Education
AU students need more, quality on-campus housing
American University recently presented neighbors with the latest draft of its 10-year campus plan.
Photo by the American University.
The top priorities are to increase undergraduate student housing and provide more space for student recreation, dining, and activities on campus.
The most controversial of the plan's elements is the construction of an East Campus, across Nebraska Avenue from the current main campus.
AU would like to increase its on-campus bed count capacity to 4,100 students, down from the 4,900 proposed in the previous draft. AU's dorms are currently designed to house 3,533 students, but through tripling students and agreements with the nearby Berkshire apartments, the university is able to hold over 4,000.
On-campus housing is better than off-campus housing for many reasons. It puts students closer to everything that happens on campus, from speakers to classes, and almost always means a better relationship between students and landlords.
But on-campus housing can't be built with paper-thin walls and stack students up like sardines. Meeting the housing needs of students means building exactly the kind of living that the east campus offers.
New dorms
The plan details a new dorm on South Side to hold about 200 students, an addition to Nebraska to hold around 125, and a series of dorms on East Campus meant for just under 800 residents. The increase in housing is meant to guarantee housing for both freshman and sophomores (currently, AU can only guarantee 85% of sophomores housing) and to reduce the number of triples, or the practice of cramming three freshmen in rooms meant for two residents.
Plan for the main campus. The dark color shows new buildings, the light color potential future development.
Currently a large parking lot, Nebraska Lot lies east of AU, separated from the campus proper by Nebraska Avenue, a fairly busy road. The plan calls for that space to be replaced by six buildings, four of which would be dorms (the other being used for the alumni center, the new campus center, and office space). Underneath the new campus would be an underground parking garage.
To ensure that students could only cross Nebraska at the signaled crosswalk, the entire campus would be fenced, with the only entrance/exit by foot being a gap in that fence near New Mexico Avenue (at its intersection with Nebraska). Two roads also enter the campus, but both lead to the underground garage.
Residents are concerned that this campus will be relatively close to their homes. The back of the furthest buildings rest 40 to 80 feet or more from the backs of the adjoined houses at Westover Place, and residents there are worried about how these new buildings will affect their lives.
With no real buffer between the homes and the lot currently, the height of the buildings (54 feet for the dorms and slightly lower for the others) have the potential to dominate their sights out of their back windows.
Residents also complain that noise from the dorms will disturb them. Many at recent ANC meetings have complained of potential and raucous partying (an unneeded anxiety, given campus policies) and the potential for vandalism, which is also unlikely.
Pedestrians at Nebraska Avenue
Photo by ehpien on Flickr.
Regardless, the issue of East Campus remains the flash point of this campus plan, and the University doesn't seem to be willing to budge. While this draft (the third of this campus plan) showed a reduction of 800 housed students from the previous one, the number of students being housed on East Campus has been held more-or-less constant throughout the whole process.
The University insists that an East Campus remains the best place to house that volume of additional students, and that it will not negatively affect traffic flow. However, it could have done a far better job of explaining these claims at meetings with local stakeholders.
Retail and urban design
Retail would be part of the proposed east campus. Having more that students can reach by walking is good for the students, the environment, and the city's revenues.
Students should hope, though, that the University avoids the mistakes from past construction on the campus. It's hard for a business to survive on students and employees alone. Witness the failure of the McDonald's hidden away in a tunnel in the middle of campus, and the pizzeria before it.
Bringing the buildings with retail closer to the street could expand the buffer offered to our neighbors in Westover, help the businesses attract outside customers, and provide a visual cue to passing drivers to slow down.
Photo by NCinDC on Flickr.
Another facet of the plan is growing the number of enrolled students from 10,297 to 13,600. However, grad and law students dominate this increase in population; the number of undergraduates will be modestly raised from 6,300 to 6,400.
Several other issues have been raised by the community as well. Some say that the increased traffic from graduate students and new university employees will make the horrid traffic problems around Ward Circle even worse. Others raise the concern that dangerous chemicals from Army Corps of Engineers operations during World War I still remain around the Nebraska lot, and could prove hazardous to students living in dorms there. However, it's unclear what evidence there is to support this claim.
Parking
Finally, residents complain that the reduction in surface parking on campus will adversely affect the current problem of students parking in neighborhoods and walking to campus. Students do this often to avoid the high costs of parking on campus, which in themselves are meant to encourage students to carpool or walk.
The American University campus plan has attracted a lot of attention We agree more with some of the things we've heard our neighbors say than others. What we didn't hear was a lot about what the new plan means for students and what they need.
Student needs matter
What American University students want from our plan is simple: building for our needs. We aren't the only stakeholders in the process: professors and departments need be wooed and supported, and neighbors have legitimate concerns.
But at the end of the day, we are the university's customers, products, and inhabitants. We come to the school at what are often some of the most vulnerable, confusing, and thrilling times of our lives, and we rely on the campus, the community, and the neighborhood to help us make something of ourselves.
The campus plan is a part of that, and it's important that we make our voices heard in its crafting and implementation. Even if each of us is only here for a few years, together there are thousands of us here for decades. We want both the next few years and those future decades to be good ones.
Cross-posted from two posts at DC Students Speak.Michael Panek is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs at American University. A proud Texan, he is passionate about local politics and is registered to vote in Washington DC. 
Adam Daniel-Wayman is a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs at American University. Originally from the Chicago area, he is now a registered DC voter.
Comments
@ggwash
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The local NIMBYs have been a thorn in the side of the University for years, and will be for years to come. Even though AU has been there for nearly 100 years, these people still seem to be agitated when it comes to AU expanding into 'their' neighborhood. Even though this proposed development will provide a great deal of amenities for the neighborhood, they still want NONE of it, which defies reason.
by John M on Mar 3, 2011 10:21 am • link • report
by ah on Mar 3, 2011 10:23 am • link • report
Is it that AU has succeeding in creating compelling, community-creating spaces on campus that students want to be in more than they want to be off-campus?
by Ken Archer on Mar 3, 2011 10:37 am • link • report
http://www.american.edu/finance/fas/2011-Campus-Plan.cfm
by ah on Mar 3, 2011 10:37 am • link • report
Also, the last 1/4 mile between New Mexico and Nebraska is too constrained to allow a bicycle lane there. They'd need to add at least another lane to accommodate bidirectional bicycle traffic safely. I'm not sure that's a district priority right now.
by ahk on Mar 3, 2011 10:45 am • link • report
by Colleen on Mar 3, 2011 10:53 am • link • report
DDOT explained that the bike lane would end before Nebraska and would have dotted lines for about 100 feet before.
by ah on Mar 3, 2011 11:11 am • link • report
by Ken Archer on Mar 3, 2011 11:13 am • link • report
Do GU students oppose more on-campus housing? I don't think they do. I think they oppose the nanny-state regulation by the neighborhood.
As for why AU is able to add more on-campus housing, perhaps that has something to do with the massive surface parking lots on AU's campus - a condition you don't find down at GU.
by Alex B. on Mar 3, 2011 11:18 am • link • report
They complain about students living in rented houses in their neighborhoods, but when it comes to building a new dorm to keep students on campus, they still complain. AU is not building a 13 floor “high-rise,” even if that would solve their housing problem. The new building will be human sized and fit organically into the neighborhood.
The Nebraska parking lot remains underutilized with about 50% of empty spots during the work week. Even during graduation, the lot doesn’t reach capacity. Building a new dorm there would not only remove the blight of a parking lot in a residential neighborhood, it still won't take away any necessary parking with their inclusion of an underground parking garage.
The neighbors bemoaned the closing of Balducci’s, complaining that AU was an unfair landlord. The reality is without local density, these local stores will never make enough to sustain themselves. Building retail into the buildings will make Ward Circle NW a walkable destination for all of those residents who live in AU Park or Spring Valley. Albeit they will likely remain cafés or restaurants, but the market forces should decide what works best.
Putting the law school at Tenley Circle not only raises the national prominence of American University and the Washington College of Law, it will bring professionalism and class to Tenleytown, which is often overrun by the abundance of high school students from Wilson High.
I believe AU’s 10-year plan has great ideas for the both the university and the neighborhood. While AU should be a good neighbor and work with the locals, I cannot help to imagine the neighbors will provide needless resistance and little compromise.
by cmc on Mar 3, 2011 11:19 am • link • report
by BFM on Mar 3, 2011 11:20 am • link • report
Is it that AU has succeeding in creating compelling, community-creating spaces on campus that students want to be in more than they want to be off-campus?
Compare the percentage of AU undergrads who live-on campus vs. the percentage of Georgetown undergrads that do. AU's percentage is way lower. For American, demand for on-campus housing currently exceeds supply. At Georgetown, supply and demand are about equal.
See what reaction you would get if you proposed forcing all AU students to live on-campus, the way the West Georgetown & Burleith neighbors are proposing to do with Georgetown students.
by Dizzy on Mar 3, 2011 11:20 am • link • report
by GWalum on Mar 3, 2011 11:26 am • link • report
When you say "quality housing," that doesn't just include things like not cramming 2 students in a dorm designed for one or 3 in a dorm designed for 2; it also means floors that don't smell like urine, ceiling tiles that aren't rotting and crumbling, and kitchen and bathroom facilities in good repair. Every time I revisited the dorms I saw things that would cause building to consitently fail DC housing inspections. The housing is for students, but the university charges more than one's own bedroom in a house or apartment (in good repair, no less) would be.
by cbishop on Mar 3, 2011 11:28 am • link • report
The difference is that GU is housing something like 84% of its undergrads while AU is at around 64% (and as the article says only 85% of sophomores). In AU's case they have students who will accept dorm-style living or can be required to live in dorms - AU could build housing and then require sophomores to live on campus just like GU does.
Capturing the 16% of GU students who don't live on campus is tougher. You can't just build a block of double rooms and then force seniors to live in them - that's not a good way to make your university attractive. Though I guess Georgetown neighbors wouldn't care, judging by their positions they would just as soon have the university go away.
Also, as Alex says AU has a lot more space to build so you get more for your money than with the tiny slivers of land that people suggest GU build student housing on.
by MLD on Mar 3, 2011 11:32 am • link • report
Note that, while the university attempted to ticket in the neighborhood, they only really hit a 2 block swath with any consistency. Even when I did get the $75 hit, the car was registered in my parents name back in PA so they never got paid. Maybe they have a better system now, but I never understood the placement of WCL in a residential area with no real access.
by WCLAlum on Mar 3, 2011 11:34 am • link • report
I get frustrated with idiots on Cap Hill who oppose every redevelopment project or bar license, but they're a small minority and mostly lose. Upper Northwest (where I used to live), by contrast, seems inundated with cranks who have elected a lot of ANC members. Good projects are suffocated by obstruction (see, Wisconsin Ave. Giant), and great, necessary projects barely survive (Tenleytown Library, which was stalled b/c every amateur architect had to get their two cents in about how big the windows should be, or something). At some point, AU will simply have to fight and beat the neighbors on this, or the school won't thrive.
by mw on Mar 3, 2011 11:38 am • link • report
by Sarah on Mar 3, 2011 11:55 am • link • report
The whole time I was a student, I blamed AU for a lot of these issues and I still think the admin could be much better. But I have since found out a year or so ago that most of lack of development was the neighbor's blocking and complaining. AU has gone WAY out of its way to make the neighborhood happy. (They would ticket students parking legally in neighborhoods off campus). Simply put, the neighbors don't want to actually be living next to a university.
Why buy a house right next to a UNIVERSITY? Plus, it's arguable if it would decease property values... I'd think it would up them in the long-term as AU becomes a more renown school. These are the annoying HOA people of DC basically. Also, AU isn't like some big party state school... young adults will be young adults in terms of parties, etc. but AU is not really that crazy of a place on campus, these kids are pretty tame from other schools i've been too. If anything, more housing options would take the existing parties away from the neighborhoods with the students being more on campus.
by Drew11 on Mar 3, 2011 12:01 pm • link • report
by Ted on Mar 3, 2011 12:16 pm • link • report
by AU student on Mar 3, 2011 12:18 pm • link • report
This was and is exactly the experience of several people I know: live right at or near Van Ness during school, but the difference in commute times means that driving wins out every time. This is especially true at night, when there's low traffic but long transit headways, but also during rush hour, since the trip is on an East-West axis while the majority of commuter rush traffic is north-south.
by Dizzy on Mar 3, 2011 12:20 pm • link • report
by David Alpert on Mar 3, 2011 12:23 pm • link • report
Ken: GU students know there is no more room for on-campus dorms. They do not want to see what little green space the campus has left made into dorms no one will use. The fact is that those that want to live on-campus already do so, within a number of well-liked buildings. The Georgetown students that live off-campus live there because they want to experience off-campus living: the experience of growing up and taking care of oneself. That can't be found in a dorm.
AU students, by comparison, are tired of dealing with a lack of housing. Some will live off-campus regardless, but there individuals forced off-campus that want to be on-campus. Additionally, a number on-campus are forced into very undesirable tripled doubles. Three people in a small dorm room is all the reason in the world to want more dorms. GU doesn't have that issue.
by Jake on Mar 3, 2011 12:27 pm • link • report
And aren't they the same ones who came before the liquor board in opposition to the University's request to be allowed to serve liquor at University functions in buildings other than Mary Graydon Center....buildings such as the one that houses the School of International Service? As if anyone lives within earshot of the SIS building?
They seem like the worst of the worst when it comes to NIMBY's.
by Just wondering on Mar 3, 2011 1:26 pm • link • report
In a petition circulated to neighbors, one of the points of opposition was that there is a liquor store in the New Mexico office building and that would be less than 500 feet away from the proposed new dorms.
by ah on Mar 3, 2011 1:30 pm • link • report
Here's hoping AU reads this right about the NIMBYs and gets enough backbone to do the right thing for the community by creating a real retail corridor along the current Nebraska Avenue speedway and New Mexico Avenue corridor (yeah, the one where there can be no bike lanes). I think making that play without giving in to all the neighbors' demands would be the right play.
by SAS on Mar 3, 2011 2:00 pm • link • report
by aaa on Mar 3, 2011 4:34 pm • link • report
That is an affront to North Korean villages everywhere (especially in North Korea)
What I find spectacular is that we are at a time when cities are transforming to a more walkable future. An yet, we have American University trying to do the right thing by transforming its campus to something akin to what you would see in thriving college towns nationwide. However, because the neighbors complained, we are seeing the dearth of expanded retail along New Mexico Avenue and a super block along Nebraska that will have, what a grassy berm disconnecting the campus (and students) from the sidewalk?
That is ludicrous. AU ought to be insisting on an open area at the corner of Nebraska and New Mexico, and even a mid-block crossing on Nebraska between New Mexico and Ward Circle.
There is tremendous potential to open this up and become a neighborhood asset.
by William on Mar 3, 2011 5:07 pm • link • report
Is there anybody who has contacts high-up in any of the universities that truly understands why the universities put up with this crap? Why don't the universities go over the heads of the ANC straight to the City Council (or Congress) and make their valid points about NIMBYism.
What is the City Council's attitude to the universities?
by Jasper on Mar 3, 2011 5:50 pm • link • report
Here's the current plan for it:
http://www.american.edu/finance/fas/upload/Exhibit-19-East-Campus.pdf
by ah on Mar 3, 2011 9:08 pm • link • report
It seems like there are other issues at stake at American. At American, only 85 percent of sophomores are provided housing, whereas at Georgetown, sophomores are required to live on-campus, and students are guaranteed three years with the possibility of a fourth. American students have some real unmet needs, and I'm glad to see their campus plan has taken that into account, despite opposition from the neighborhood. Thanks for your post, Michael and Adam, and best of luck.
by Kara Brandeisky on Mar 4, 2011 1:00 am • link • report
by John on Mar 4, 2011 10:06 am • link • report
I want to add my two cents-- I don't think the neighbors around AU have provided a list of grievances. I've been going to Campus Plan Taskforce meetings since August-- then the complaint from residents of Westover was that students living in East Campus would have direct lines of sight into their homes. AU has since redesigned the plan, so that there would be no Westover-facing rooms. That's a huge development the university made -- and I think the AU architects deserve some credit for responding to the community's imput.
But I have a feeling that the goalposts will move every time AU makes a concession, because the NIMBY neighbors don't have a specific bargaining position.
by SamM.N on Mar 5, 2011 12:38 am • link • report
I grew up in Minneapolis and moved to DC to attend AU before I adopted the District town as my home. One issue which got a lot of attention in Minneapolis when I was a kid was the folks who lived in the path of Minneapolis airport's runways complaining about the noise of planes flying over their homes on approach to the airport (and demanding that the planes fly somewhere else). Something I could never understand was why these homeowners felt entitled to say anything about the matter when they built/purchased their homes in the paths of runways which had already been there for decades. Simply stated, they knew what they were getting into when they bought/built their homes in the path of a runway so they shouldn't feel entitled to complain. I feel the same sort of logical disconnect exists for residents who own homes around AU.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, who lives around AU today lived there before the university was built over 100 years ago. Considering the wealth of Spring Valley, I am confident that AU's neighbors had the financial resources to build/buy somewhere else... but they chose to build/buy next to AU. Just like the people who moved into the paths of Minneapolis' runways, the neighbors of AU knew that there was a university in the neighborhood before they built/bought. If you hate the smell of sewage, why move next to a waste-treatment plant? If you hate young people, why move next to a university?
by Jeff G. on Mar 6, 2011 11:44 am • link • report
by CW on Mar 7, 2011 11:47 am • link • report
A simple counter to your argument is the fact that students currently on campus would rather not be forced into triples as many are now due to the lack of housing. And students who would like to stay on campus would benefit from more options in terms of doubles, suites, or apartment style dorms.
It's a matter of increasing long-term student satisfaction and making the university attractive to applicants.
by cmc on Mar 7, 2011 2:10 pm • link • report
We hardly try to argue that everyone wants to live on campus, but plenty of people still do. Maybe you graduated before the lottery for upperclassman on-campus housing started, and there was an uproar as people were forced off-campus? Or you were one of the lucky ones who found a cooperative, effective landlord when you went off-campus.
The Berks house a lot of students who move off-campus (somewhere around a third, I think). That building is literally a former mental institution. We can do better.
by Adam on Mar 8, 2011 3:56 pm • link • report
As an undergraduate student at AU, I pay for my education and living costs though a special family education fund that can only pay out to a University or educational institute. As it stands, only 400 juniors and seniors are allowed to live on campus, so less on-campus upperclassmen housing is a legitimate problem for some students.
by EB on Mar 14, 2011 6:43 pm • link • report
by Karl on Apr 8, 2011 11:52 am • link • report
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