Hanover
The Hanover Zoning Board of Adjustment on Monday determined that Sigma Alpha Epsilon had lost its residential zoning status when Dartmouth severed ties with the fraternity. The ruling reinforces a precedent that college officials said could apply to every fraternity on campus.
SAE was banned from campus last winter amid allegations of alcohol-related hazing. Town officials soon informed the fraternity that students could no longer live in its $1.3 million house on College Street, because Hanover zoning rules require that residences in that zoning district operate “in conjunction with” an institution such as the college.
Fraternity officials appealed the decision to the zoning board, hoping to prove that SAE had been an independent entity early in its history, meaning it should be “grandfathered” in under an ordinance adopted in 1976.
After an initial ruling in April in SAE’s favor, Dartmouth submitted new documentation, including letters from 1970s-era college administrators, that indicated SAE had indeed been supervised in the same way as other fraternities at that time.
The zoning board this week reversed its April decision, denying SAE’s appeal on a 4-0 vote, with one abstention.
“The board finds that Dartmouth College engaged in appreciable health and oversight activities with regard to the fraternities generally and to the appellant in particular prior to 1976, especially in the area of fire safety,” Monday’s ruling said.
Messages left for representatives of the fraternity were not returned on Tuesday.
Although a new college policy forbids students from living in unrecognized Greek-letter residences, the zoning decision would go further and ban anyone from living at the SAE house, which the fraternity might otherwise have rented.
The appeal process is not over, however: SAE can request a re-hearing, and then elevate the dispute to state Superior Court.
Another “de-recognized” fraternity, Alpha Delta, has taken that route. After unfavorable decisions from the town zoning board and a Superior Court judge, the case is headed to New Hampshire’s highest court.
Monday’s ruling explicitly mentions Alpha Delta’s Superior Court case as a “precedent” for the legal reasoning in the SAE case.
A college spokeswoman on Tuesday said Dartmouth’s records indicated that none of the fraternities on campus could claim to be exempt from the 1976 ordinance.
“Dartmouth has been supervising fraternities since before the Town of Hanover had a zoning ordinance,” the spokeswoman, Diana Lawrence, said in an email.
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.