Thursday, the DC Office of Planning filed its recommendations to the Zoning Commission regarding Georgetown University's 2010 Campus Plan. The report is an unrealistic document that essentially insists on Georgetown shrinking its undergraduate enrollment by requiring that the university provide on-campus housing for 100 percent of undergraduates by fall of 2016. If the university does not meet this standard, which also includes an intermediate step of housing 90 percent of undergraduates on campus by fall of 2015, Georgetown must cut its undergraduate enrollment.
Furthermore, the report adheres to an inaccurate definition on on-campus, which is either behind the 37th Street front gates or otherwise outside of the 20007 zip code. GU owns a substantial amount of property outside of the front gates, and the definition of "campus" includes all of that property, which includes several classroom buildings. In fact, Georgetown had proposed to build a small apartment complex on this property, but the neighbors killed the project, even when the university modified the plan so that it would have housed only graduate students. As a later concession, Georgetown agreed to instead add 250 beds by 2014 outside of the 20007 zip code.
To be fair, I can empathize with these residents to a certain extent. I definitely lost some sleep trying to cope with undergraduate noise while living on campus. However, the university has been present in the vaunted 20007 zip code for quite some time. The university, founded in 1789, has had a historical presence in Georgetown long before the neighborhood was so attractive with high property values. Since fewer students live off campus than in the 1970s and 1980s (when these NIMBYs were in college), I find it hard to believe that the problem has worsened in recent years. According to the report, the neighborhood has reached "the tipping point of diminished residential character."
One quote from the report in particular stuck out to me: "The number of students living within a community has an adverse impact due to the transient nature of students, their orientation to the university and university events, their involvement and socialization with other students and likelihood that they are not living year round within the community versus a full-time permanent resident who have chosen a community as their home."
First of all, DC is by nature a place filled with transient individuals. People from all over the country and even the world are drawn to our nation's capital, and there is a constant flow of people in and out of the DC area.
Second of all, I am deeply offended that "orientation to the university" in and of itself has an adverse impact on the community. How is a connection to Georgetown University inherently bad? The vast majority of Georgetown residents attended college, and I hope that for their sake they were part of an engaging university community, rather than feeling like outsiders in the neighborhood who should walk to class with their heads down, seen and not heard. If the report had just stuck with "socialization with other students" and elaborated on the propensity of such socialization to include loud, disruptive evening events, I wouldn't have been able to take such offense. However, the insinuation that the mere affiliation with the university adversely affects the neighborhood effectively labels all the student, faculty members, and staff as agents of evil. Not all students, I would like to think myself included, contributed to a noisy, unpleasant atmosphere.
Furthermore, try replacing "students" with "African Americans," "gays," or "Roman Catholics." I don't think that the Office of Planning would possibly recommend that the presence of members of such groups be eliminated due to some adverse impact on the neighborhood.
The final point that rankles me is that somehow students are less of citizens because they tend not to live in the community year round. Many Georgetown students do indeed spend at least one of their summers in DC, taking advantage of the number of internships. Also, do none of the owners of multimillion dollar Georgetown townhouses spend their summers outside of 20007 at vacation homes or in the south of France? Finally, Georgetown students are continually discriminated against when they try to fully participate in Georgetown civic life. For example, I read that during the April 26 special election, Georgetown students who had previously registered to vote in DC but were not on the rolls were turned away from the polls, instead of being permitted to cast a provisional ballot, as is their right.
The report contains at least one obvious falsehood: "However, many universities of competitive standard to Georgetown house 100% of their students on campus. Harvard, MIT and Princeton are among other universities that require all of their undergraduate students to live on campus."
In fact, not one of those three universities require all of its students to live on campus or houses all of its undergraduates to live on campus. MIT houses less undergraduates on campus than Georgetown (70 percent vs. 76 percent). Even Harvard or Princeton, with their rich residential college traditions, house less than 100 percent of their undergraduates on campus (Princeton is 97 percent).
However, bringing up Harvard and Princeton raises an interesting point: if on-campus housing is more attractive, more students will likely choose to live there. I spent my three years at Georgetown living on campus (I studied abroad in Madrid for a full year). My freshman and sophomore years were spent in meager double occupancy dorm rooms, and I was required to get a meal plan at the awful dining hall. I spent my senior year in a four-person apartment, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. I appreciated the convenience of living on campus, since I was close to my classes and didn't have to deal with a landlord or paying for utilities. However, I did enjoy that I was in an apartment, with more space and, most importantly, a kitchen to prepare my own meals.
Georgetown proposed to build another such complex, but the neighbors fought it tooth and nail because it was outside of the front gates. Jennifer Altemus, a 1988 graduate of Georgetown College and the ringleader of the anti-campus plan brigade, called on Georgetown to build more housing inside of the gates, speaking warmly of her time living in Nevils. Nevils, of course, is outside of the front gates. The neighbors' number one choice of a location for new on-campus housing is on top of the dining hall. Such a structure would likely consist of dorms, which upper class students do not want to live in, and would likely be prohibitively expensive given that it would be on top of an existing structure.
While the OP states that Georgetown's plan to add 250 beds is a plan in the right direction, it is not enough: "However, the applicant only proposes to move 250 students onto campus, out of approximately1,600 undergraduates living off campus. This would still leave over 1300 undergraduate students in off-campus housing. Similar to what other universities have undertaken, housing one hundred percent of the undergraduate students on campus has been found to be the most effective means of controlling student behavior."
I'm not sure which universities, other than the military academies, have housed one hundred percent of undergraduates not only on campus but inside an arcane definition of campus boundaries to lessen noise for neighbors. Furthermore, Georgetown students are free to walk the streets of Georgetown. They will still have to pass through the 20007 zip code to spend their money at the restaurants and shops located on Wisconsin and M Streets.
If the neighbors want absolute peace and quiet, I think that they should consider moving to the suburbs. Instead, their end game seems to be for Georgetown to pack up and move to Virginia, leaving the campus as open green space (that only 20007 residents could use, of course). Never mind that Georgetown University is the city's largest nongovernmental employer.
Neighbors have insisted throughout the entire debate that they are not anti-student. However, this claim seems patently false. The Office of Planning report starts out by saying how important universities are to DC intellectual and cultural life as well as for the economy and employment. Except for those pesky students!
I'm not trying to say that Georgetown shouldn't try to build more on-campus housing. However, the requests laid out in this report are extremely unrealistic. I am unsure of how exactly Georgetown is going to add 250 beds by 2014, other than perhaps by converting the conference center hotel to student housing. We have very little space inside the gates, but we have even less money. Compared to our so-called "peer institutions" (a huge stretch!), we have a tiny endowment. We are currently building a sorely-needed science center that will not even be big enough for all of the professors to have offices there, let alone try to hire more researchers to try to become an actual world-class research university. Aside from that, the biggest need is for more student space. The library, apart from being an eyesore with shoddy wireless and few electrical outlets, does not have anywhere close to enough space for students to study.
I'm just not sure where or with what money Georgetown could build more student housing by 2016. Therefore, the report ultimately seems to be underhandedly seeking to shrink undergraduate enrollment. A decrease in enrollment would likely prompt the university to lay off faculty and staff, which I'm sure would be a boon for the local economy.
I haven't even addressed whether or not it is good for Georgetown to require all of its undergraduates to live on campus and whether it would affect the caliber of student attracted to Georgetown and thus the worth of that already overpriced piece of sheepskin my parents bought me last year. But I think pointing out the anti-student and unrealistic demands made by the neighbors and now the Office of Planning is more than enough for a good Saturday rant.
I've been asking myself whether my views are too heavily impacted by my recent status as a Georgetown student. After all, walking around my senior year, I saw the neighborhood filled with anti-campus plans lawn signs. However, I don't think that's the case. Frankly, I have a lot of problems with the Georgetown administration and don't consider myself connected to the university in any way. Even if that were the case, it shouldn't matter. I am a DC taxpayer and was counted here in the 2010 Census, which saw an increase in DC population for the first time in decades. In fact, I spent 50 weeks of 2010 residing in the District. See, that's the thing about Georgetown students: many of them like the DC location and opt to stay, especially because of the number of professional opportunities for recent graduates.
Let's just say that the Zoning Commission will be hearing from this DC taxpayer.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Averted Shutdown Highlights District Issues
Well, at the eleventh hour, a deal averting government shutdown was finally reached. I am very happy not to see the shutdown, especially since it seemed absolutely inevitable yesterday. I wouldn't, however, say that I am particularly happy with our government.
I am mad with Congress for not being able to pass a budget before our fiscal year started in October. I know that it was an election year, but it is our elected officials' job to pass a budget. Nancy Pelosi deserves a fair amount of the blame. On one hand, she was in absolute la la land, completely denying until the bitter end that Democrats would lose so many seats come November. On the other hand, she did not take advantage of the Democratic majority in both houses to get a budget done, even in the lame duck session. I know that the Democrats did not have the supermajority apparently needed to get anything done in the Senate, but no one seemed to be trying too hard, at least from where I was sitting. I am also mad with President Obama for being too conciliatory to Republicans who were never going to agree with him anyway. I was extremely pissed off when the tax cuts for the wealthy were extended. Very few people in government seem to honestly be concerned with the "little guy." Many people in government seem to be concerned with the interests of multimillionaires and billionaires.
In January, the Republicans reclaimed the House, in large part thanks to the Tea Party. I'm still struggling to understand the Tea Party movement, but it's ideology seems to be the steadfast opposition to all government except that which directly benefit its members. Cut my taxes, and get your government hands off of my Medicare.
I'm not denying that there is waste in government, nor am I trying to say that there aren't places our budget can be cut. But the budget impasse seemed extremely illogical.
The cuts in question, whether you peg the figure at $33 billion, $38 billion, or $61 billion, represent a tiny fraction of the budget. I thought that a deal had been reached last week setting cuts at $33 billion, which seemed reasonable given the Republicans' desire for $61 billion in cuts.
But the deal was off, and a shutdown was less than a week away. It was hard to tell whether the holdup was that the Republicans were demanding higher cuts, or whether it was their threats to defund Planned Parenthood and the Environmental Protection Agency. Either way, the federal government would run out of funds at midnight on Friday, and the government would shut down if that did not happen.
Paul Ryan's budget proposal seemed like an absurd aside. Sure, his proposal was interesting, but it seemed like a waste of time, space, and oxygen with days left before a looming government shutdown.
While there are federal employees all across the country (and the world), and a number of government services would have been affected, the shutdown would have been most acutely felt in the District of Columbia. While DC has its own tax base, the District is run as a federal agency. All of our spending, even the spending of our own money raised through taxes on our own people, must be appropriated by the federal government. In a practical sense, that meant that only "essential" District employees such as certain police officers would be able to do their jobs. There would have been no trash collection for at least a week. The University of the District of Columbia would have shut down. The DMV would be closed. Meter maids would not have been working, allowing people to park with impunity, even in Georgetown!
The District of Columbia is a bit of a unique animal. Because it is the seat of the federal government, a large amount of property (more than half) in DC is under federal control and is exempt from DC taxes. Many of the people who work in DC live in Maryland and Virginia and pay income taxes to those states. In large part because of that fact, the District is more dependent on federal funding than other cities and states. However, I would imagine that most Americans would be surprised to hear how little autonomy DC actually has. The District has only had an elected mayor and city council since 1973. Even still, the federal government has the ultimate authority over the District and can overrule our elected officials. Just like the Department of Energy cannot spend money that has not been appropriated by the Congress, the District of Columbia cannot spend money that has not been appropriated by the Congress. However, unlike the DOE, DC has a population that pays DC and federal taxes. It is not a federal agency.
In recent years, DC has become an increasingly attractive place to live. This trend has been visible in all four quadrants of the District. The 2010 census showed a population increase, and there are now more than 600,000 residents. Wyoming, which has two senators, a representative in Congress, and autonomy over its local funds, has a population of around 560,000. While I am a proponent of DC statehood and think it is extremely appropriate that DC license plates read "Taxation without Representation," I am going to take a different tack and argue that in the immediate future, DC must be given budgetary autonomy.
While I am glad that the final reported deal does not defund Planned Parenthood or the EPA (apparently there is a price on this, and that price is $5 billion), there were two items in the deal that enrage me. There were two provisions in the reported deal affecting DC: DC cannot use its OWN public funds to pay for abortions, and a private school voucher program would be resurrected in DC. I'm not too concerned with the voucher program, although I don't think it gets at the root problem, which is the state of public schools in DC. However, the prohibition of DC using its own money to fund abortions irks me. This has been in effect in the past, so it's not completely out of left field, but I think it goes to show why DC needs to have more control.
Republicans, especially Tea Partiers, have been complaining a lot as of late about the perceived Obama nanny state. They bring it up when Michelle Obama promotes programs targeted at ending childhood obesity (First Ladies traditionally have fluffy advocacy issues. We have a childhood obesity epidemic. I'm not too outraged that she is trying to convince kids to eat more fruits and vegetables and be more active. Would these people prefer that we triple their Medicare taxes to prepare for the serious and costly health issues these children will likely face in their twilight years?), and they bring it up when they talk about "Obamacare" ("Obamacare" contains a few good things, but it is ultimately a handout to the insurance industry. Single-payer health care would have fit more with the idea of a nanny state, but Obama was too much of a wimp to even propose such an idea. In my opinion, such a "socialist" idea would be a more humane for a world power like the United States to care for its people and would likely save costs in the long run.) However, the Republicans are instituting a nanny state in the District of Columbia.
Given the ways a shutdown would have negatively impacted the entire country in general and DC in particular, I don't wish that the Democrats had forced a shutdown by demanding that the provisions affecting the District had been removed. However, this backroom dealing has shown me that it is high time for DC residents to have more control over themselves and their tax dollars. I am glad that the needle exchange program was not included, as the Republicans had insisted in earlier proposals for a one-week continuing resolution. DC is still ravaged by HIV/AIDS.
Good things are happening in DC right now. As I said before, the District has become an more attractive place to live. DC residents are also demanding more from their government. The administration of Mayor Vincent Gray has been plagued by scandal in its first months. Whereas these issues would likely have been unknown or accepted in the past, DC residents have demanded accountability in this 24-hour news cycle Twitter culture. While I often complain about this culture, I am happy to see it used effectively to root out corruption. Therefore, I think that DC is ready to handle the added responsibility of budgetary autonomy. We don't need a nanny state, thank you very much. Isn't it enough that we can't spend federal money on abortion? Why do we need to be told how we can and cannot spend our own money? Shouldn't it be up to residents of the District to decide if they want to fund abortions for low-income women with DC tax dollars?
On a lighter note, does anyone still watch Grey's Anatomy? I watched the musical episode last night. I really hope that it was an existential self-parody of how ridiculously over the top the show has become. On that self-aware level, it would work. However, if it was serious, I don't know what to do. I kept laughing in what were probably inappropriate moments.
I am mad with Congress for not being able to pass a budget before our fiscal year started in October. I know that it was an election year, but it is our elected officials' job to pass a budget. Nancy Pelosi deserves a fair amount of the blame. On one hand, she was in absolute la la land, completely denying until the bitter end that Democrats would lose so many seats come November. On the other hand, she did not take advantage of the Democratic majority in both houses to get a budget done, even in the lame duck session. I know that the Democrats did not have the supermajority apparently needed to get anything done in the Senate, but no one seemed to be trying too hard, at least from where I was sitting. I am also mad with President Obama for being too conciliatory to Republicans who were never going to agree with him anyway. I was extremely pissed off when the tax cuts for the wealthy were extended. Very few people in government seem to honestly be concerned with the "little guy." Many people in government seem to be concerned with the interests of multimillionaires and billionaires.
In January, the Republicans reclaimed the House, in large part thanks to the Tea Party. I'm still struggling to understand the Tea Party movement, but it's ideology seems to be the steadfast opposition to all government except that which directly benefit its members. Cut my taxes, and get your government hands off of my Medicare.
I'm not denying that there is waste in government, nor am I trying to say that there aren't places our budget can be cut. But the budget impasse seemed extremely illogical.
The cuts in question, whether you peg the figure at $33 billion, $38 billion, or $61 billion, represent a tiny fraction of the budget. I thought that a deal had been reached last week setting cuts at $33 billion, which seemed reasonable given the Republicans' desire for $61 billion in cuts.
But the deal was off, and a shutdown was less than a week away. It was hard to tell whether the holdup was that the Republicans were demanding higher cuts, or whether it was their threats to defund Planned Parenthood and the Environmental Protection Agency. Either way, the federal government would run out of funds at midnight on Friday, and the government would shut down if that did not happen.
Paul Ryan's budget proposal seemed like an absurd aside. Sure, his proposal was interesting, but it seemed like a waste of time, space, and oxygen with days left before a looming government shutdown.
While there are federal employees all across the country (and the world), and a number of government services would have been affected, the shutdown would have been most acutely felt in the District of Columbia. While DC has its own tax base, the District is run as a federal agency. All of our spending, even the spending of our own money raised through taxes on our own people, must be appropriated by the federal government. In a practical sense, that meant that only "essential" District employees such as certain police officers would be able to do their jobs. There would have been no trash collection for at least a week. The University of the District of Columbia would have shut down. The DMV would be closed. Meter maids would not have been working, allowing people to park with impunity, even in Georgetown!
The District of Columbia is a bit of a unique animal. Because it is the seat of the federal government, a large amount of property (more than half) in DC is under federal control and is exempt from DC taxes. Many of the people who work in DC live in Maryland and Virginia and pay income taxes to those states. In large part because of that fact, the District is more dependent on federal funding than other cities and states. However, I would imagine that most Americans would be surprised to hear how little autonomy DC actually has. The District has only had an elected mayor and city council since 1973. Even still, the federal government has the ultimate authority over the District and can overrule our elected officials. Just like the Department of Energy cannot spend money that has not been appropriated by the Congress, the District of Columbia cannot spend money that has not been appropriated by the Congress. However, unlike the DOE, DC has a population that pays DC and federal taxes. It is not a federal agency.
In recent years, DC has become an increasingly attractive place to live. This trend has been visible in all four quadrants of the District. The 2010 census showed a population increase, and there are now more than 600,000 residents. Wyoming, which has two senators, a representative in Congress, and autonomy over its local funds, has a population of around 560,000. While I am a proponent of DC statehood and think it is extremely appropriate that DC license plates read "Taxation without Representation," I am going to take a different tack and argue that in the immediate future, DC must be given budgetary autonomy.
While I am glad that the final reported deal does not defund Planned Parenthood or the EPA (apparently there is a price on this, and that price is $5 billion), there were two items in the deal that enrage me. There were two provisions in the reported deal affecting DC: DC cannot use its OWN public funds to pay for abortions, and a private school voucher program would be resurrected in DC. I'm not too concerned with the voucher program, although I don't think it gets at the root problem, which is the state of public schools in DC. However, the prohibition of DC using its own money to fund abortions irks me. This has been in effect in the past, so it's not completely out of left field, but I think it goes to show why DC needs to have more control.
Republicans, especially Tea Partiers, have been complaining a lot as of late about the perceived Obama nanny state. They bring it up when Michelle Obama promotes programs targeted at ending childhood obesity (First Ladies traditionally have fluffy advocacy issues. We have a childhood obesity epidemic. I'm not too outraged that she is trying to convince kids to eat more fruits and vegetables and be more active. Would these people prefer that we triple their Medicare taxes to prepare for the serious and costly health issues these children will likely face in their twilight years?), and they bring it up when they talk about "Obamacare" ("Obamacare" contains a few good things, but it is ultimately a handout to the insurance industry. Single-payer health care would have fit more with the idea of a nanny state, but Obama was too much of a wimp to even propose such an idea. In my opinion, such a "socialist" idea would be a more humane for a world power like the United States to care for its people and would likely save costs in the long run.) However, the Republicans are instituting a nanny state in the District of Columbia.
Given the ways a shutdown would have negatively impacted the entire country in general and DC in particular, I don't wish that the Democrats had forced a shutdown by demanding that the provisions affecting the District had been removed. However, this backroom dealing has shown me that it is high time for DC residents to have more control over themselves and their tax dollars. I am glad that the needle exchange program was not included, as the Republicans had insisted in earlier proposals for a one-week continuing resolution. DC is still ravaged by HIV/AIDS.
Good things are happening in DC right now. As I said before, the District has become an more attractive place to live. DC residents are also demanding more from their government. The administration of Mayor Vincent Gray has been plagued by scandal in its first months. Whereas these issues would likely have been unknown or accepted in the past, DC residents have demanded accountability in this 24-hour news cycle Twitter culture. While I often complain about this culture, I am happy to see it used effectively to root out corruption. Therefore, I think that DC is ready to handle the added responsibility of budgetary autonomy. We don't need a nanny state, thank you very much. Isn't it enough that we can't spend federal money on abortion? Why do we need to be told how we can and cannot spend our own money? Shouldn't it be up to residents of the District to decide if they want to fund abortions for low-income women with DC tax dollars?
On a lighter note, does anyone still watch Grey's Anatomy? I watched the musical episode last night. I really hope that it was an existential self-parody of how ridiculously over the top the show has become. On that self-aware level, it would work. However, if it was serious, I don't know what to do. I kept laughing in what were probably inappropriate moments.
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