bit,” Adam Mortillaro (COL ’12), one of the founders of the site, said. “We just want to keep an eye on this as the ordinance moves forward.”

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The Georgetown Dish is reporting that Burleith residents’ anti-Campus Plan lawn signs were burned and left on one resident’s front steps during the three-day weekend.

According to the Metropolitan Police Department, the signs were removed from the front lawns of at least two houses and burned between 11 p.m. on Sunday and 8 a.m. on Monday. Despite an open investigation, no witnesses have been identified.

“We’ve had signs disappear and vandalized, but we’ve never had signs that were burned,” Burleith Citizens’ Association President Lenore Rubino told the Dish. “There are legitimate ways for people to express their opinions, but when you have burning of the signs it takes it to another level.”

Since last June, Burleith and Georgetown residents have displayed the signs, which read “OPPOSE GU’s Campus Plan” and “Our Homes Not GU’s Dorm” to express their frustration with the University’s 2010 Campus Plan.

“The symbolism of burning something on someone’s front lawn is not to be lost,” Rubino told the Dish. “It’s intimidation and it’s meant to incite fear.”

Not much has changed since the University filed its plan in late December. While the Georgetown-area Advisory Neighborhood Commission will present its recommendations next Monday, the D.C. Board of Planning has yet to file its report with the D.C. Zoning Commission, which will ultimately approve or deny the plan.

Photo: Georgetown Dish

Georgetown students may be discouraged by the University’s concessions in the 2010 Campus Plan battle, but students at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, know all to well what capitulation looks like: students are facing mass eviction from the area surrounding its North Shore campus.

On July 1, the City of Evanston will begin enforcing an old, largely ignored anti-prostitution “brothel” law that prohibits more than three unrelated persons from living together. The initiative will make renting in the area economically unviable for many Northwestern students, forcing them to move far away from their university community to find housing. Northwestern officials, for their part, appear to have resigned themselves to defeat.

“We don’t feel we need to protect the students from a city ordinance—we need to follow the ordinance,” said Assistant Dean of Students Betsi Burns in an interview with the Daily Northwestern. “It is what it is.”

Northwestern originally had no plans to lobby on behalf of its students to amend the ordinance, but following a contentious town hall with students they plan to “discuss” the issue with the city.

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Last night, the Advisory Neighborhood Commission held a special meeting to discuss the 2010 Campus Plan.

Ed Solomon chaired the meeting because ANC Chairman Ron Lewis was home sick.

The first, and longest, topic of the night was student housing. Solomon started the discussion off with some background on the issue: the rise in students living off-campus in the past ten years and the University’s response to it, which was called a “second stamp card”. He recited the litany of programs the University has in started then handed the microphone off to Provost Jim O’Donnell.

O’Donnell began the University’s response to the issue of student housing. He acknowledged the neighborhood’s concerns, but said, “We live under the constraint of finances.”  Vice President Todd Olson outlined the Campus Plan in how it would strengthen on-campus student life. He argued that projects such as the New South student center and the library extension would make campus a more appealing home. New requirements such as making all transfer students under 21 live on campus and having all off-campus students sign community contracts are other measures the plan includes, according to Olson.

Lenore Rubino, president of the Burleith Citizens Association, stated that 48 percent of houses in Burleith are rentals, most of which are occupied by students. According to her, this number will grow if the Campus Plan passes.

“Band-aid solutions do nothing to mitigate problems,” she said, referring to the measures Solomon outlined.  “The issue of students living off-campus needs to be addressed as nothing else will improve our quality of life,” she said to raucous applause from residents.

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Earlier today, Georgetown University filed its 2010 Campus Plan with the District of Columbia’s Zoning Commission.

“The plan reflects our fundamental commitments to academic quality, strengthening on-campus community life, protecting and preserving environmental resources and being a good neighbor,” President John DeGioia said in a University press release.

Aspects of the plan include enhancing academic and recreational spaces, more walkways, and places for buses to turn around on campus.

Additions to Lauinger Library and renovations in New South to create more student space are also a part of the plan. Both were part of the 2000 plan, but were not completed.

Conceding to neighborhood complaints, the University removed the proposed 1789 Block of new student housing and adding to the height of the chimney for the heating and cooling plant. Both were major concerns of the Citizens Association of Georgetown, which they wrote about in their special edition newsletter against the Campus Plan.

The Georgetown forum, our favorite window into residents’ minds, is well-known for its diatribes against cat killers, newspaper thieves, and Republicans. But last weekend, it turned its critical eye towards the worst criminals of all: partying college students.

Robert Laycock, Citizens’ Association of Georgetown treasurer, got things started by complaining about an O Street party with “a couple of hundred very drunk and/or high kids.” Let’s break out the blockquote for the rest:

I called 911 around 11:30. The police arrive promptly and dispersed the crowd.  The partygoers only walked a few hundred feet away, waited until the police were gone and then returned to the party house and make even more noise. I called 911 again, and again the police arrived promptly along with two GU police cars. The crowd continued to make noise as they left O street. They also harassed one neighbor who was walking her puppy threatening to defecate on her front stoop. There were drug deals going on the sidewalk, people were urinating and getting sick on the sidewalk.

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