BEREA, OHIO College aims to avoid slums

The private college is planning to buy nearby homes to protect the neighborhood.
BEREA, Ohio (AP) -- Baldwin-Wallace College, a fixture in this Cleveland suburb since 1845, is trying to spruce up the campus neighborhood and prevent a run-down "student slum" look.
Beginning in January, the Methodist Church-affiliated college will begin a program to buy homes on the market and resell them to professors and staff members as single-family residences.
The goal is to discourage expansion of rental units specializing in student housing and sometimes prone to poor upkeep. City streets crisscross the campus.
"We just want people who live in those houses to be good neighbors. A lot of it is just poor manners," said Robin Blumenthal, who has owned a home near the campus since 1983. Her street has four rental properties.
Sharing concerns
The college shares the concerns of some homeowners that expanded rentals could harm the neighborhood, said college President Mark Collier.
"This will at least stem the tide and maybe someday reverse it," Collier said.
College trustees agreed to set aside up to $500,000 from the school's endowment. Money from the resale of houses will go back into the program.
Recent home sale prices near campus ranged from $110,000 to $170,000. A four-bedroom, two-bath home for sale near the heart of the 56-acre campus is listed at $132,900.
The program also will encourage interaction between faculty and the 2,000 students who live in residence halls, Collier said. BW also has 1,100 student commuters.
Goes on elsewhere
The struggle to preserve campus-area neighborhoods is not unique to Berea, said Gary Schwarzmueller, executive director of the Columbus-based Association of College and University Housing Officers.
"It's always an issue, unless you're in the middle of nowhere," he said. "You try to build a stabilizing influence."
Berea Mayor Joseph Biddlecombe said BW's program would complement city efforts to preserve housing by requiring an exterior inspection when a house is sold.
"I think it's a real breakthrough for the 'town and gown,"' Biddlecombe said. Like Collier, Biddlecombe said he has been frustrated about how to ensure that student renters don't disrupt a neighborhood.
Judy Poole, a BW alumna who lives on a street that runs through the campus, said the impact from just a handful of rental houses has already been noticeable: shrubs ripped out for more lawn parking and castoff furniture cramming a front porch.
Poole said she realizes that some inconveniences accompany the charms of a college town. "I can live with the small things if the big things are taken care of," she said.
Blumenthal supports the BW proposal but said some neighbors initially were suspicious about the college's motives for buying up property.
Blumenthal said people were reassured by BW's master plan, which doesn't call for expanding the campus down her street.