For the neighbors of two Roger Williams University student rentals on King Philip Avenue, it was a long spring. COVID-19 closed campus, leaving the students living off-campus without much to do.

Making it worse, additional students, not wanting to return home to viral hot spots, shacked up in local student housing in violation of a town ordinance limiting residents to no more than four non-related people.

“Last year we were living on fraternity row. Graduation night was graduation-three-weeks,” said neighbor Tomasz Krawczak. “We basically quarantined with 30 college kids,” said Patty Silvia. “It was an unusual exaggeration of an already challenging situation.”

The problem (one of them, anyway) was the fact that COVID created a situation of even greater congestion in houses located in a neighborhood where there’s not much elbow room to begin with. Even ambient noise — normal conversation — is audible from one house to another.

“Patty and I live in this house here,” said Mr. Krawczak. Jim (Lawton, with his wife Ellie) is across the street.

“I’m next door to Jim,” said Chris Drance. “Just the proximity is a big problem.”

It’s not just the noise; the parking is also a source of frustration for the neighbors.

“It’s not that they are bad kids, but when you get five guys with 10 kids and 10 cars in an already congested area, it becomes problematic.”

“There have been times when the garbage trucks haven’t been able to turn down the street, and I’m constantly worried about the same thing happening with an ambulance,” said Mr. Krawczak. “We have a lot of elderly people in this neighborhood.”

Code enforcement delayed

Frustrated, the neighbors approached Bristol’s Code Enforcement officer Ray Falcoa regarding the overcrowding in the student rental properties, but his hands were tied. Once again, COVID.

“It’s not that I chose not to enforce the code. I could not — the courts were closed,” Mr. Falcoa said.

Now that courts are open again, Mr. Falcoa has been advised by the Town Solicitor’s office that he cannot enforce a historical violation — he can only enforce the code moving forward.

To that end, the solicitor game him a letter to send, which he sent to the two concerning properties on King Philip Avenue. The letter, a matter of public record, was addresses to the respective landlords and reads, in part:

“We understand that in the spring of 2020, more than four unrelated individuals resided at the Property … please be advised that, going forward, the Town will enforce the four-unrelated person maximum without reservations. It is our understanding that four unrelated tenants reside at the Property currently. To confirm this, kindly provide this office with a copy of the lease for our internal review.”

The landlord of 73 King Philip Ave. has verified that there are four residents on the lease. The owner of #71 has not yet responded.

Residents organize

Shellshocked from the spring, frustrated residents banded together to form Bristol Citizens Council for Peaceful Living. Their mission: to establish peaceful living for everyone in Bristol.

“Safety, peace, and enforcement — that’s what we want,” said Mr. Lawton.

Enforcement has long been a sticking point for local residents, who assert that the Public Nuisance ordinance, found in section 17-100 of the Town Code, is toothless.

“We are not looking to create regulations, we are looking to have existing ones enforced,” said Mr. Drance.

The ordinance reads in part: “It shall be a public nuisance to conduct a gathering of five or more persons on any private property in a manner which constitutes a substantial disturbance of the quiet enjoyment … .excessive noise or traffic … illegal parking … public drunkenness … disturbances of the peace.”

The problem is, when the neighbors have, in the past, called the police, the police have not found cause to issue citations.

“I have a lot of sympathy for their situation,” said Bristol Police Lt. Steven St. Pierre. “But the assertion that the ordinance is unenforceable is false — the ordinance itself is very enforceable, but we just cannot enforce it at will without probable cause. If we show up to a call about a party with 25 students and find 4 or 5 of them cleaning up, we can’t write a ticket, we have no cause.”

At the same time, approaching the university was frustrating for residents because without a documented report from police, the university’s discipline policy would not kick in.

“The police come with a decibel meter, but if noise doesn’t exceed their threshold, there is no report, and we have nothing to send to the university because there’s no violation,” said Mr. Lawton.

The residents turned to Town Councilor Tim Sweeney, who was instrumental in drafting the ordinance. He organized a June 9 meeting with stakeholders in an effort to reach detente. “There’s a policy in Newport that holds students more accountable,” said Mr. Sweeney. “Lt. St. Pierre wrote it for us, and I believe it’s with the town legal department now.”

According to Lt, St. Pierre, Roger Williams has already strengthened the language in its “good neighbor policy” as a direct result of conversations with neighbors. Lt. St. Pierre admits that residents are still waiting for a promised report on the ongoing conflict.

“I owe them that; that’s on me,” he said, citing the Police Leadership Camp he helped run and a couple other priorities for delaying that report.

“I do recognize what the police are trying to do, and I appreciate their efforts,” said Mr. Drance. “But when they get here and put a stop to the noise, it’s a band aid. But there’s no paper trail, which is discouraging. I don’t want to put all the blame on the town or RWU, but it’s just tough.”

“I have called the police a lot more in the past year than I have in my last 47 years of life, but I am still hesitant; I think they have more important things to do than break up parties,” said Mr. Krawczak.

University officials agree that it’s a tricky situation, but one that they are committed to working on. “The Police Department does respond to noise complaints, but most often when they arrive, the noise is within the limits set by the town so there is no citation issued,” said Steven Melaragno, director of public safety, in a statement. “The reality is that … there is very little “actionable information” that would result in punitive fines or disciplinary action at the University. Our goal is to help the resident students and neighbors live together with mutual respect and encourage communication both ways so that issues can be addressed before a call is made to either the Police or the University.”

“Make no mistake, the University, and the Bristol Police Department, are working closely together to help everyone find some common understanding and acceptance for each other.”

New year, new neighbors

The bright spot to this problem — at least on King Philip Avenue — is the new student residents.

“This year we have a better relationship. It feels different,” said Mr. Krawczak. “The parties still happen, but they are respectful; if we call them, they’ve been responsive.”

“They’re a nice bunch,” said Ms. Silvia. “It’s not about the kids They’re college kids, and they are living a college lifestyle. But we are a neighborhood raising families.”

“Our goal is to not create an us vs. them situation. We want to come together as a community, find ways to live together in peace and have a process to deal with problems, with real consequences, when they arise.”

Said Mr. Lawton, “This problem has to be bigger than what you see, in just this one neighborhood. This must be happening all over town. And it’s time for us to find lasting solutions, because there have to be a lot of upset property owners out there."

A channel of communication

Students may change from year to year, but residents are mostly here for the long haul, so even when a formerly problematic house has upstanding occupants for a period of time, residents know that’s only as good for the next lease term. It makes town/gown relations a perennial community problem.

In hopes of working toward a long-term solution, the Bristol Citizens Council for Peaceful Living has created an point of contact at Bristolcitizens@hotmail.com, that they hope can become a place to resolve neighborhood conflicts — not just for residents, but for students to reach out with concerns as well. “We realize that students have issues with landlords,” said Ms. Silvia. “We want it to be a place where all issues can be addressed, not just for permanent residents, but for all who live in Bristol.”