Silent Complicity
Both Cal Poly and the City share some responsibility for the proliferation of illegal satellite fraternity houses within the city, for St Fratty’s Day, and the evolution of Halloweekend. Cal Poly committed to recruiting more Greek Life to campus with no Greek Row or venue to hold events on campus. So without one, the responsibility of housing fraternities and sororities and the negative impact of blowout parties is placed solely onto the City’s neighborhoods. Is that fair to the neighborhoods? Is that fair to the fraternities and sororities that want to experience that lifestyle?
There has also been a trend to less transparency from Cal Poly Greek life. This is apparent with their modification of the 2022-2023 AB 524 Transparency Report to ensure that their sanctioned events remain hidden from the City and residents affected by illegal satellite houses embedded in the neighborhoods. Is this a good City-Cal Poly partnership?
City leadership has known for years the existence of illegal fraternity houses in the Alta Vista neighborhood, particularly after a Cal Poly report came out after the 2015 roof collapse on St. Fratty’s Day. The city declared a Mass Casualty Event, and 10 people were taken to the hospital. This doesn’t include the number of people who went to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. A doctor at Sierra Vista Hospital appealed to the city council to curb the alcohol culture at Cal Poly.
The city is complicit in allowing the negative impacts on the neighborhood to reach the unbelievable levels they are in 2024 by making allowances. There’s a systemic problem in approaching the issue of noise in the impacted neighborhoods, as well as the rationalization and misinterpretation of the noise ordinance. A police officer remarked, “..what do you expect? It’s a fraternity,” during a conversation one day about a noisy party at a fraternity across the street from us. I honestly expect all residents, including fraternity student-residents, to be treated equally and follow social norms and city ordinances. How many noise violations does a house get until something else happens? Maybe the City needs to reevaluate fines which have not been raised since 2010, while other fines and fees have been increased. The growth of noise, disruptions, and other negative issues has constructively evicted and will continue to constructively evict, many of its residents from the impacted neighborhoods. The City needs to do better.
City Solutions
There are possible solutions. It just takes the political and legal will to implement them. The illegal fraternity houses must cease to operate in the R-1 and R-2 residential neighborhoods. Fraternities should hold their events at main Chapter houses situated appropriately in R-3 and R-4 high-density areas while respecting the city ordinances, or at a third-party venue.
Fraternities should petition Cal Poly Greek Life to set up a third-party venue on campus where they can hold events. They should be able to hold events without worrying about violating the City’s noise ordinance.
San Luis Obispo General Plan
San Luis Obispo’s General Plan states that the city shall work with Cal Poly to locate fraternities and sororities on campus, but the city has not done so.
The San Luis Obispo’s Land Use Element: Policy 2.6.5: Student and Campus Housing, Fraternities & Sororities: States that the City shall work with Cal Poly to develop a proposal to locate fraternities and sororities on campus for consideration by the CSU Board. If locations on campus cannot be provided, fraternities and sororities should be limited to medium-high and high-density residential areas near campus.
This was adopted in 2014. Ten years later, there are now more than 50 documented illegal satellite fraternity houses in the Alta Vista and Monterey neighborhoods. The neighborhoods have become the defacto Cal Poly Greek Row.
The San Luis Obispo’s Housing Element: Program 8.15: Fraternities and Sororities states that the City will work with Cal Poly University Administration to secure the designation of on-campus fraternity/sorority living groups.
The San Luis Obispo’s Housing Element: Policy 8.5: Fraternities and Sororities states: Locate fraternities and sororities on the Cal Poly University campus. Until that is possible, they should be located in medium-high and high-density residential zones near campus.
The city has not followed these Policies or Programs to work with Cal Poly toward a plan to relocate the fraternities and sororities onto Cal Poly’s campus.
St Fratty’s Day
The city needs to remove St Fratty’s Day from the neighborhood before there’s a fatality. Police Chief Rick Scott has said it’s an illegal event and there’s “very, very dangerous” and illegal activity taking place but by not shutting it down after 2022, it has been allowed to grow to 7,000 people in 2024. The students won’t stop the party. Why would they? Many underage students come down from Cal Poly’s campus to get drunk. Why would they shut down something the City has allowed to become a tradition each year? Why is the neighborhood forced to absorb the ever-growing impact of this illegal event annually?
Have Cal Poly sanction the event. Hold it on campus in an area with access to bathroom facilities and water. Cal Poly holds a pancake breakfast at midnight on the Friday night before St Fratty’s Day and free breakfast on the day of the event on campus, according to this information flyer. What if the event was held in the Cal Poly stadium or another area on campus where the party could take place? It would remove the illegal event from the city neighborhood. The event could be controlled with only current students attending. It would eliminate the out-of-towners that are blamed for the damages.
SLOPD needs to be proactive in stopping illegal gatherings from happening in the neighborhood before they begin. Call in mutual aid from SLO Sheriff and CHP to augment the need for mutual aid that has been lacking since 2022. Don’t allow the street party to form. After the Mardi Gras riots, the City successfully prevented Mardi Gras from happening again and can do the same for St Fratty’s Day, implementing the resources that were used then.
The City needs to take a leading role in solving this problem. Cal Poly won’t because it’s happening in the city and not on their campus. It’s not their problem to solve. Town-Gown relations have deteriorated in the last few years due to the unchecked proliferation of illegal satellite fraternities and their negative impacts in combination with the elimination of neighborhood wellness as a Major City Goal. From an outside perspective looking in, the City-Cal Poly partnership looks more like an abusive relationship. Just because Cal Poly is an economic powerhouse does it give them a justifiable reason to hide locations of their fraternities from the city? Locations that are in the City.
SLOPD and Enforcement of the Noise Ordinance