Standish residents are preparing for a Feb. 26 meeting where the zoning board of appeals will hear a St. Joseph’s College request to build new dorms on its lakefront campus.

The request for reconsideration comes after the zoning board issued a 2-2 vote on the matter earlier this month. Since a majority is needed to approve questions of zoning, the College appealed the decision.

(Zoning board members declined to comment for this story.)

Because of the appeal, and because the project increases the footprint of the campus by about one percent, residents of nearby neighborhoods are expressing concerns about the traffic, noise and tax burden the expansion will bring.

According to Bill McCarthy, director of marketing and public relations at St. Joseph’s College, the request to build new dorms and parking areas is part of the school’s 10-year plan, which seeks to increase enrollment from 1,050 students to 1,400 students.

According to McCarthy, the plan includes the building of five new dorms, an environmental field lab and three parking lots, though he said only two dorms will be built within the next few years. McCarthy said the expansion is consistent with the college’s slow but steady growth.

“We watch our growth very carefully,” he said.

But Sally Clark, a resident of nearby Hearthside Road, has several concerns about the college’s goals of increasing its student body. Her biggest concern is vehicle traffic.

Clark said residents are afraid to make use of bike and walking paths on Whites Bridge Road because of the high speeds students drive. Her family had a close call recently when they were faced with a reckless driver.

“We were two inches away from myself, two children and mother being killed,” she said.

Ted Gifford, also a Hearthside Road resident, is an abutter to the campus. Though the college claims any new dorms will stand 250 feet from his property, Gifford is skeptical, saying the parking lots would only be 75 feet from his yard. Being close by, Gifford has had to deal with the noise from dorm parties as well as traffic. He expressed his frustration with the college’s method of dealing with these disturbances.

“As an engineer, I’m aware of ways to deal with these problems. The college isn’t listening,” said Gifford.

For some in Standish, the college’s expansion raises concerns about taxes as well. Much of the college’s 337 acres are tax exempt, which saves the Catholic Church-affiliated school a lot of money on prime lakefront property. William Orr, a Standish resident and chairman of the town’s budget committee, said the college is a burden to taxpayers as it is, and increasing the number of facilities on campus makes the problem worse.

“When they expand that college, the tax base in Standish has to pay,” he said. “The college should either pay a much larger share or not increase the size of the college.”

But students have a different perspective on the matter. In the fall of 2006, the college was faced with a housing crunch brought on by an unprecedented number of incoming freshman. With around 400 new students, the college struggled to place students in dorms, often having to improvise. According to Sarah Halstead, a senior and dorm supervisor at St. Joseph’s, moving students in was a headache last semester.

“There were so many students that we were moving into upper class dorms. We had three students living in what were ordinarily two-person rooms. And lounges were being temporarily converted into multiple person rooms,” she said.

Regarding the concerns of residents about noise and traffic, Halstead said, “I’d like to point out that as annoying as (residents) may find us, we are a tremendous asset to the economy of both Standish and Windham…with about 1,000 students, we have to shop somewhere.”

The town of Standish is urging residents to participate in the upcoming appeals meeting. It will be held Monday, Feb. 26, at 7 p.m. at the Standish Municipal Offices. The zoning board can either approve or deny St. Joseph’s request for reconsideration Monday night. If the board approves the request, the matter will go before the Planning Board. If the board denies the request, Saint Joseph’s can appeal again, this time with changes to the proposal.