Charlottesville City Council voted 4-1 last night to defer the decision to grant a special permit allowing an expansion of the Theta Chi fraternity house at 600 Preston Place.
If approved, the expansion would allow the fraternity to add a five-bedroom section to the house. Theta Chi would have to agree to a 17-person maximum occupancy level, the construction of a bicycle rack and the addition of a landscape barrier between the house and surrounding community.
"We're one of the bigger houses on campus," Theta Chi President Michael Chisholm said, adding that he wants the Theta Chi house to be "more representative of our fraternity," which may have more than 60 members in the spring after rush. The house can currently only house 10 members.
The expansion project will also include a renovation of the original house, which the fraternity has been planning since October 2010. The project would be completed by Nov. 15, 2012 if everything remains on schedule, Chisholm said.
The project has already been approved by the City's Planning Commission, but Council member Kristin Szakos made a motion to defer the plan, which was seconded by Mayor Dave Norris and approved by Council members Satyendra Huja and David Brown. Vice Mayor Holly Edwards wished to vote against the expansion immediately, so she opposed deferring the measure.
"The Planning Commission makes a recommendation to Council," Szakos said, but "it's our decision to make - it's not theirs."
Huja agreed with Edwards about opposing the special permit, while Brown approved of it. Szakos and Norris both sought more information.
Szakos said she normally approves of Planning Commission recommendations, but she wanted to collect some more information on how the current fraternity brothers have behaved based on police reports and noise complaints.
Norris said before the meeting that the unanimous decision by the Planning Commission and his own review of the case was enough background information to lend his support to the expansion of the fraternity house.
"There were a number of measures taken by both the applicant and the Planning Commission" to limit the impact on the community, Norris said in an interview before the meeting. "The City, I think, is willing to approve an expansion of the property with some conditions."
Norris, however, agreed with deferring the decision at the meeting. He supported the proposal of waiting for the fraternity brothers to show marked improvement in their behavior as neighbors in the community before granting a special permit.
Neighbors of Theta Chi such as Mike Bevier and Beth Turner also expressed concerns with traffic, noise, trash and the general atmosphere of the community at the Council meeting.
"I believe the neighbors when they say they've been faced with some real challenges," Norris said at the meeting. "I think it's a good point that people who are disrespectful are amplified when adding to their numbers."
Some neighbors of Theta Chi were present at the meeting to discuss the effect of fraternities in the neighborhood and to encourage Council to gather more information before granting a special permit.
"The Theta Chis at their current occupancy are not harmonious with the neighborhood," Bevier said.
Other community members lodged more specific complaints in discussing the problems posed by fraternity houses in residential neighborhoods.
"We cope with noise and the trash of fraternities," Turner said. "We hope that [City Council] will preserve this as a neighborhood for families ... [because] we are good neighbors and we expect the fraternities to be good neighbors"
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