Work Prompts Housing Crunch

Fourteen more freshmen than last year received assignments in the Quad this morning, the by-product of next year’s planned displacement of 56 Lowell House and Adams House residents out of Claverly Hall, according to the Office of the Dean of the College.

Because the backs of Apley Court and Claverly will be subject to construction noise during the Hasty Pudding building renovations, slated to begin this summer, 56 beds in these two residences will go empty next year.

Also as a result of the construction, Apley Court on Holyoke Street will not house freshmen next year, but Lowell House sophomores.

Two floors of Claverly will house 26 members of the Class of 2009, who would otherwise have been placed in Apley.

College Housing Officer Sue Watts said that a noise test simulating sounds of construction equipment was performed to determine how many rooms would need to be emptied.

The backs of Apley and Claverly facing the Hasty Pudding building on 12 Holyoke Street will be vacated, while the front sides of the buildings will be able to house a limited number of students.

Watts said 56 students—the 28 Adams residents and 28 Lowell overflow students who would live in Claverly—will be relocated.

The six Houses with overflow rooms in DeWolfe will be asked to give up one room apiece in the apartment complex and accomodate the students in the Houses. In addition, two “swing spaces” in DeWolfe, rooms currently left empty, will be used as student rooms.

This will free up 32 beds in the two DeWolfe buildings; 16 will go to Adams residents, 16 to Lowell.

The sole inhabitants of Apley, then, will be 12 Lowell House residents, Watts said, with rooms exposed to construction noise kept empty. Adams and Lowell Houses will be asked to take on about five more students each.

That leaves 14 spots—and 14 more rising sophomores assigned to the Quad than usual.

Watts said the housing office decided to move Apley freshmen to the first and second floors of Claverly because a community of 12 first-years would have been too small.

She added that these housing adjustments “won’t be as bad” as it would have been before the addition of extra beds in the last few years. Over 100 beds were gained at 10 DeWolfe Street in the 2002-2003 school year when the top three floors—originally apartments for junior faculty—were converted to undergraduate student housing.

“We did relieve some crowding then and that was really helpful,” Watts said. The number of students studying abroad has also been on the rise recently, she added, freeing up more beds.

This housing change should only last one year, she said, since outdoor construction on the Hasty Pudding building will give way to quieter indoor renovations in the fall of 2006.

Watts does not expect these changes to have a significant effect on student living.

“I don’t think, in the big picture, it’s going to be that big a deal,” said Watts of the housing adjustments. “It may mean each House may be reviewing their space to reallocate it so that they can accommodate their seniors with senior housing and juniors with junior housing. Because every ouse is bearing a little bit of this burden, it’s no huge burden on any one House.”

Watts said that all houses will choose individually how to accommodate gaining or losing a handful of beds—an accommodation that depends on the architecture of each house. A rooming arrangement with an open common room with two bedrooms, for example, might have to be converted to a three-bedroom arrangement.

Elizabeth Terry, housing administrator for Lowell House, said that it is too early to tell exactly what rooming adjustments Lowell will be making to accommodate the changes. She said she is waiting until rooming decisions are made in mid-April to make those arrangements.

“We have not configured any rooms or set our lottery,” Terry said. “I’m encouraging students to think about things as conservatively as possible.”