On March 5, the Board of Zoning and Adjustment formalized its rejection of the Georgetown University revised 10-Year Campus Plan. The BZA decided instead to adopt a plan consisting of the University’s revised plan plus an appendix of conditions. These conditions were previously suggested in the original BZA order issued last March.
The unanimous vote last week to approve the final papers comes after the Board’s decision in August to reject the University’s revised 10-Year Plan.
The 10-Year Campus Plan includes the University’s plans in regards to student enrollment, personnel hiring, land use and technology.
This latest decision marks the end of the BZA’s role in the University’s 10-Year Plan approval process.
Several community groups expressed satisfaction with the BZA’s March 5 decision. According to ANC Commissioner Peter Pulsifer, the Burleith Citizens Association, the Citizens Association of Georgetown, the Cloisters of Georgetown Homeowners Association, the Hillandale Homeowners Association and the Foxhall Community Citizens Association had collectively taken action to ensure that the neighborhoods’ concerns would be addressed in the campus plan.
“We are very, very pleased with the decision,” said former Burleith Citizens Association President Pat Scolaro.
Scolaro said that the BCA only objected to the proposed enrollment increase in the University’s original plan. “We didn’t sit and wait for nothing to happen … We were aggressive,” she said.
“It’s too bad that there was very little involvement by students in the campus plan process. Issues like space for students on campus, enrollment, class sizes and student conduct were important parts of the debate, and it would have been beneficial if students could have seen what the plan did?and did not?have to offer them,” Pulsifer said.
For the University, however, the completion of the 10-Year Plan process is far from over.
The decision made last week by the five sitting members on the BZA did not change any of the content of the campus plan, but served to finalize the paperwork on the BZA’s record of action in the process.
“[The March 5 decision] is a matter of formality and doesn’t really change anything for the University in that the BZA just now has completed their record of action on our campus plan,” Assistant Vice President for Communications Julie Green Bataille said. “That just means that it’s the same campus plan and conditions they approved at the end of last summer and now have formally approved everything in one document.”
The 10-Year Plan in its original form was first submitted for BZA approval in November 2000. At that time, then-Board members?two of whom are on the current Board?approved the plan with a list of conditions that would be forthcoming.
In an order released on March 29, 2001, the BZA released the conditions that would need to be adopted by the University in its 10-year plan. This list included a condition that denied the University’s request for an enrollment increase in its undergraduate student population. In November 2000, the University requested that the BZA approve an increase of 389 students in its undergraduate enrollment. In the order released four months later, the BZA denied the University permission to increase its traditional undergraduate enrollment above the existing cap of 5,627.
In its revised campus plan, the University states that it will not increase its undergraduate enrollment above the existing cap before 2010. The revised plan also states that the University has taken several measures?including “substantial funding” to maintain and improve residence halls and increasing the number of beds available to undergraduates?to address community concerns regarding the effects of enrollment.
Another condition imposed by the BZA required the University to make publicly available all data indicating the number and types of complaints received by the University concerning student misconduct.
The condition also required all sanctions and fines imposed on violators to be made public, with all Code of Conduct violations to be reported to the parents or guardians of the students involved.
The BZA order included a condition which requires the Office of the Registrar to maintain an accurate record of all license plate numbers of all motor vehicles owned by University students. The condition also required the University to direct all students to register their vehicles to comply with District of Columbia regulations.
Another condition requires the University to report student housing violations to landlords and appropriate D.C. agencies such as the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and Department of Public Affairs.
In August 2001, the University filed a motion with the BZA requesting a stay of several of the order’s conditions due to legal concerns. In the motion, the University expressed concern that these conditions might require Georgetown to violate the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974.
The BZA denied the University’s motion for a stay on the above conditions while investigating their legal implications.
In early September, the University filed a petition for review with the D.C. Court of Appeals.
“This is a legal notice of our intent to appeal the BZA decision and generally outlines the basis for the request,” Bataille said.
The Appeals Court will begin reviewing the case once the BZA files the administrative record of the case to the Court.
“Pending legal review, the University continues to act in good faith by implementing the final Order to the fullest extent of the law,” Bataille said.
The BZA declined to comment on the situation until the transcript from the March 5 hearing was released.
