QU: More Dorms Will Ease Off-Campus Problems

In the next year, Quinnipiac University plans on constructing another 500 dorm rooms at its York Hill campus, which school representatives say should ease the problem of students living in off-campus housing and clashing with neighbors.

But those plans didn't placate the Planning and Zoning Commission Tuesday night, when QU attorney Bernard Pelligrino spoke about the school's plans to deal with problems that included a spat of student arrests this month due to overzealous partying.

Student enrollment has exploded, with this year's class of 1,835 freshmen exceeding 2016 enrollment projections. Freshmen are required to live on campus, but upperclassmen aren't. Even so, there are still empty beds in the QU inventory, Pelligrino said.

The problem, he said, is that those rooms are in older facilities that aren't as appealing to students. The newer dorms on the York Hill campus are filled, he said, and the university is confident that adding to that inventory will result in more upperclassmen, in particular seniors, living on campus.

"The good news there is that we have received internal approval and commissioned drawings and site plans and architectural work to come in with an app for additional designs for new dorm based on York Hill campus," Pelligrino told the commission. "We hope these plans will be ready in six to eight months.
In 2007 the commission approved 2,000 beds at the York Hill campus. About 1,500 have been constructed and 500 are approved but not yet constructed. 

"Since that time we have been analysing the type of housing that is most desirous for upperclassmen and we believe we need to redesign the beds previously approved to make them filled immediately by seniors," Pelligrino said.

That wasn't good enough for commission member Michele Mastropetre.

"In my opinion, Quinnipiac is a lousy neighbor," she said, citing the recent arrests.

"What just happened in the last couple of weeks with the off-campus parties with 150 kids in a backyard and someone falling in ditch, our town resources having to go out and break it up — that is absolutely appalling to me," she said. "Maybe that is an isolated incident, but there's a lot of little issues going on all around town."

Assistant Town Planner Dan Kops said the commission sent a letter to the university and the response "can best more favorably be described as disappointing," he said.

One option the commission has is enacting a moratorium on any construction other than to build dormitories or on anything that would encourage an increase in student enrollment, he said. 

That's something she would support, Mastropetre said.

"This is an ongoing problem and its very very frustrating," she said. "You need to change your policies — there are empty beds, but they aren't the dorms the students want to live in." 

West Woods Civic Association president Cindy Civitello said she was glad the commission was addressing the problem.

"This is the only opportunity we have to let Quinnipiac know how frustrating it is that the same issues are not resolved year after year," she said.

It should be easy for the university to monitor how many students are living in off-campus housing, she said. According to zoning regulations, no more than four students can live in a single-family residence, so a check of student's addresses would show where those numbers are exceeded.

And landlords who rent to students who consistently cause problems should be denied renewal of their student housing permit, she said.