Adult directors help lower Greek code violations

IOWA CITY - Housing code violations have decreased noticeably at University of Iowa Greek houses since the UI required every chapter to have a live-in adult house director, Iowa City's senior housing inspector said.

“There has been a change in tide, kind of that ‘Animal House' mentality is gone,” said Stan Laverman, senior housing inspector. “The biggest change was putting a responsible adult in each house. I was skeptical that would work, but it really did.”

A review of the most recent inspection report for each UI Greek house - most are from fall or winter 2010 - shows a range of two to 15 housing code violations at sorority houses and a range of three to 41 housing violations at fraternities.

City officials don't monitor the number of violations at a house from year to year because the raw number is not how they measure issues, Laverman said. Also, some violations are more serious than others, so equal weight should not be given to all of them, he said. Some violations are just maintenance issues, such as a non-working bathroom fan, he said.

Still, inspectors are anecdotally reporting better compliance and fewer violations.

“Certain houses that were ‘oh, no, here we go,' now they say, ‘You know it really wasn't that bad,'” Laverman said. “I think it's a better flow of information, which helps us do our jobs.”

The UI in fall 2010 started requiring all 26 Greek chapters with houses to have a live-in director, who cannot be an undergraduate student. The sororities already had “house moms,” so it was mainly a change for fraternities. House directors provide continuity and are a direct contact for safety and maintenance issues.

The city conducts annual inspections each fall and winter at the houses, just as it does with other rental properties.

“This is part of their job as house director, to worry about the maintenance of the facility,” said Kelly Jo Karnes, associate director of the UI Center for Student Involvement and Leadership. “That comes off a little differently than a 19-year-old doing it.”

The UI is not involved with Greek house maintenance or ownership. The houses are all privately owned by local or national housing corporations.

Frequent violations noted on the inspection reports include use of extension cords, low or dead batteries in smoke detectors, burned out lights in exit signs and doors that don't close properly. The houses typically have 30 to 60 days to fix something, and a $250 citation is issued if a house does not fix it in the allotted time. It's been two years since the city has issued such a citation to a Greek house, Laverman said.

Everything noted on the report is a housing violation, and some of them are fire violations, Laverman said. The last major UI Greek house fire was a January 1994 blaze that destroyed the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and sent three members to the hospital with minor injuries. An inspection several months before found 118 violations of the city housing code, though a majority of the violations did not involve fire safety issues, according to Gazette archives.

The Phi Kappa Psi house was one of the few UI Greek houses that had no housing violations in 2010. The new house has a sprinkler system and bricks inside most walls to prevent the spread of fire, chapter President Brad Bleeker said.

Eddie Diaz, house director at Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, believes it's only a matter of time before all Greek houses are required to have sprinkler systems. Pi Kappa Phi house does not have sprinklers. It can cost thousands of dollars to add sprinklers to the aging facilities.

As of March 2009, the most recent count from the UI, 11 of the 26 Greek houses had sprinkler systems, with a 12th house planning to install a system in 2010. There was an Iowa City push in 2003 to require all fraternity and sorority houses to install sprinklers within five years, though that effort was dropped. Ames and Cedar Falls both passed the requirement in recent years.