Universities can't force all students to live on campus because it violates the DC Human Rights Act. All residents of DC have rights, including students.

by Jared on Nov 17, 2011 3:14 pm • link • report

Good ideas! Have you considered running against Jack Evans?

by tom veil on Nov 17, 2011 3:15 pm • link • report

I actually agree with you, Jacques. You're completely correct that only the most invested (and often those with the most to gain or lose) become involved, leading to a very polarized discussion.

That said, if we change the 10-year process (and I think we should), we need to find other ways to encourage long-term planning. As supportive as I am of Georgetown University's positions in this debate, I do feel as though they could do more in terms to planning ahead (see the sale of the Mt. Vernon campus as a prime example of bad planning).

by Jake Sticka on Nov 17, 2011 3:35 pm • link • report

Um, "duh," (wrt the headline of this post). Clearly the problems with the campus plan update process for GU, AU, and UDC indicates serious problems with the process as currently devised. Granted in each instance, the respective universities probably should have begun a public planning process much earlier, rather than relying on presentations to ANCs after the process was done, but still, I can't think of stronger indicators that the process isn't working and therefore needs to be changed.

by Richard Layman on Nov 17, 2011 4:03 pm • link • report

Good thoughts, THB - I'm really happy to see this on GGW.

Just a couple of comments:

Students in the neighborhood are not inherently a problem. The real issue is bad behavior from some students, and what steps the university should take to mitigate those specific negative impacts. That is the sort of conversation that could happen, and that the planning process should encourage. Unfortunately, it hasn't.

Indeed. The prevailing mentality among that particularly vocal and activist minority you cite is that Georgetown, Burleith, and Foxhall are (or should be) akin to Hillandale, Hot Springs Village, AR, or Celebration, FL. Denizens of those places don't have "conversations" about "mitigating the specific negative impacts" of certain residents - they either kick them out or prevent them from settling there in the first place. That's the undercurrent beneath all the faux-nostalgic "Urban Village" talk: a view of these neighborhoods as gated communities, with the respective neighborhood groups (CAG, BCA, FCCA) acting as homeowners' associations that have veto power over most anything that goes on, including who gets to live there. The ANC dynamic does nothing to discourage this.

Instead, positions have become entrenched and opposing sides treat each other as enemies.

I would caution against setting up what looks like a false equivalence between the two sides. Nothing coming out of the University has been even a hundredth as strident, bombastic, and hyperbolic as what's emanating from the other side. DC Students Speak and student outlets like The Voice may have been more blunt, but it still doesn't even compare. In terms of the actual parties to the approval process, the difference is night and day.

Option #2: Create a college and university category in the zoning code.

It seems relevant to bring up that in the Van Ness-UDC area, one of the local ANCs - Bob Summersgill, I believe - is trying to go in the exact opposite direction, making commercially-zoned properties owned by Universities also subject to campus plan restrictions. If a private developer wants to do something with it, it's matter-of-right development, but if it's a university, totally different rules.

In other words, you've got a heck of a sales job ahead of you. Good luck.

by Dizzy on Nov 17, 2011 4:06 pm • link • report

@Richard

Granted in each instance, the respective universities probably should have begun a public planning process much earlier, rather than relying on presentations to ANCs after the process was done

I'm not sure what you mean by "done." Both GU and AU have made numerous changes to their plans since the Zoning Commission process and hearings started. AU made some changes just this week and may make even more. Wouldn't that constitute a public planning process? In what sense was their process "done"?

There's a limit to how much you can discuss institutional priorities and challenges in a public setting. That's true even for public universities, much less private ones. I don't think it's feasible for any organization to bring in members of the public from the very beginning of the planning process.

@Jake

Blunders like Mount Vernon, the Cloisters, and Wormley School are really the result of poor internal processes and leadership. Certainly no one from the surrounding communities was going to be coming in and telling the University it should do a better job of utilizing those properties. In all three instances, GU did what the neighbors wanted - it didn't expand and, in fact, contracted.

by Dizzy on Nov 17, 2011 4:14 pm • link • report

The real issue is bad behavior from some students

I even disagree with this statement.

The real issue is bad behavior from some students residents.

I don't see why these misbehaving people are not just qualified as young man and women. Their occupational status is not relevant for their misbehavior. They're all adults and can be fined or arrested if they break the law.

Similarly, the Georgetown residents would not like to be constantly identified as the "1%", or as "rich home owners".

by Jasper on Nov 17, 2011 5:09 pm • link • report

Dizzy -- I don't really agree with you about the public process and planning for universities being almost inherently a private affair.

While various things aren't gonna be discussed (enrollment management, etc.), by their very nature, universities, either public or private, are essentially public institutions, and if you have and want to grow, and it impacts the area in which the campus is located, it's to the University's advantage to have a structured public process, especially if the campus abuts residential areas.

E.g., in Baltimore County where I was a planner in FY10, the state requirements for campus planning don't really require that the campuses do a lot of local engagement. I think that the plans suffered for it, although one of the two institutions I dealt with addressed more public things, maybe because their scope was broader and because their location was much more integrated and part of a conurbation, while the other institution was in a more hermetic location, although still close to conurbations (town centers in the language of the county).

WRT your concern about Bob Summersgill's initiative re off site buildings, I am maybe 75/25 in favor. You might be opposed, but GWU e.g., proves that off campus buildings can be integrally part of a campus, in how they are purchased and for what purpose (e.g., how they have acquired through lease or acquisition multiunit residential buildings and converted them to student housing, thereby crowding out nonstudent residents from Foggy Bottom).

At the very least, an inventory of these properties needs to be included in the campus plan, with some discussion.

FWIW, in Maryland, state institutions update their campus plan every five years.

by Richard Layman on Nov 17, 2011 5:40 pm • link • report

Sorry, one more thing. Just from observation, since I didn't participate in any of these engagements, but it seems as if, based on the reaction to the plans when they were presented publicly, that the reaction could have been managed a whole lot better, had the public been engaged earlier in the process.

And as I say elsewhere, my personal experience is that plans are improved with increased quality public engagement.

I know that while I only had limited engagement with the Towson U plan (only because the landscape architecture firm on the project was familiar with me from other arenas), the interaction benefited both their ultimate plan in terms of bike and ped issues, and infused aspects of the Balt. County plan I worked on, as well as led me to make some recommendations with state-level implications concerning TDM requirements and campus planning.

And a later interaction with the campus planner led to a concept of safe routes to school (college) development to and from off campus activity centers and noncampus owned housing with large numbers of students as residents. (Towson U doesn't have that much on campus housing.) By comparison, my interactions with UMBC were extremely limited.

by Richard Layman on Nov 17, 2011 5:47 pm • link • report

@Richard Layman

I agree that public engagement can lead to better outcomes, and in university planning the outcomes are not solely confined to the university, but its neighbors as well. But I don't think GU was troubled by a lack of engagement. Based on their submission, they claim they met with the neighbors 14 times regarding the plan since Nov. 2008 in addition to regular monthly meetings (https://gushare.georgetown.edu/OfficeOfCommunications/campus_plan/20101230_ExhibitP_LocalOutreach.pdf). I don't think the opposition to this plan is due to lack of community engagement.

Instead, to echo Jacques point, the issue is a small group of vocal activists have hijacked this process to push their own, anti-student political agenda. To me, it means this process must be reformed.

by DCer on Nov 17, 2011 5:56 pm • link • report

@Richard

While various things aren't gonna be discussed (enrollment management, etc.), by their very nature, universities, either public or private, are essentially public institutions, and if you have and want to grow, and it impacts the area in which the campus is located, it's to the University's advantage to have a structured public process, especially if the campus abuts residential areas.

But there already is a structured public process. We've been going through it for awhile now. There's a hearing tonight that's part of it. I'm not sure why you don't consider the ZC approval process to be a "structured public process."

WRT your concern about Bob Summersgill's initiative re off site buildings, I am maybe 75/25 in favor. You might be opposed, but GWU e.g., proves that off campus buildings can be integrally part of a campus, in how they are purchased and for what purpose (e.g., how they have acquired through lease or acquisition multiunit residential buildings and converted them to student housing, thereby crowding out nonstudent residents from Foggy Bottom).

At the very least, an inventory of these properties needs to be included in the campus plan, with some discussion.

The point here is one of fairness. Why should a property be matter-of-right if it's owned by any entity other than a university? On what grounds is this singling out of colleges justified?

I think what you're seeing here is part of the structural problem: the effect of Campus Plans in DC isn't to shape coherent University development, it's for neighbors and others to try to extract as many concessions as possible. Who cares that Georgetown has a property in Clarendon at which they hold classes? If it's Not In My Back Yard, it's irrelevant!

And as I say elsewhere, my personal experience is that plans are improved with increased quality public engagement.

Your experience appears to be with large, state universities that are expanding and developing previously unused or underutilized extensive tracts of land. That's a very different context than Georgetown's, where the University predates the residential area it abuts (I'm talking about the West Village and Burleith here - yes George Town had been settled, but there were no houses abutting "the Hilltop" in 1789). We're talking purely about infill development on a relatively small campus.

And, as DCer says, it's pretty hard for me to imagine how inviting Lenore Rubino or Jennifer Altemus into the conceptual stages of the planning process would've improved the plan. The effect would've been about the same as inviting Congressional Republicans into the drafting of the Health Care Bill would've improved that document. And if they had invited others from the community, well, they would've just been disparaged by the Pitchfork Brigade as GU stooges anyway, as the CAG/BCA attempts to do with those private citizens who chose to testify in support of the campus plan.

by Dizzy on Nov 17, 2011 6:29 pm • link • report

@Jasper,

I agree that some folks in the neighborhood have a reflexive response toward any bad behavior (especially by people under 30) and assign blame toward the university while identifying all annoyance sources as students, often inaccurately.

Part of the tension stems from the lack of a clear legal definition of what the responsibilities of a university are regarding students off-campus, and what that relationship implies. Instead, we have political conversations, related to zoning.

by Jacques on Nov 17, 2011 11:15 pm • link • report

To add two more things to that:

1. You're actually mistaken on the mention of enrollment management, Richard. That has, in fact, been the main bone of contention in the GU campus plan process both during this go-round and previous ones: how many students can Georgetown enroll, and of what kind. In the last round of litigation, a court rejected Georgetown's claim that the BZA had no authority to impose an enrollment cap (under the rather specious reasoning that because GU had volunteered to agree to a cap, it was ok. Volunteering something is not the same as some external authority being able to impose it. But I digress).

2. I want to come back to your comment that "my personal experience is that plans are improved with increased quality public engagement."

Where is this quality public engagement supposed to be coming from? All of the feedback from neighbors regarding the campus plan has been about a couple of items that they perceive as negative externalities. Student behavior is the big one, along with the usual DC bugaboos - as one of the ANCs testifying put it at the meeting tonight: "our largest concerns are parking and traffic congestion."

This really isn't in any way surprising. As I said earlier, the University has been a separate and discrete entity since before the West Village was settled, so it is only natural that the campus is seen is an autonomous, separate thing. The fact that it has only a couple of access points from the surrounding neighborhood only reinforces this.

As a result, though, most of those who live in the surrounding area don't particularly care about what goes on inside the campus, so long as it doesn't spill out into their backyard. If you read through all of the scathing letters and submissions by the CAG, BCA, ANC2E, etc., none of them offer recommendations as to how the University could develop better. Why? Well, obviously, because the authors don't care. They don't spend time on campus. They have no interest in "safe routes to school" or bike-ped connectivity to campus. What they care about is realizing their vision for what their neighborhood should look and feel like. Students are not part of that vision, so their presence in the neighborhood is opposed. GUTS buses are not part of that vision, so their presence is opposed. Those who do not share this vision are also opposed, like our good man Jacques here, who is singled out in the CAG/BCA submission as being unworthy of having his opinion considered by the Zoning Commission because he is "Alum 2001 & 2007" (see page 23). Just like the heads of Duke Ellington and Cesar Chavez schools, listed immediately before Jacques, who should be ignored because those schools are "supported by GU."

There's not really much room for collaborative planning here, Richard, sorry. Not with the commanders of the Pitchfork Brigade, anyway, and that is who has so thoroughly poisoned the process.

In other contexts, the surrounding residents may be invested in the development of the university as a major employment center or a point of civic pride or any number of other things. This might make them good partners in planning. But this is decidedly not the case in Georgetown - the residents are almost exclusively people of significant means who have no interest in the jobs GU brings, and aside from those (like Jacques) who have institutional ties, few feel the sort of loyalty "townies" might toward a prominent University. Maybe if the Hoyas played bigtime football...

by Dizzy on Nov 17, 2011 11:42 pm • link • report

The hearing process is a public process, but that's not what I mean by public engagement, which is more comparable to what you would do in the process of normally creating a land use or transportation plan.

However, I admit that in part I am talking theoretically, because as pointed out by the different land use contexts, the most vocal residents aren't likely to participate with an open mind in the context of universities in the city, where they are cheek by jowl with the rest of the city and spill over into it.

But when you do the public process and the people are obstreprous, you've laid the ground to do what you want, with the recognition that the obstreprous people are what they are, because you had an open, robust process.

Actually, good point about enrollment management. I would argue the proposal to house 100% of the students on campus is unreasonable and probably could be challenged successfully by the U.

WRT off campus building ownership, a building isn't just a building sometimes depending on its owner. If you're having a problem with differences in matter of right entitlements, think of the concept of substance vs. form. In this case, the substance is that the decisions about the building are being made in the context of the university and therefore should be judged in that context. Another way to think of it would be as an overlay district in terms of extra requirements vis-a-vis university use.

Again, I have no problem with that. GWU proves that acquisition of off campus buildings are fundamental to their management of the university, and they do it in creative devious ways (the master lease stratagem) and it has fundamental impacts on the nonuniversity neighborhood in substantive, community changing ways.

WRT your general points--the last paragraph of Dizzy's last post--you're 100% correct. This is where the city needs to stand up and define the citywide goals and objectives in this planning context. The neighbors can and should define theirs. And the University defines too. But the goals and objectives of the U/Citywide aren't likely to always be congruent with the neighbors. Consensus shouldn't be expected. And the neighbors shouldn't expect to have a kind of veto power over everything.

So when I talk about a public planning process, this is in part what I mean, defining these separate sets of goals and objectives, and working to make them as congruent as possible, but to not expect consensus.

People live by universities just as they live under the flight path of National Airport and they shouldn't expect to be able dictate to those other institutions about everything they do--those residents made choices that you or I wouldn't have made, but they shouldn't expect their preferences to be "socialized", and their choices and risks made whole through the zoning-planning process.

by Richard Layman on Nov 18, 2011 7:34 am • link • report

@Richard Layman

WRT your general points--the last paragraph of Dizzy's last post--you're 100% correct. This is where the city needs to stand up and define the citywide goals and objectives in this planning context. The neighbors can and should define theirs. And the University defines too. But the goals and objectives of the U/Citywide aren't likely to always be congruent with the neighbors. Consensus shouldn't be expected. And the neighbors shouldn't expect to have a kind of veto power over everything.</>

I think that's the key that I was trying to get at in the latter part of my post, that the city has not defined its goals for the roles that universities should play in a 21st-century DC. When Mayor Gray was first elected, he talked about the potential important role of local colleges and universities in helping to lift the economic conditions of the district, even going so far as to say he would explore whether enrollment caps should exist at all. Last month, however, he came to the ANC2E meeting saying he "stands with the neighbors," (and implying against the university, as the main focus was the campus plan), without really addressing that vision of where higher ed fits into DC's goals.

The campus plan process as currently structured, does not seem to be the place to have that conversation, as many of the arguments are built on ossified resentments and traditional town-gown tensions. But opportunities such as the zoning rewrite, or other larger Office of Planning efforts, could provide a good forum to bring all interested parties (including business, education and community leaders, neighbors, parents of younger children, and NGOs supported by universities) to have those important conversations.

by Jacques on Nov 18, 2011 9:03 am • link • report

Great article and very thoughtful comments! It is past time to develop a whole new approach to the relationship between our city and the entities which are major employers and among our most valuable assets. Our large, highly competitive universities generate both jobs and spin-off businesses and spending. They also receive invaluable benefit from the city in the form of property-tax exemptions. Cities throughout the country have developed PILOT (payments in lieu of taxes) programs that have successfully leveraged the value to an institution of property-tax forgiveness and the benefits to the city that are and can be derived from the presence of major centers of learning.
The only discussion of any sort of PILOT in DC has been Councilmember Cheh's suggestion a year ago that the city might consider a capitation tax on universities -- charging $100 a head per student. That suggestion, fortunately, never appeared in bill form.

I think we should start some serious discussion about a PILOT that could address the continuing "town-gown" clashes with:
strict new enforcement regulations and penalties to be imposed by both universities and relevant city agencies, in return for:
relaxation of zoning caps on student population and institutional employment, along with:
a commitment on the part of universities to locate research centers in the city (think Reservation 13 and Poplar Point); and
take responsibility for the administration of new charter learning learning centers wherever the city determines they should be located.

Let's all stop whining about the lemons with which this issue is overwhelmed and start making lemonade -- it could be a real tonic all around!

by Sharon Ambrose on Nov 18, 2011 2:28 pm • link • report

Jacques -- I have had back and forth arguments with one of my colleagues about this issue for years as it relates to GWU and its "reproduction" of Foggy Bottom. I agree with her that GWU's expansion has come mostly at the cost of eradicating a neighborhood. But she argues the U has little ec. benefit for the city, and that's where I disagree, although we need a good independent ec. impact study of the Universities to really get at this point. (I've written about this in the past.)

Dizzy -- wrt my point that university holdings off campus should be considered within the context of a campus plan, see http://dcmud.blogspot.com/2011/11/gw-plans-demolition-of-last-of.html

WRT Councilmember Ambrose's point about PILOTs and capitation taxes, I don't know how I feel about it. Definitely universities should pay for emergency and infrastructure costs associated with their presence.

I do think we need to be sure that student purchases are taxed, e.g., my Foggy Bottom colleague avers that the financial card system (by Blackboard) that GWU students use exempts students from paying sales taxes even on off-campus transactions in places like CVS when using the card (I've never followed up on this).

I do think university presence can be leveraged better. E.g., why not work with CUA to develop that research park on the land that they got from AFRH? The engineering programs at GU, GWU, HU, and CUA ought to generate more business development than they do, although some of the businesses created end up in the suburbs.

And for some years, I've thought that rather than focus on creating and improving UDC, maybe the city should just throw in the towel and do something more along the lines of how the State University of New York system pays for some colleges at some of the private universities (e.g., the Ag School at Cornell, or the forestry and environment college sort of associated with Syracuse U) to be "state schools" with state level tuition.

E.g., maybe GWU's arts and sciences college could be DC's liberal arts college, and DC residents (graduating from high school in DC, or at a private school in the region, but with DC residence) could go there. CUA's engineering school could be the state (city) engineering college, Etc. (OTOH, that would require a large increase in size which Foggy Bottom people wouldn't like...)

And the city higher ed. function could focus on community college education. Of course, for years I've also argued that DC should have negotiated with Montgomery County and/or PG County to create a joint community college system as well.

by Richard Layman on Nov 19, 2011 11:11 am • link • report

Regarding University contributions to emergency and infrastructure costs associated with its presence, look no further than what GU is proposing in its current plan. Additional MPD officers every night of the week and ramped up on weekends, trash pickup twice a day for everyone (students and neighbors alike), and infrastructure improvements to the street network along Reservoir Road. This is in addition to GU's own police and trash that serve the campus (including the blocks east of 37th Street) and a student run EMS that answers calls for service not just on campus but in the surrounding neighborhoods.

As for the GW proposal you reference, let's be clear -- it is (a) within the boundaries of the campus plan,(b) a development site that was specifically called out in that campus plan, and (c) for a use that was specifically called out in that campus plan. There is zero surprise here. The only thing new is the proposal to incorporate an existing office building into the mix. Agree that it's a great way for universities to build revenue without increasing enrollment.

Interesting idea about the SUNY idea -- though note that SUNY pairs a robust system of state schools with those public-private partnerships. But a neat idea -- of course, you couldn't fairly pair that with enrollment caps.

by Dave on Nov 19, 2011 4:04 pm • link • report