A Northwestern proposal to form new leases with fraternity and sorority houses on campus that will shift repair and maintenance from Greek housing corporations to the university is creating reverberations throughout the Greek community.

Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Kyle Pendleton said the new leases still are being formed, but some Greek officials estimate they could go into effect as early as next year.

Pendleton said the motivation behind the lease change is to bring Greek houses up to date on safety and fire codes and to mandate compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires public buildings to be made wheelchair accessible.

The lease changes also ensure that all Greek facilities are “upgraded and assured (of) proper maintenance,” Pendleton said.

Currently fraternities and sororities lease their houses from NU for $1 a year. But chapters are responsible for all damages, renovations and improvements to the buildings.

According to documents dated Aug. 2, 2004, obtained by The Daily, “The cost of deferred maintenance on all the Greek facilities is estimated at more than $30 million. The university is concerned that many of the Greek organizations do not have the money or the fund-raising capacity to complete the improvements.”

The new leases would extend for 10 years at a time and would make NU responsible for necessary improvements and maintenance — but the fraternities and sororities would pay through their leases for these benefits.

Chapters would have to pay rent to NU, which factors in the number of living units occupied in each house, said Mark Goldman, Communication ’95, a Sigma Phi Epsilon alumnus and member of the Greek Housing Lease Task Force, an organization working with NU officials to structure the uniform Greek lease.

Mitch Holzrichter, Interfraternity Council president and business manager of The Daily, said he thinks the new deal will be financially beneficial for students.

“Now chapters pay $1 a year to the university, but they are responsible for all improvements,” he said. “What I’d like to see is chapters paying rent and the university taking that money and putting it back into those structures.”

A Two-Tiered Approach

Although it may be beneficial to some houses to accept the new lease, Delta Delta Delta alumna and task force member Peggy Folz said NU will not impose the new lease on unwilling houses.

“There is a two-track approach where one option gives individual houses the opportunity to remain as is,” she said. “And the second option is that the university would provide for the maintenance and capital improvements to the physical structures (of the houses).”

One reason for the opt-out option is that, according to Goldman, the lease will be largely identical for all houses. Given the wide disparity of living conditions between the houses, some believe a uniform lease would be unfair to those that historically have been better maintained.

Max Bulbin, house manager of Lambda Chi Alpha, said he is frustrated that his fraternity spent a large sum of money in vain to keep its house in good repair.

“(NU says) it’s so they can have more control, but (for us), if the university were to take over our maintenance, it would be a big downgrade,” he said. “All the work that we’ve put into the upkeep of our house would go to waste.”

He suspects the new lease is a way for NU to assert more control over Greek life.

“That’s the backhanded side of this whole deal,” he said. “If the university can take control of our maintenance, they can have more control of what we do in the house. I think that’s the main reason they want to do it.”

The Hold-Outs

Pi Kappa Alpha may be the fraternity most affected by the lease changes.

Members of Pike cannot live in their house because the house continuously fails Evanston housing inspection, has asbestos and lacks high speed internet, said alumnus Bob Else, Weinberg ’89. The house fell into disarray when the fraternity left campus citing low membership about a decade ago.

Else said the Pike alumni organization has proposed to put $800,000 into the house to get it back up to code —