Anyone following ongoing discussions between neighbors and the University about Georgetown’s 2010 Campus Plan has heard the overwhelming negative response to the plan from the locals. While many of their specific criticisms of the plan may seem nitpicky or nonsensical, most students have been willing to admit that permanent residents deserve a say in the future of their neighborhood.
However, a recent open letter from Citizens Association of Georgetown president Jennifer Altemus (COL `88) makes it clear that many of the most vocal neighbors will not be satisfied until no Georgetown student is allowed to venture past the front gates. This expectation is entirely unrealistic and precludes any meaningful cooperation between the University and the community. If neighbors stick to the rhetoric and mindset of Altemus’ letter, the University will not be able to negotiate with them in any meaningful way.
Altemus’ letter opens with strident demands about student housing, writing that the University must “house most of its undergraduates on campus and move the undergraduates in off-campus University-owned townhouses on campus.” Declarations like this demonstrate just how unreasonable the neighbors can be—not only do they demand that all undergraduates live on-campus, they also want to re-define “on-campus” to exclude university-owned buildings located on university-owned property that happens to be outside the front gates—as if the entirely symbolic walls marked a magical campus boundary.
Altemus may be a fairly recent Georgetown graduate, but it is clear that she is completely out of touch with the reality at her alma mater. Students do not choose to be gouged by resident landlords—few wish to live in cramped dorm-style residence halls for four years—and the space to build on campus would not permit expansive and luxurious apartment complexes that would appeal to upperclassmen.
Altemus goes on to make similarly impractical and petty demands about transportation. The letter decries the current traffic congestion in Georgetown, and states that the only acceptable solution would be to channel all traffic through the already clogged Canal Road entrance—and lead to absurdly inconvenient routes to nearby areas like Dupont Circle.
Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of Altemus’s missive is her request to “[Relocate] the hospital to another site on the University campus accessed from Canal Road.” Even if such a move were not cost prohibitive, the idea that there is enough open space on the south side of campus to accommodate an entire hospital and medical school is prima facie ridiculous.
The neighbors certainly deserve a say in the future of their community. But they need to recognize and accept the fact that they are living next to a vibrant and growing university that enriches the neighborhood by supporting local businesses and serving as an intellectual and cultural hub. Until the neighbors step away from their unrealistic demands, they will have no hope of having any substantial input on Georgetown’s future plans.
Someone should find out (or ask Ms. Altemus) where she lived for the four years she went to GU. Someone should also ask her if she ever took GUTS.