For the first time, this year, undergraduates are able to rent 16 off-campus apartments and houses through the College realty office.
The new College-owned residences were owned privately until this past summer, when Dartmouth finalized deals and bought out the previous property owners.
Many of the properties are already livable -- housing 31 undergraduates. However, according to Housing Programs Manager Susan Weider, the residences at 5-7 Sergeant Street and two others at five and seven East South Street are currently vacant.
"These three buildings are the only ones which didn't open up," she said, explaining that when the College bought them, they had major safety code violations.
"They weren't worth the money to do the improvements at this point in time," she said.
Weider said the College is still debating what to do with some of the properties it bought because they would require very costly repairs to meet housing codes.
She said some of the options are building entirely new buildings, planting grass in the lots or making renovations to the existing structures.
During the summer of 1999 -- following the College's announcement that it intended to buy about 15 properties around Hanover -- many students objected the move, claiming that Dartmouth was trying to up rental prices and make it tougher to live off campus.
At the time, students accused the College of taking the Initiative too far and limiting student choices.
"We started buying these in July," Weider said.
Sophomores, juniors and seniors who are current students at the College are eligible to live in the new residences.
Director of Housing Services Lynn Rosenblum said she referred some seniors who did not get places in the River apartments Maxwell and Channing Cox to the off-campus housing office.
Undergraduates who expressed interest in the College-owned off-campus option dealt with Weider, who talked specifically about the property with them. She said at this point there are still few a few vacancies.
Elizabeth McGarvey '01, who lives on Lebanon Street in one of the college-owned apartments, said she and her two housemates heard about this alternative housing option through a friend who had received a BlitzMail message notifying him of vacancies.
At first, the trio had tried for a space in the river apartments, but McGarvey said because of many "super seniors" who chose to live there, they were denied a River apartment and ended up with a triple in Hitchcock.
McGarvey said she has never lived off-campus before, but that this was a good option because they did not have to go rental hunting, and they did not have to forfeit the housing deposit they had made to the College's Office of Residential Life.
She said the apartment is in good condition, explaining that the College painted it before students moved in, as well as installing a sprinkler system, new smoke detectors and new electrical outlets.
"They did a nice job fixing it up," she said.
According to Weider, the residences are more like living in the outside world than like living in College housing, even though rent checks are paid into student accounts and no security deposits are required.
She explained that students must pay rent on the first of the month -- the same as in the private market.
"Students need to consider this like the private world," she said.
When the College first moved towards buying the Hanover properties, Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman denied that students should view the buyout as the first step in bringing students back onto campus from their off-campus homes.
"There should be an ample supply of College and non-College housing," he said. "Students should have that opportunity [to live off campus]," he said.
