Quinnipiac University faces a $150-a-day fine, with the Hamden Planning and Zoning Commission accusing it of violating a 2006 housing agreement that led to construction of the York Hill campus.
The New Haven Register reports that the university is appealing the fine.
The approval requires Quinnipiac to provide a bed for each student to reduce the number of undergraduate students living in residential neighborhoods.
The university's lawyer says it interprets the condition to mean it must provide a bed for every student who wants one. In that case, the condition has been fulfilled, because it has about 300 beds available this semester.
Town officials say the condition requires the school to have one bed for every student regardless of whether the bed is used. Using that definition, the school is short about 1,315 beds.
From the Register story:
The university and the commission have been at odds over a variety of issues. The commission wants the university to make a commitment to housing 95 percent of its students on campus, a figure to which the school has not agreed. Currently, about 80 percent of students live on campus, with 20 percent either studying abroad, living with family or living in off-campus rental housing. It’s within a small contingent of students living in off-campus rental housing where the problems have developed as students and residents clash over issues such as partying and vandalism. Last fall, the university agreed to make a voluntary $1.23 million payment to the town as part of a Memorandum of Understanding with the town. The payment would make up for the revenue the town loses from the state for hosting the nonprofit institution, but has not yet been made. The town also agreed to work with the university “to amend the town’s zoning regulations in an effort to streamline the process by which university development applications are proposed,” but the commission’s recent attempts to require its approval of a Five-Year Institutional Master Plan angered university officials and led to its reneging on the payment.
The Hamden Zoning Board of Appeals will hear an appeal of the notice of violation at its meeting on March 19, according to the Register.
This report includes information from The Associated Press.
