Orono forum spurs exchange of ideas regarding off-campus student housing

ORONO — More than a dozen landlords, town officials and representatives from the University of Maine gathered Thursday afternoon to discuss off-campus student housing.

For several months, a task force committee composed of landlords, tenants, neighbors, town officials and university students, faculty and staff has met to discuss common concerns.

It was the consensus of the committee, and Town Manager Gerald Kempen agreed, that it would be useful for the manager to be host of a forum to share with landlords the ideas the committee has been considering.

Landlords in the community were invited to a meeting Thursday at the Keith Anderson Community House on Bennoch Road. About 14 showed up, said Kempen.

One idea the task force has proposed was the formation of a landlords association.

Kempen said the landlords had little enthusiasm for an association. Most felt that such organizations do not work well.

The forum became an exchange of ideas on how best to manage buildings and tenants with an emphasis on controlling problems.

The problems are not new to Orono, many of them common to any college town. Partying students in residential neighborhoods create conflict. Landlords must endure vandalism to their properties and students sometimes complain of substandard housing.

The committee hopes to create a continuing dialogue among the community groups, diminishing the scope of the problem through mutual effort.

One idea the committee put forth was to have landlords post properties to state that underage consumption of alcohol was not permitted on the premises.

Also speaking at the forum, said the manager, was Dwight Rideout, dean of Student Services at the university, and a member of the Landlords-Tenants-Neighbor Task Force.

Rideout, in a memo to the Community Relations Advisory Board, said that a meeting would be held from 10 to 11 a.m. Monday, Aug. 8, at the Memorial Union on campus to discuss several issues. The Community Relations Advisory Board has been invited to attend the meeting.

Items to be considered include:

A neighborhood celebration-block party-community gathering that will take place immediately before or immediately after the opening of school in the fall of 1994.

The Off-Campus Housing Office will be host at several landlord-tenant-neighborhood forums throughout the academic year.

Kempen said he will be bringing together area landlords semiannually to discuss ideas. He will schedule another meeting in late fall or early winter.