An Open Letter to President Herbst Regarding Fairmount Properties

by Wanda Warren Berry

Professor of Philosophy and Religion, emerita

I write both as a long-standing member of the Colgate community and as a resident of the Village for 57 years.  Beyond teaching Colgate students for many years (during nine of which I taught all men), I have been an active and participating member in the civic and political life of the Village and Town of Hamilton. You may have heard of the numerous times when I have defended Colgate when it has been unjustly criticized by those in the town who resent Colgate's influence.  I have tried to explain the reasons it matters to Colgate that the Village be vibrant and attractive. I have tried to encourage realistic gratitude for the importance of Colgate to the village and of the village to Colgate.

I also have been well aware of the need for more rental housing in the village as well as the village's need to increase its tax base.  I was more than ready to support the proposals from Fairmount Properties if they met those needs without damaging the village and the college.

However, I think the current proposal for the Eaton Street location is bad both for Colgate and the village.  It seems designed to encourage exactly the kind of immature behavior our stated educational goals discourage.  I remember when my own daughters were tired of dorm living and sought apartments in the communities where they were in school.  But it is a very different thing to share an apartment with one or two fellow students than to be able to choose "apartments" with eight clustered bedrooms. This seems designed to encourage groups of students (many probably affiliated in Greek-letter societies) to move downtown for the senior year in order to be free of University supervision and to indulge in the most dangerous aspects of our drinking and drugging cultures. 

On Nextdoor Hamilton I have argued that the apartments over the retail units in the Eaton St. building might best be one and two bedroom units that cater to adults, either Colgate staff or students-- or others working in the region.  If Colgate seniors successfully competed for one of these apartments, they would be expected to live up to normal standards for decent behavior in interaction with other adults. 

After years of observing village and college, I think the better plan is to move all students to the campus.  But if 250 students must live in the village, I cannot think of a more dangerous plan for Colgate's reputation and the health and safety of the village than the current proposal. This is not said out of personal interest, since I live on the other side of the village.

In sum, I urge you to withdraw your agreement to guarantee full occupancy of the building Fairmount Properties has proposed for Eaton St.  If an attractive and secure rental complex is open to tenants on a first come-first serve basis, it will draw tenants by its own merits.   Our students who live there will be encouraged to be adults in a community of adults.

Regarding the Fairmount Housing Proposal, Student Culture, and Safety

by S. P. Cerasano
Professor of English

I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the many comments on the Fairmount Housing Proposal, both as these postings address the social learning of students and as they detail the myriad pragmatic difficulties that such a housing project would bring to the center of the village.  Because I concur with much of what has been said I will not repeat those sentiments here; however, I would like to add the issue of safety to the mix. 

As someone who has lived in the center of the village, for more than two decades, I would add that a significant difference in my experience over the past few years centers on the proliferation of what students refer to as “after-hours parties,” by which they mean the extension of the party scene from the downtown bars to their private apartments after the bars close down in the early hours of the morning.  Such nonstop partying has brought about some profound changes.  First, this trend has created an environment in which some students are on the village streets at all hours.  (I have observed students carrying on, on the streets outside of my residence, at 5:00 am and 5:30 am.)  Second, the proliferation of after-hours parties has doubtless encouraged students to drink for lengthier periods of time.  (When I phoned the Hamilton police regarding an after-hours party—on May 7^th (the Wednesday morning of final exam week)—an ambulance had to be brought to the scene to collect one female student who was completely incapable of walking out of the party by herself.  Others had to be escorted out of the party, held up by officers.)  Finally, and not least of all, after-hours partying encourages large groups of students to congregate in places which are not meant to contain such numbers of persons safely.  (Some after-hours parties, located on the same street, have easily involved a hundred (or many more) students in a single dwelling, virtually all of them congregated inside a single structure.)

I’m wondering now what happens when students follow their friends the short distance from the center of the village to the new apartment block for after-hours parties.  Who will monitor its occupancy at 2:00 am?  In 2013, Boston University had to deal with a tragic incident created by a fire that broke out in a house that was filled much beyond occupancy with partying students. The building could not be vacated quickly, resulting in the death of one student; other students and some of the fire fighters who responded to the call for help suffered serious injuries.  (See: http://www.bu.edu/today/2013/linden-street-fire/)

I would add, as well, that not all of the parents of college students are convinced that off-campus living is the best residential option.  Last summer, when a member of my family did the college tour, one institution with which Colgate has continually compared itself (but is currently ranked much higher), advertised to parents that “98% of our students live in college housing and we will soon be moving to 100%”, a detail that many visiting parents apparently found an attractive feature.  At first, the parents’ response rather surprised me.  But it was echoed in a conversation I had two months ago, with the mother of a graduating senior.  She confessed that she had allowed her daughter to join a Colgate sorority only because it would mean that her daughter would live in on-campus housing which, she thought, would be “safer than other options.”        

On the Fairmont Property Proposal

by Deborah Knuth Klenck
Professor of English


This plan to locate 81 seniors in a single downtown building, supervised and maintained by a developer based in Cleveland is almost comical in its departure from recent improvements that Colgate has tried to bring about in its housing policies and in its relationship with the Village. 

To review a few of these changes, mostly in chronological order: 

1. Under President Chopp, and with the blessing of the Board of Trustees, it became a truism that Colgate must own the buildings where its students live. Accordingly, and after much controversy and at great expense, the University acquired buildings formerly owned by the fraternities and sororities. Why? As I recall, the immediate catalyst for the change was the deadly car accident on Oak Drive, caused by excessive drinking at a fraternity party. While the expressed advantages of University ownership included upgrading the buildings so that they met fire-and-safety codes and opening the buildings to supervision and intervention by Colgate's Campus Safety personnel when necessary, I think that another important prompt was that Colgate is liable in lawsuits even over student events that occur "off-campus"--in Greek-letter houses. The hope was that if Colgate owned the residences, some more reliable standards could be maintained, leading to fewer disasters—and fewer lawsuits. Unless there's a definite perception that it has been a mistake to take over the Greek-letter houses, and I have not heard of one, it seems counter-intuitive now to reverse our policy by out-sourcing supervision and ownership of a large living-unit to an out-of-town corporation. 

2. The most recent incarnation of the/a strategic plan to address residential life, "Living the Liberal Arts," repeats throughout its report the insistence that it is a good for students to live in "inter-generational" housing. Putting 81 seniors, with no underclassmen, in a single downtown building works directly against this ideal. 

3. The same report encourages the University to "identify and provide appropriate incentives to faculty who will partner with staff to oversee living/learning communities." Whether or not I think it's part of the faculty's job to function as a civilizing influence over and in student residences (whatever the incentive), I certainly think it hardly likely that faculty will volunteer to work (for free) for Fairmont Properties to provide any such influence.

4. The Partnership for Community Development has brought about many desirable changes downtown. But here’s another inconsistency with another recent policy change, one that may appear to be minor: the recent eviction of the Curtain Call luncheonette and catering business from its site next to the movie theater was supposed to have been prompted by a desire for a more up-market, boutique-y shop-front to take its place---or so it was explained to the many departments that used Curtain Call’s services for receptions, interviews, and meetings. How is moving a high concentration of students to this very same neighborhood going to create the desired "tone" to which Curtain Call was apparently so deleterious? The location of the planned structure is a concern for Colgate’s “partners,” the community.  I don't see the Maroon-News very often, but in more than one issue during 2013-14, the “Campus Safety Blotter” listed offences including public urination--on Lebanon Street-- sometimes at hours like 10 AM on a weekday. Moving 81 seniors to that precise area seems, again, counter-intuitive, if making Hamilton an attractive, “classy” destination for students and their families and for alumni--and of course for residents of Hamilton themselves--is any part of Colgate's purpose. 

By sponsoring this plan, Colgate seems to be abandoning its responsibilities to its students and its neighbors, not to mention flouting the recommendations of its own hard-working planning committee(s). I don’t live in the Village of Hamilton, but I continue to teach Colgate students, and I want what is best for them and for my neighbors who do live in the Village. This development is not only not the best—it may actually be the worst.

“You Don’t Know What You’ve Got (Till It’s Gone)”*: Colgate, Hamilton, and Fairmount Properties

by Jill Harsin
Professor of History

and

Lynn Staley
Professor of English

In an earlier post on this blog (reprinted from Next Door Hamilton, where it has occasioned much discussion), Doug MacDonald provided important information about the plans for a large apartment complex in downtown Hamilton.  He has also made an eloquent case for regarding this plan as one that will fundamentally alter the character of the town.  Very few, apparently, were aware of this truly momentous project until the July 15 meeting, in which residents of Montgomery and Lebanon Streets were provided with information for the first time.  More than those two streets, of course, will be affected.  

[Future Meeting(s): There was a meeting of the Planning Board, open to the public, on July 24; most of us heard about it only that morning on Next Door Hamilton.  Despite the late news of the meeting, there were nevertheless many residents of Hamilton and outlying areas in attendance who expressed grave misgivings about the project.  There was a planned meeting, as mentioned in Doug’s post, for a July 30 meeting at 7:00 p.m. at the Courthouse; a recent notice on Next Door Hamilton states that this meeting will indeed be held on July 30 at 7 p.m.  We suggest that anyone who is interested should keep checking Next Door Hamilton; if you are not on that site, ask a current member for an invitation.]This post is about the potential effect of Fairmount’s planned project on Colgate as a residential campus.  There are three fundamental issues that need to be addressed:

• Campus planning at Colgate has been ongoing since 2011.  The process has been deliberative and remarkably open, and many faculty have been involved, as members of the Advisory and Planning Committee, as participants in the working groups, or as part of the numerous forums and presentations.  The sudden appearance of this new project is in sharp contrast to the measured and transparent approach taken up to this point.  Simply put: where does this project “fit” in regard to the Sasaki Plans for the campus and especially the two task forces—Campus Master Planning, delivered in final form on January 24, 2014, and Living the Liberal Arts, sent to the campus community on July 17, 2013?  Both task force plans represent a great deal of hard work on the part of faculty, administrators, and staff, and both are very recent expressions of Colgate’s vision for the future.  While there is mention of placing off-campus students in a “village core,” there is no reference to building an 81-student apartment house in close proximity to mostly single-family residences, as Fairmount Properties wishes to do.  (Both plans are readily accessible to those with Colgate email logins by looking them up on the Colgate Home page.)  

• A second question involves the extent of Colgate’s legal liability for what will essentially be (whether owned by Colgate or not) a downtown dormitory (or perhaps “unofficial” fraternity annex).  How much supervision will Colgate realistically be able to exercise in this building?  At the meeting on July 24, one of the Fairmount representatives was repeatedly questioned on precisely the issue of the access that the officers of Campus Safety will have to this large concentration of Colgate students.  The answer, frankly, was ambiguous: the representative stated that Campus Safety “would be welcome,” or that their one on-site building manager would call the Hamilton police—or something of the sort.  It was not at all clear, in short, whether members of Campus Safety would have unfettered access.  (Even if Fairmount Properties grants this access, subsequent owners may not.) Many of us have lived through the time during which Broad Street properties were owned by outside entities, a problem that was remedied only at great expense and trouble; we don’t want to replicate a dysfunctional situation.  This issue has taken on additional prominence because there has been much recent discussion, in arenas ranging from the New York Times to this blog, about Title IX issues, the responsibility of colleges in these matters, and the increasing government scrutiny of college processes in sexual assault cases (and our students, wherever they live, will rightly come to us for help).  Are we setting up a situation in which an outside entity gets the profits and we get the lawsuits?  Are we potentially condoning a living space that might  become a dangerous environment for our most vulnerable students?

• A third and final question involves Colgate’s responsibility to the village.  As we know, Colgate and its alums have been very generous to the village.  The movie theater, the Barge, the Bookstore, and most recently the refurbished Colgate Inn itself, are only the most visible examples.  Students provide customers for downtown businesses, and their talents are the source of sporting events, concerts, plays, and art exhibits.  Colgate generously brings to campus prominent speakers and authors, the Manhattan String Quartet, the Friday film series, and dance groups, many or most of them open to the public.  We also know that many students already live in the village—some of them in relatively large Colgate-owned housing clusters outside the main village, others in housing owned by local landlords, in groups of two or four.  This dense, concentrated housing project within the village seems profoundly different from all of these; even if it does not increase (but merely shifts to this location) the number of Colgate students living off-campus as before, it seems too intrusive and too sudden a remaking of the town.  As their online brochure indicates [google Fairmount Properties Hamilton NY, or go to this address: http://www.fairmountproperties.com/wp-content/uploads/Fairmount-Properties_11.pdf], Fairmount Properties has a comprehensive plan that has implications for local businesses, restaurants, landlords, and residences.  The footprint seems awfully big.  

The Fairmount Properties brochure announces a Fall 2014 start for their project in Hamilton.  As Professor MacDonald has noted, they have recently expanded their proposal substantially and are seeking approval for that expansion.  This last-minute request to change the zoning regulations—to allow for a much more densely populated facility than currently exists in the surrounding neighborhoods—frankly does not lead to much confidence in the extent of the planning that has been conducted already.  (On the other hand, they are now simply “renaming” the type of facility: the new change in plans described last night, in which it was suddenly proclaimed—so far as we could tell--that they did not require any zoning change, did not add clarity to the situation.) Fairmount Properties itself has mostly dealt with large urban universities, in areas where a downtown facility housing 81 students would scarcely be noticed; such is not the case in Hamilton.  The Living the Liberal Arts plan eloquently states, “Thus, at the heart of our proposal, we recommend that the residential experience be transformed, promoting intergenerational relationships and a healthier lifestyle where moderation in alcohol use is the norm, and the living community is interconnected with other aspects of Colgate life” (p. 3).  This proposed project seems a step in the wrong direction.


*From “Big Yellow Taxi,” Joni Mitchell (1970)

About the Fairmont Properties Project

by Doug Macdonald

To Hamilton Residents,       

July 21, 2014                       

On Tuesday, July 15 there was a public information meeting in the courthouse concerning the proposed construction of a structure on the downtown property at the intersection of Eaton and Lebanon Streets (11-13 Eaton Street.)   This is the property across from the “Hamilton Eatery,” kitty-cornered across from “New York Pizzeria,” and across Eaton Street from “Rusch’s.”  

This property, as has been known for some time, has been purchased by a corporation based in Cleveland, Ohio, “Fairmont Properties (FP).”    Rumors of what the planned new construction entailed have been rampant, with varying degrees of accuracy, and the meeting was meant to make plain what is planned for the property.  

The primary reason for the meeting was that FP’s plan requires a considerable alteration of its original plan, as (rounded figures) the 45,000-48,000 square feet that have been approved do not meet their needs in terms of parking for the “Boarding House” residence they wish to build.  That would require an additional allotment, beyond the approved amount, of approximately another 20,000 square feet.  At this point, that appears to be the only sticking point.

During the meeting, which was civilized but at times briskly debated, certain facts became apparent that many of us had not realized.  To wit:

1)    There has been a vaguely expressed agreement between Colgate University and FP concerning a guarantee of Colgate student residents for the structure;

2)    This includes a residential plan for eighty-one (81) Colgate students living in the residence, with seventy-one (71) parking spaces reserved for those residents (the question was raised at the July 15 meeting about a “boarding house” as defined by the village that only allows Colgate student residents);

3)    There has apparently been no study of the broader effects of this arrangement on the downtown congestion and traffic patterns, and in the village more generally, either by Colgate University or FP (there has apparently been some communication with selected sources in the Village, but not with the general population);

4)    There has been little or no communication or consultation with the residents of Lebanon and Montgomery Streets until now, when the project was presented at the meeting by FP as more or less a “done deal,” (these residents being the most directly affected by the construction);

5)    There has been, until now, an unfortunate lack of transparency on the project for the general public by Colgate University and FP;

6)    Many people I have talked to have real reservations about the project as planned, and all (including those in favor of the project) have been dismayed at the lack of consultation and transparency with the public.   Many have expressed the opinion that, “Well, there is nothing we can do.”  

Yes there is.   On July 30, at 7 p.m. at the courthouse there will be a public meeting discussing these matters in which residents will have a greater freedom to express their opinions than during the information meeting of July 15.  We all want a civilized and spirited debate.   We are all doing what we think is right.  Everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt. 

I retired from Colgate just this month after twenty-seven years as a professor.   I like students, I have attended the weddings of former students and now feel joy as they build their families and careers (naturally, there are some I would like to forget.)  Hamilton has been my home for all that time, and has taught me, a Boston boy, the attractions of rural, small town life.   The town provided my late mother with a nurturing and safe environment for her later life.  I owe much. 

In my view, this town is now facing a “tipping point” in terms of its identity, that is, how we see our own community and our places in it.  Perhaps we as a community want to follow the “vision” and “master plan” (FP’s phrases at the July 15 meeting) of Colgate and its corporate allies.   Perhaps we want to retain some sense of our own control over the community not based in the “vision” or “master plan” of people who are here relatively temporarily (the Colgate Administration) or those who are temporary renters (students.)  As usual, there are short and long term issues and values in play here.  

Regardless of how you see it, please come to the meeting on July 30 and make your voice heard.   It may not carry the day.   But it is important that it be heard.