The eight tenants of 4805 College Ave. love living in an off-campus house, which they use to host weekend barbecues, Wiffle ball tournaments and the occasional late-night party. Their neighbors, however, aren’t as excited.
The university’s housing crisis forced the tenants of 4805 to move from traditional, on-campus student housing to a block of mostly permanent residents. At the same time, College Park City Council members are aiming to crack down on noise violators, which leaves students living in traditionally non-student neighborhoods stuck between a rock and a quiet place.
Most of 4805’s current tenants became the first to rent out the house in 2006, after the house had been owned by families and even a group of nuns in the past. Residents on the block soon realized their neighborhood would be forever changed by their new and younger neighbors – and all the loud music and drunken parties they bring with them. And that, the 4805 tenants said, is where their troubles began.
“We’re surrounded by residents, so they automatically hated us,” said senior physical education major Clif Frailey. He said one of his new neighbors came over to lecture the group as soon as she saw them, saying “I hope you guys are never going to be loud, because I’m going to have my eye on you.”
The tenants’ problems started with warnings from the city based on complaints from neighbors. Then those warnings escalated into official noise violations, at which point the tenants racked up a total of $3,000 in fines. The students have not been fined in more than a year but continue to receive complaints for what District 3 Councilwoman Stephanie Stullich still considers loud parties.
The housemates now try to confine their parties to a soundproofed basement, they said, and they post a lookout at the front door both for people who might congregate on the lawn – the biggest noise problem, the residents said – and for the “little white cars” driven by the city’s code enforcement division.
Frailey accused his neighbors of being too willing to phone in complaints, calling the city over daytime backyard activities such as barbecues and Wiffle ball but never complaining about louder noises such as the trains that pass several times each night about a block away.
“Don’t tell me you can’t sleep through a party if you can’t hear the train blowing its horn,” senior physiology and neurobiology major Warren Spitz said.
Stullich, who recently has tried to push through legislation that would crack down on noise violators, said it’s easier to deal with “normal noise” like traffic or the train that is noisy but passes quickly, and she agrees there would be fewer complaints if students had not moved in among permanent residents.
“That kind of situation is going to lead to more complaints,” she said. “I think older people would like the students to have more housing alternatives that are not in their neighborhoods. The university really hasn’t responded to the housing shortage by doing what’s necessary.”
“Our neighborhoods are serving as the dorms,” Mayor Stephen Brayman complained at a recent city council meeting.
Stullich, who lives on Dartmouth Avenue in a house she said is “within earshot” of 4805, said it’s not that the residents have a problem with students living near them, it’s that they don’t want irresponsible college behavior on their streets.”People should be able to have fun without getting wasted,” she said. “When the drinking involves kind of continual yelling and counting at the top of their lungs, it’s not very healthy behavior, but it’s also just very disruptive if you live within earshot. There’s quite a few people in the neighborhood who are unhappy with this house.”
But students said it’s too easy to make enough noise to get fined. The city’s noise caps of 65 decibels during the day and 55 at night – normal conversation is about 60 decibels – are low enough that nearly anything is a violation, leaving everything at the discretion of the city whether they receive a citation, they said.
“It’s pretty much random,” senior economics major Eric Klein said. If they see the code enforcement officer before he or she leaves, the residents said they try and chase after the car and beg for mercy, which sometimes prevents a possible fine. But even then, as senior communication major Matt Cerce put it, “I think it’s what side of the bed they got up on.”
The residents also allege that city code enforcers look harder for problems at student homes than those of permanent residents, but Stullich disagreed.
“You follow your ears, and you find where [noise] is coming from,” she said.
College Park Code Enforcement Manager Jeannie Ripley deferred questions to Public Services Director Bob Ryan, who did not respond to requests for comment.
Student leaders have criticized Stullich’s plan – which would allow the city to levy double fines of $1,000 for any repeat noise violations within 12 months instead of the current six – saying that her proposed changes don’t take into account high student turnover rates in rental properties. A resident who moves into a home with a previous noise violation could be slapped with the higher fine, they said.
But she maintains something must be done to address her constituents’ complaints about excessive noise.
“What’s the alternative? What can we do? I would rather not fine people. I would rather just ask nicely and have things changed,” Stullich said. “And I do want to acknowledge that I think [the residents of 4805] are making an effort to change, but it’s taken a lot of effort from the city.”
Although the residents of 4805 were critical of Stullich’s plan, they were stumped on a possible alternative for striking the right balance between what they saw as the students’ right to have fun and the residents’ right to peace and quiet.
“I’m sure we are a nuisance to them. They have to get up in the morning to go to work,” senior kinesiology major Rob Fitzgerald said.
However, the 4805 residents suggested that in a college town, students may have a stronger claim to their preferred way of life than the permanent residents do to theirs.
“I mean, we’re on College Avenue in College Park,” Frailey said. “We try not to throw too many parties, but it’s a part of the college experience. We’re going to go on living this lifestyle. I want to play Wiffle ball everyday, and I’m going to continue to do that.”
holtdbk@gmail.com
