Teamwork on student life issues City, Monmouth U monitor off-campus housing BY CHRISTINE VARNO Staff Writer Long Branch police and Monmouth University are involved in a joint initiative to preserve the quality of life in city neighborhoods and, at the same time, ensure safe living conditions for students in off-campus housing. "We are concerned that off-campus students are living in a safe and inspected building. We are also very concerned that [the students'] behavior is appropriate and that they are being good neighbors," said Kevin Hayes Sr., head of the city's Building and Development Department. Hayes said his department is working with the West Long Branch university to ensure that off-campus housing is inspected and up to code. "Monmouth University has been very cooperative. It gets a little better every year." Hayes and Long Branch Director of Public Safety William Richards gave an update on quality-of-life issues related to offcampus student housing in the city at the Sept. 18 City Council workshop meeting. Hayes told the council that the city and the university will be taking their partnership one step further this year and will be sharing information on the addresses of students living off campus. "We have been able to make some significant headway," Hayes said at the meeting. "It looks like the university will be willing to share some information with us about where students are housed, for the purpose of safety." After the meeting, Hayes continued his discussion of the joint venture. "The university told us they are going to share whatever information they legally can. They are going to compare information they have with information we have for the sole reason to make sure students are living in safe and inspected housing," Hayes said. The university has been working with Long Branch officials and police since the mid-1990s, according to Mary Anne Nagy, vice president for student services at Monmouth University. A task force was formed more than a decade ago with representatives from the university, Long Branch, West Long Branch, Ocean Township and Deal, Nagy said. "We meet several times a year to share issues of mutual concern and to hear directly from the community," Nagy said. "This is not a new level of cooperation." In order to keep off-campus students safe, Nagy said the university will continue to work with Hayes. "We will both look at the addresses that we know students are living at," Nagy said. "Students provide the university with their address for emergency purposes. We are going to take that list of addresses and sit down with the city. We will not be giving the list to the city. We are going to share which addresses we have and Mr. Hayes will let us know if he has a CO [certificate of occupancy] for that house. "It is to make sure it is a safe and secure place for the students," she said. According to Richards, a majority of off-campus students reside in a portion of the city historically referred to as Elberon Village, just south of Cedar Avenue. Several complaints are reported to the city during every school year from neighbors of college students. The complaints include noise, rowdy behavior, parties, late-night hours, parking, public urination and disregard of trash and recycling rules, according to Richards. In response to "persistent passionate" complaints from the Elberon neighborhoods, the city police department formed a Quality of Life Task Force, composed of the city's Street Crimes Unit, in 2000. "It was to create a police presence," Richards said. "We wanted to essentially enhance police presence in that neighborhood, which is an otherwise quiet district in the city. "I think it is a less egregious problem than it was several years ago," he added. Another measure adopted to address behavior issues of off-campus students is a partnership that began three years ago in which Monmouth University pays for one Long Branch police officer and provides a university police officer to drive through Elberon neighborhoods to have a presence in areas where students live, according to Nagy. "We want to monitor and intervene before it rises to where there is a need for police intervention," Nagy said. "It's meant to be a proactive activity." As part of those efforts, on Sept. 14 members of the Long Branch Street Crimes Unit and Monmouth police charged 26 partygoers with possession and underage consumption of alcohol, according to a report from the city's police department. According to the report, officers observed what appeared to be a large party on Norwood Avenue at approximately 1 a.m. The officers interrupted the party after hearing loud noise coming from inside the residence and observing numerous males urinating in public. Police issued 26 summonses for possession and underage consumption of alcohol, and summonses were also issued to the four Monmouth University students who hosted the party, according to the reports. There were four noise complaint violations issued and three residents of the house were charged with providing alcohol to minors and underage possession of alcohol. Police additionally issued six parking violations, according to the report, which stated that the majority of those cited were students of Monmouth University. The university has also been working with the city to find additional off-campus housing for students in multi-housing units that can be monitored by university officials, according to Nagy. Such housing includes the Fountain Gardens apartment complex, the Diplomat apartment complex and Pier Village. "We continue to find space so that students don't have to find housing in a residential community," Nagy said, adding that the university also provides personnel to live at the apartment site to supervise the students. "We have been at Pier Village now for three years and I can count on one hand how many times we have had complaints about students there," Nagy said. "If it were a problem for students to live in the Fountain Gardens or Pier Village, we wouldn't be there today. "I feel good when [the apartment complexes] call us and are saying that they have an apartment coming and ask if we want it," she said. The university is also awaiting a decision in a lawsuit involving its plan to build additional on-campus student housing for 190 students, according to Nagy. "We are working to meet the demand for student housing," Nagy said. "You want to be able to provide the opportunity. It helps the students. It helps the campus and it helps the community. "We continue to find other places for students to live that are appropriate for students to live," she said. There are approximately 4,000 undergraduate students at Monmouth University. Of those students, 1,600 live on campus, 1,200 live with their parents or guardians, 1,000 live in offcampus unsupervised housing, and 243 live in supervised off-campus housing, according to Nagy. The efforts of the university and Long Branch to control unruly behavior of students living in residential neighborhoods have paid off, Nagy said. "If you look at the numbers, there has been a nice and steady decline," Nagy said. "The first couple of weeks [of school] you may see a spike because there are new people living off campus. "A community norm is different in on-campus residential housing and offcampus residential housing," she said. Nagy further stated that when students do act out, the city of Long Branch and the university both take action. "If a student is involved in an issue of misconduct off campus, the police will send a copy of the report to us and I will review it," Nagy said. "We will charge the student under the code of conduct. The student will go through the city's court and through the Monmouth University court. "The student is charged twice," Nagy said. "Just because you do not physically live on campus does not mean you can do whatever you want. A student's actions affect our reputation." Students who make the choice to live in residential neighborhoods also have the responsibility to adjust to the lifestyles of that neighborhood, she continued. "We tell our students to introduce themselves to their neighbors," Nagy said. "We tell them to help their neighbors to get to know them so that if they are noisy or if it is about trash cans, [the neighbors] will come to them." Hayes explained at the meeting that about seven to eight years ago, a program was started that called for city police to visit students at their offcampus homes. "We welcome them to the neighborhood and let them know about our zero-tolerance policy," Hayes said. "We track the housing through COs. We visit every one of those addresses. "Things seem to be going well with the program," he said, adding, "We are communicating with the university."