HANOVER — Neighborhood residents care more about the impact Dartmouth College’s proposed student housing complex on Lyme Road will have on the surrounding undeveloped environment and what shuttling hundreds of students to classes means for traffic than they care about the design of the buildings themselves or non-curricular activities for students residing more than a mile from the campus.
That was one of the takeaways for Dartmouth officials after a tense first meeting with Lyme Road-area residents earlier this month to preview plans to build an “apartment style” housing complex for 400 undergraduates on the west side of Lyme Road. As a result, college officials have reshuffled the topics of the subsequent four public meetings to better reflect concerns expressed by area residents, Dartmouth announced in a Thursday post on its website.
The topic of the second public meeting, scheduled for Monday, will now be green and public space, which previously had been scheduled for the fourth meeting. The third meeting, on Aug. 1, will now focus on sustainability and transportation issues, which previously was planned to be the topic of the fifth and final meeting.
Meanwhile, the meeting on “programming” and student activities has been pushed from the third meeting to the fourth, on Aug. 8, and the meeting on building design and materials, has moved from the second meeting this coming Monday to the final meeting on Aug. 15.
“We were pleased with the turnout and input at our first meeting and heard suggestions that we change the order of topics at upcoming sessions,” Josh Keniston, vice president of campus services and institutional projects, said in the web post. “In response, our team has reordered the remaining meetings to reflect the participants’ priorities. We look forward to the continued engagement.”
Dartmouth needs to find living space for about 400 undergraduates as it begins a multi-year upgrade of its student residence halls and initially proposed building an “apartment style” housing complex at Garipay Field on the east side of Lyme Road.
But following vocal opposition among neighborhood residents who protested the loss of a popular recreation space, Dartmouth shifted the housing plans to the west side of Lyme Road on the grounds of the former Hanover Country Club golf course.
Dartmouth officials had hoped relocating the project across Lyme Road might quell neighborhood opposition, but nearby residents appear to have been little placated, fearing the residential complex is out of character for the area and would overburden Lyme Road with traffic.
Also opposing the plan are members of Dartmouth faculty who contend that housing undergraduates more than a mile away from the heart of the campus would deny them a critical part of a Dartmouth education.
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.
