A group of residents from the Westover Place townhouses protested AU’s proposed expansion of student housing May 26 in Ward Circle.
The residents were protesting the section of the Campus Plan calling for construction of new residence halls on the “East Campus,” what is now the Nebraska Parking Lot, according to an email about the protest obtained by The Eagle.
About 25 protesters walked back and forth at two points in Ward Circle — between Massachusetts Avenue and the Nebraska Parking Lot, and between the parking lot and the Ward building — around 9 a.m. this morning, according to Student Government Comptroller Eric Reath, who briefly watched the protest.
An email about the protest was sent Wednesday afternoon to the members of the American University Park listserv, a group of 648 residents living in the neighborhood surrounding AU, according to the listserv’s Yahoo! Groups page.
The email, sent out by an unidentified member of the listserv, said the residents would cross Massachusetts Avenue and Nebraska Avenue repeatedly to “physically demonstrate the impact 600 or 700 students will have on traffic, if AU puts the number of beds it wants on the Nebraska Avenue parking lot.”
The email encourages the members of the AU Park listserv to make a vocal stand against AU’s plans for expansion on the East Campus.
“We're not just paying lawyers to make studied arguments,” the email said. “We're standing up for ourselves and using our feet to fight for our neighborhoods!”
Reath said he tried to talk to those participating in the protest this morning, but they were not willing to talk to him.
“I tried to raise a few points to them about how hard it is to live on campus for some students,” he said. “But I was shouted at. They didn’t want to listen to me. They don’t seem to care what we [students] think.”
The University submitted a pre-hearing statement to the D.C. Zoning Commission May 20 that revises some of the components of the Campus Plan initially filed with the Commission March 18.
AU will reduce the number of students living on the East Campus from 770 to 590.
To compensate for the reduction in the number of students living on the East Campus, more housing will be added on Main Campus. The number of students living in North Hall, a residence hall to be built near the President’s Office, will be increased from 200 to 360. The University will also build an addition to Nebraska Hall to house 30 more students.
ANC Commissioner and School of Public Affairs sophomore Deon Jones said he is troubled by this morning’s protest.
He called the protest “ridiculous” and said local residents are treating students “like criminals.” The residents are not interested in a real dialogue about the proposed expansion of student housing, he said.
“The people from Westover Place have become selfish and are taking this too far,” he said. “It’s understood that everyone can’t walk away with exactly what they want from the Campus Plan, but some of the people in the neighborhood don’t want to compromise.”
Dave Fehrmann, a member of the group Neighbors for a Livable Community, said many neighbors are probably still not satisfied by the revisions to the Campus Plan.
Neighbors for a Livable Community, a group composed of local residents concerned about AU’s expansion proposals, have proposed that AU use the East Campus only for administrative and academic use and not for residence halls.
The residents living around AU want to be able to co-exist peacefully with students living on campus, but certain concessions must be made to maintain these good relations, Fehrmann said.
“We’re glad to have AU in the neighborhood,” he said. “But in the University’s quest to bring in more and more students, they have to be aware of the surrounding community.”
AU Chief of Staff David Taylor said the University is not adding more residence halls to bring in more students to the school but to address AU’s “huge housing deficit.”
AU is building new residence halls to redistribute students already living on campus. New housing would help move students out of triple rooms or out of alternative housing such as the AU-sponsored apartments in the Berkshire Apartments, he said.
Taylor said he hopes the neighbors surrounding AU will learn more about the changes to the Campus Plan in the near future.
“We put this [Campus Plan] forth as an honest effort to see if we can make some changes that would put us in a position that the community members can agree with,” he said.
Taylor also noted that AU’s hearings with the D.C. Zoning Commission on June 9, June 23 and July 14 will be open to members of the public, including neighbors who would like to further discuss the changes to the Campus Plan.
