North Carolina Newspapers

August 25, 1975 Section A The Daily Tar Heel 3 5 1 I Ay, i L 3 5 vent MM - t ::::: Ssf y a f 5 i i i 1 y. Ml' -it 4 u .. n r i - a , 5 t 'I' 1 l"i 1 J nlir .! ' -90s . L f if - 'I 1 1 ..A - - Photo by Byon The scaffolding behind Lewis and Everett dorms renders 25 parking spaces useless, but cannot be removed before the first day of classes. Tedious gutter repair was delayed by heavy summer rains. O vercrowding worse at State than here Although the housing situation at the University of North Carolina is tight, the situation is much worse at North Carolina State University where 1,250 freshmen have been closed out of on campus housing this fall. The 1,000 male freshmen and 250 women freshmen on the waiting list have been forced to seek off-campus accommodations. Figures for upperclassmen were unavailable Wednesday, since the upperclassmen's waiting list will not be until the first day of classes. State's housing department has requested through television, radio and newspaper advertisements that anyone having a room or apartment to rent please list the vacancy with the department. This information is then distributed to the students searching for room to live. Unlike UNC, State does not require freshmen to live in on-campus housing. State does, however, give freshmen priority concerning the on-campus housing waiting list. N.C. State housing officer J.S. Fulgham said he does not know how many students lack housing. But he said he is optimistic that all enrolled students will find housing. He said the housing may not be in Raleigh, but rather in the surrounding area. 3 Select dorms received facelifts totalling over $320,000 r ; 5 by Bob King Staff Writer Housing improvements ranging from sit-down showers for handicapped students to recreation rooms have cost the Department of University Housing $320,000 this summer. Housing Director James D. Condie said last week. Numerous adjustments were made in Grimes and Ruffin Residence Halls, . where several handicapped students will be housed this fall. Special showers and furniture have been installed in the dorms, and wheelchair ramps have been built to connect sidewalks to the south door, of each building. Mailboxes for handicapped students .have also been lowered to provide easy access from a wheelchair. Only one wheelchair student, a woman, will be enrolled this fall, though a number of students with other handicaps will be staying in Ruffin and Grimes. "We needed to be able to tell the admissions people that it was now all .right to tell people we had the capability of housing almost anybody, regardless of physical handicap," Condie explained. Railings, lights and some door glass had not been installed last week, but Condie said contractors will complete the improvements by the first day of classes. Roof and gutter repairs to Upper and Lower Quad buildings should be completed in two or three weeks, Condie said. Inclement weather delayed the tedious repairs, which were begun last spring. The scaffolding constructed on the south side of Lewis and Everett dorms cannot, be removed until the project is completed. Extending approximately six feet from the exteriors of each building, the scaffolding renders useless 25 parking spaces in the adjacent lot. Installation of ventilation systems in the once steamy North Campus bathrooms is also almost complete. Condie said he hopes the vents will save long-run costs for painting and plaster repair. Several kitchens were installed in North Campus dorms both this summer and last. Each residence unit on campus now has a kitchen. A number of buildings received a new coat of paint this summer. Women's Triad exterior, railings in high-rise halls, much of Cobb's interior; the roofs of Old East and Old West and a number of halls and rooms across campus were all painted. Storage space in Manley's basement, once inaccessible, will be opened thfs fall as a recreation room with Student Stores vending machines and a storage area for Upper Quad students. A similar space in Graham's basement will become a recreation room for Lower Quad residents. The Graham basement will also house a computer terminal. Also during the summer the housing department purchased 40 rooms of used furniture from the Carolina Inn to be used this year in Ruffin. Condie called the furniture "a bargain at $80 a room." Security screens for all first-floor rooms on North Campus will be installed over the next few years. Used experimentally on the assistant residence directors' apartments last year, the screens are made of a strong mesh and are nailed into window frames to prevent break-ins. fa- r " !f ft ' Ramps like this one were installed at the entrances access for handicapped students Photo by to Ruffin and Grimes to Kvvin Ryan provide No raise for housing employees by Bob King Staff Writer Although last spring's 17 per cent dormitory room rent increase is still in effect. Housing Department employees will not get cost-of-living pay raises, as had been expected when the rent hikes were announced. James D. Condie, director of University Housing explained last week that a $100,000 increase in the cost of utilities soaked up the $96,000 originally budgeted for the Housing department's employee pay raises. Projected utility costs had jumped from $750,000 to $850,000 over a period of a few months, he said. Condie also said residence hall improvements totaling approximately $320,000 were also partly responsible for the rent increases, which were announced April 8 by the Housing Budget Advisory Committee. The General Assembly spent its 1975 session tightening the overall state budget and, in the process, eliminated state employee pay raises. The legislature promised the employees it would atone for its austerity during its next session, Condie said. The Housing Department is obliged to pay its workers by the same pay schedule state employees work under. Condie said staff salaries will account for 14 percent of the 1976- 77 Housing department budget, if the promised cost-of-li ing raises are granted. Had the legislature approved this scar's raises. Housing employees vould have received a 9 per cent salary increase. Workers employed by the Housing Department tor one or two years receive an automatic pay raise of 5 per cent each year. Thereafter, raises are awarded on the basis of merit. Once he receives his sixth raise, an employee has reached his highest salary level. This pay raise system was not affected by the legislature's refusal to grant cost-of-living salary increases. Meanwhile, Housing's perennial battle to receive state funds is continuing. Most state college housing departments are at least partially subsidized with state funds. "We still believe strongly that living in a residence hall is an educational process," Condie said. "Student Affairs knows it. and so does (consolidated university) President (William) Friday. It's just a matter of convincing the legislature. "For now. we have to look at Housing as an economically balanced department. 1 feel that the two. economic balance and education, are not truly contradictory. "For instance, we collected over $9,000 from students who'd caused damage in residence halls last year. When you have to pay for something, you learn its value." 70 I Glli v Overcrowding slightly up from last year by Bob King Staff Writer . Approximately seventy rooms will be tripled this fall, an increase from last year of approximately 10 overcrowded rooms, Director of University Housing James D. Condie said last week. But the memory of fall, 1973 still shapes housing policy. That year, 582 rooms, one-third of all campus housing, were triples. "Our objective for the past few years has been to eliminate massive tripling," Condie explained, "and we've done it by saying we won't allow a number of other undergraduates to return" to University Housing. Freshmen must live on campus for at least one semester. Housing's main priority is to place all freshmen on campus, to expose them to the "educational process involved in living in a residence hall," Condie said. In addition to the freshmen housed in University Residence Halls, approximately 500 freshmen will live in privately-owned Granville Towers. Granville must be approved each year by the University to qualify as freshman housing. f Approximately 60 freshmen have been granted waivers to live at home or near the University with relatives. Three hundred students who were closed out of their dorms after the hectic spring sign-up returned to the Housing office to request dorm space in the fall. In May, 400 students who had been assigned spaces cancelled their contracts. "1 assume that these 300 who registered with us immediately after sign-up got spaces," said Condie. Nearly 600 names remained on Housing's waiting list at the end of June. Cancellations and placements have reduced the list to its present size of 95. A program to help people looking for off-campus housing began in May, said Condie. Housing secretary Iris Ellis has acted as a personal counselor for these students. Landlords in both Durham and Chapel Hill have notified Housing of their openings, but a number of students still need off-campus housing. The department has run newspaper ads and radio spots asking local people to list with the Department if they have room. Special use permit may soon be granted a by Lynn Medford Assistant News Editor After months of debate over proposed renovations to the Delta Upsilon fraternity house, neighbors and the fraternity may reach a compromise on the renovation plan in early September. Neighbors' complaints about noise coming from the fraternity have twice thwarted Delta Upsilon's attempts to secure special use permit from the Lhapel Hill Board of Aldermen. The fraternity located at the corner of Rosemary and Hillsboro streets was granted a special use permit to renovate their house in 1972. However, 30 to 35 per cent increases in construction costs, dissent within the fraternity on plan details and drops in fraternity membership forced changes in the renovation plans, DU representative Alan Pugh explained recently. A request to modify the original special use permit specifications was filed in May of this year. The fraternity proposed adding a dining and meeting facility, a patio and a parking lot to the rear of the present structure facing the neighboring houses. The fraternity's neighbors had contended that this location would increase the noise from the house. Planning Board Director Mike Jennings said last week Delta Upsilon has revised the renovation plans to relocate the patio between two parts of the house. The Planning Board has approved the revised plan and will recommend its approval at the Sept. 8 Board of Aldermen, meeting, Jennings said. ; Although not legally required to do so the Board of Aldermen called a public hearing on the special use permit modifications on July 16. "The Board of Aldermen didn't have to hold that public hearing," Pugh said. "They're under a lot of pressure from those people (the complaining neighbors), and they're trying to compromise." At the public hearing, aldermen referred Delta Upsilon's request to the Planning Board for review. The Planning Board unanimously recommended at the July 28 aldermen meeting that the modification be approved. But a move headed by Alderman Alice. Welsh succeeded in getting the request referred back to the Planning Board for further study. In presenting the Planning Board's recommendation at the July meeting, board director Mike Jennings told the aldermen renovation plans complied with town zoning laws and the North Carolina Housing Code. Since the plans included destruction of two dilapidated structures on the DU lot, property values would be raised, Jennings said. He said the Planning Board felt the noise problem should be handled by the noise ordinance, not zoning controls. In answer" to Jennings and the Planning Board, Alderman Welsh argued that the design of the proposed changes would intensify and increase noise in the residential section. "One thing that's overlooked is that it is a residential zone," she said. "Fraternities for some time have had complaints of noise. The problem is inherent all over town. "To say that the burden of solving this problem is on the neighbors (by resorting to the noise ordinance) is really an unfair way to handle this problem. It means throwing this into the police courts. The noise ordinance would be very difficult anyway. To carry around instruments to measure sound level is very difficult." Welsh asked the Planning Board to attach stipulations to the fraternity's modification plan that would place the patio where noise would be muffled. Although Alderman Shirley Marshall agreed with the Planning Board's contention that noise problems should be dealt with through noise ordinances, the aldermen present voted unanimously to send the modification plan back to the Planning Board. Aldermen Gerry Cohen and R.D. Smith were absent, but both said they would have voted with the other aldermen. "It was a wise move, if we can resolve some of the issues," Smith said last week in an interview. "I can sympathize with the neighbors because I have been bothered with noise before." he said. "You work all day and you want to go home and rest not hear a band and loud noise." Cohen said he feels the fraternity should be allowed to keep its special use permit, but "the (modification) plan as it was presented just wasn't acceptable. "It is a residential area," he said. "I think shifting the entrance of the party room and a couple of other changes needed to be made in the plan." Neighbors who attended the aldermen meeting gathered outside the Municipal Building after the meeting and voiced approval for the board's action. "We've laid awake nights wondering when we'd call the police about the noise," neighbor Sara Stohler said. "I hope the Planning Board will do something to change the structure." Margaret Knoerr, of 208 Hillsborough St., said she was disturbed that the appearance committee chairperson is Delta Upsilon's architect, and that Planning Board Director Jennings was a member of the fraternity. When asked at the aldermen meeting about his fraternity affiliation, Jennings replied, "If you knew how I feel about fraternities now, you wouldn't ask me about that." DU sympathizers also gathered outside the meeting room. "We were given a very difficult task without any instructions from the Board of Aldermen on how to do it," DU .representative Pugh said. "We've made every kind of concession to the town, from historic preservation to appearance. Noise is just their last bastion." "The fraternity has been given the roughest scrutiny of anyone applying for a special use permit," Pugh said. "We've had to deal with all sorts of changes and delays." In September, the Board of Aldermen will hold another public hearing on rczoning the area east of H illsborough Street and north of Rosemary Street to prevent building of additional fraternity and sorority houses. If the rezoning ordinance is passed, revisions to existing Greek property there will also, be prohibited. I wf - , - ' ' l ' s. r--f 1"L , rr-- wXj, , ' fit vst ' ' ' , " ' ' f V . I - ? r , - - ' II The Delta Upsilon fraternity house has become the csuse of much centrevtrsy. DU wants to expand Its physical plant, but neighbors ere afreld en Incrscsa in ncl-3 w'.Il result. " ; .