Unsettling Construction

The Department of Residential Life (ResLife) web site labels the Charter Oak Suites a "sight to behold." The suites, although externally beautiful and a housing priority for many university students, have recently been faced with a succession of internal construction efforts in what has become a semester-long attempt to correct fire and building code violations.

Hilltop apartments and Husky Village, also relatively new complexes, have been affected as well. In retribution for their inconvenience, Hilltop residents were refunded $100 each in late September in what resulted in a $95,000 total rebate cost to the university.

Construction is not a new craze at UConn. Constant construction of residential areas while students are living in them, however, is a bit more uncommon. The first notice of any apartment problems come in the form of a student body e-mail sent on Aug. 6. Normal testing in Hilltop Apartments had revealed unusually high levels of carbon monoxide in two residence units.

According to the ResLife web site, this discovery prompted further investigation of university housing, a process which resulted in the identification of additional code violations, ranging from the detection of open electrical wire boxes to the propensity for freezing sprinkler pipes in Hilltop and Charter Oak Apartments and most recently Husky Village. However, the construction currently being planned for Husky Village is not solely in regard to code violations- many of the proposed renovations are not serious concerns.

According to UConn Director of Design and Construction George Kraus, the changes will be made in efforts to correct "a comfort issue as well as a code issue." Kraus said the issues now present in Husky Village "were not necessarily wrong from the beginning;" the beginning, of course, being fall 2004, when the Husky Village residential complex first started functioning as home to Greek letter housing.

At this time it is unclear when problems will be resolved; the purpose of a Feb. 25 meeting was to formulate a construction plan. According to Kraus, this meeting was devoted to "developing the scope of work for Husky Village and the timeframe to do the work."

The ResLife web site assures students the UConn Fire Marshall has deemed apartment buildings completely safe for student housing. Although inspection and correction planning for violation codes in all three complexes commenced in early November, no projected completion date has been announced. Although the work is necessary, construction has interfered with students' schedules and resulted in resident complaints.

Catherine Dagon, a 4th-semester semester art student and resident of Charter Oak Suites, said the construction was an inconvenience.

"The construction workers should be working on a schedule similar to the students living in the building, like from one or two in the afternoon until 10 or 11 in the evening, rather than banging a sledgehammer against the wall I rest my head on at 7 a.m. on a Friday," she said.