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March 24, 2005
Northeastern dorm plans stir controversy
Yawu Miller
After months of contentious negotiations, Northeastern University
pledged last year to create 1,250 new units of on-campus housing
in an agreement with the Boston Redevelopment Authority that was
aimed at pulling students out of private housing in the Fenway.
Community activists hailed the move as a small victory in an on-going
battle against creeping institutional expansion.
But when the university’s plans for the on-campus residence
halls were unveiled earlier this month, community activists were
up in arms. In both the Fenway neighborhood and in Lower Roxbury,
Northeastern planned high-density dormitories in close proximity
to dense, urban neighborhoods.
The Lower Roxbury dormitory would be housed in a series of buildings
on what is now a vacant parking lot behind Carter Playground.
Beginning with a seven-story building adjacent to the existing
athletic facility, the complex would step up to a nine-story building
before culminating in a 20-story tower.
Now, as an April deadline looms for the university’s submission
of its plans to the BRA, activists are calling on Northeastern
to back off.
“Once again, Northeastern has made their plans and put the
ball in motion when its almost too late to do anything,”
said Rose Arruda, who lives near Carter Playground on Columbus
Avenue. “This is par for the course for Northeastern.”
The roots of the current controversy go back to September of last
year when city officials found that Northeastern was illegally
operating dormitories in the Fenway area. At that time, Northeastern
entered into a memorandum of understanding with the city to develop
1,250 new units of on-campus student housing. The memorandum called
on the university to submit plans for the dormitories by April
of this year.
Currently only 50 percent of Northeastern’s 14,600 undergraduates
reside on campus. The other 7,300-or-so students live in residential
housing mostly in Lower Roxbury, the Fenway and Mission Hill.
Their presence in those neighborhoods has long been a bone of
contention for long-term residents of the neighborhoods who complain
of noise and community disorders caused by the students.
“There were five arrests of Northeastern students Saturday
night,” Arruda said. “The students venture into our
neighborhoods and wreak havoc.”
Northeastern officials say they plan to remove more students from
residential housing in Boston by building more dormitories on
campus.
“We continue to hear the community and understand the call
to get more students on campus,” said Northeastern spokesman
Fred McGrail. “We have a long term goal to get 75 percent
of the students on campus.”
McGrail stressed that Northeastern is working with the community
task force and will work with them on a new master plan that will
guide its long term development.
Arruda remains skeptical.
“There’s no community partner here,” she said.
“It’s all about take-over.”
Although the university currently has a master plan, the most
recently proposed dormitories, as well as other recent Northeastern
dormitory projects, are not in the existing plan.
City Councilor Chuck Turner says he would like to see the current
plans for dormitories shelved until September. In the mean time,
he says, Northeastern should come clean to the community about
what their plans are.
“Before decisions are made about any building, there needs
to be an overview of how much space they’re going to need
to house students and for academic buildings,” he told the
Banner. “We need to know the overall scope of their development
plans. They ought to put all their desires on the table initially
so we can get a sense of how much land they need.”
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