July 13, 2010

Setting the Record Straight

By the Citizens Association of Georgetown

In Response to Georgetown University’s Misleading “Point-by-Point”

GU’s Campus Plan reflects a University decision to ignore the views of the community adjoining its
campus. It has failed to work with the community and the city to provide affordable, convenient
housing for its students on campus, and instead has tolerated poorly maintained, substandard housing
conditions, trash and rats, and disorderly behavior by its students living off campus in University and
privately owned housing. This has created an unjustified burden on the surrounding communities, on
city services, and on GU’s own students that the current Campus Plan does nothing to alleviate. It
therefore violates DC zoning law that requires a Campus Plan to avoid causing such adverse impacts on
adjoining communities.

GU’s Claims Facts

1. Georgetown University has not exceeded the The number of off-campus GU students has
enrollment requirements imposed by the DC increased dramatically over what was projected
Board of Zoning Adjustment in its’ 2000-2010 plan. by GU in the 2000-2010 campus plan. For
example, GU has exceeded its own projected
“maximum growth” for graduate student
enrollment in 2010 by 2,402 students or 162%.

2. The enrollment cap imposed by the BZA related GU may be technically in compliance with the BZA
to full-time traditional undergraduates has been cap as it uses an average “traditional”
strictly adhered to. undergraduate enrollment formula. This method
is inadequate as it fails to take into consideration
that GU exceeds its enrollment cap by several
hundred students each Fall without providing any
additional student housing on campus. It has also
increased “nontraditional” undergraduate
enrollment by 301.
GU may have also exceeded the “traditional”
undergraduate enrollment cap last year. GU
recently reduced the enrollment numbers it
previously reported for 2009, without explanation,
to stay under the cap.
3. GU can house 84% of its undergraduate
students on campus, which is the highest According to GU’s official data, and basic
proportion of on-campus undergraduate housing arithmetic, GU houses about 76% of its
of any university in the city other than Gallaudet. “traditional undergraduates” on campus, none of
its “nontraditional undergraduates” and only
around 50% of its juniors and seniors. Most of
those students are forced to seek housing
elsewhere, in the surrounding small residential
communities adjoining GU. This policy has caused
serious adverse impacts in our communities.

4. GU has one of the most extensive programs for GU’s program is ineffective because of the large
monitoring and responding to off-campus student number of unsupervised students living off-
conduct issues of any university in the city. campus in our communities, and it will remain
ineffective until that situation changes. The
failure of the program is demonstrated by the
hundreds of resident complaints and 911 calls
related to student off-campus conduct, occurring
every single year.

5. Over the 10-year period of the plan, GU GU has increased its graduate enrollment from
proposes to increase enrollment at the School of 3,560 students in 2000 to 6,275 in 2010 vs. its
Continuing Studies (SCS) by 1,370, and to increase 2000 projection of 3,873. Its current projection of
other graduate school enrollment by 1,095. 8,750 students by 2020, an increase of 5,160
graduate students since 2000 could also be wide
off the mark. Unchecked and without a graduate
cap, GU has unfortunately accelerated the process
of increasing its graduate enrollment in the last
few years. GU currently provides no graduate
housing.

6. The average age of GU graduate students is 28 Experience within the community shows that
and many are married or live alone. adverse-impact issues can be as severe with
Based on GU’s hotline data, students in this age graduate students as with undergraduates. The
group historically have not adversely impacted the “hotline” is widely considered a failure, unreliable
quality of life in the neighborhoods in which they and only receives a fraction of resident’s
live. complaints.
According to official data from DC agencies (MPD
and DPW), on average, areas with high
concentration of students (undergraduates and
graduates) can cause 100 times more quality of
life issue than those faced by other residential
areas.
7. The number of graduate students living in West
Georgetown went from 75 in 2000 to 58 in 2009; According to GU’s own data, the total number of
in East Georgetown, from 49 in 2000 to 52 in 2009; graduate students in 2009 in Georgetown and
in Burleith from 102 in 2000 to 105 in 2009. Burleith is 374. In ZIP 20007 it’s 1,132. Based on
our own observations and surveys, we believe
those numbers, while substantial, fail to account
for all the graduate students living in our
communities.

8. The increase proposed for the graduate schools Based on our own observations and surveys, GU’s
is less than the actual increase that occurred numbers do not appear to be accurate.
between 2000-2010 and yet the number of Furthermore, the issue is not only the increase in
graduate students living in zip code 20007 enrollment but also where the students seek to
remained constant during that time. live. We now have close to 300 student rental
houses. A staggering 666% difference from GU’s
own 2000 Campus Plan projections

9. The proposal does not call for demolishing any The adverse impact of housing students in
townhouses in the 1789 block. One of the immediate proximity to a neighborhood
conceptual plans for this project calls for the residential area is not addressed by GU’s plan for
demolition of one townhouse on N Street built in the 1789 block. That impact is the principle
1980 to facilitate access to the project. reason for the community’s strong concern. As for
demolition, the drawings GU shared with the
community show the demolition of several
historic townhouses. We do not have the
“conceptual plans” GU is referring to now.

10. GU’s heating and cooling plant emits only a Title V Permits are granted to the heaviest
fraction of the emissions allowable under its EPA polluters. A taller smokestack will push pollutants
Title V Permit. to the community, especially to the north, as is
shown in GU’s own study.
11. The purpose of this project is to improve the
air quality on campus and will not add to the GU refuses to commit to not increasing
capacity of GU’s heating and cooling plant. production and emissions. Given past experience
it is reasonable to be concerned that GU may use
the proposed eighty-three foot tall industrial
smokestack to increase production and
consequently increase emissions. Such emissions
may then fall into the surrounding residential
communities.
12. The University’s purpose in providing these
700 additional parking spaces is to encourage GU’s own projections and data show that their
parking on campus rather than on neighborhood new campus plan calls for over 5,700 cars driving
streets. to and from GU every day (in addition to the
hospital and undergraduate students) of which
4,000 will park in the neighborhood.

13. Construction traffic will be handled through We understand MedStar would like to build a
the normal second stage review and approval new state-of-the-art hospital on the GU campus
process. south of the current hospital, which could benefit
the community greatly. GU has not agreed to
this, however. Therefore MedStar had no choice
but to propose a ten-year plan of constant
construction on its current buildings – which is
not beneficial to MedStar or to the community.
GU currently has no plan to address a decade of
piecemeal construction traffic in an already highly
congested area.