GORHAM – Gorham, home to a University of Southern Maine campus, is thinking twice about its effort to ban fraternity and sorority houses in town.

In a 0-6 vote (Christopher Hickey abstained), the Planning Board Monday failed to recommend zoning changes that would institute a town-wide ban on fraternities and sororities. The proposal voted on was an amended version of one sent to the board by the Town Council.

Planning Board member Tom Hughes said at Monday’s Planning Board meeting that more thought and more work needs to be done.

“It sends a bad message,” Hughes said about the proposal.

The proposed ban follows years of student behavioral complaints by downtown neighbors of fraternities. Complaints that have caused numerous police responses to the area included noise, drinking, public indecency and vandalism.

Ed Zelmanow, chairman of the Gorham Planning Board, said the board was not the town’s policy makers. So, the issue returns to the Gorham Town Council, which had sent it to the Planning Board for its review. The Town Council, which will also hold a public hearing, will ultimately decide on whether to ban fraternities.

“Fraternities have proven themselves to be anti-social and antithetical to a family way of life,” Town Councilor Burleigh Loveitt said Tuesday.

Dan Santos, president of the Inter Fraternity Council on the Gorham campus of the University of Southern Maine and a member of Sigma Nu fraternity, opposed the ban.

“If it wasn’t for this housing, I wouldn’t be attending the university,” Santos told the Planning Board.

Bruce Roullard, 46 School St., a university graduate in 1984 and a member of the national board that oversees the Sigma Nu fraternity, pegged the cost of residing in its fraternity house as 25 percent less than on campus.

Before the regular meeting, Santos said the cost of living on campus is $2,419 per semester, not including the meal plan, while living at the Sigma Nu fraternity house is about $750 less.

Santos said the Inter Fraternity Council is addressing problems. The university, which has sponsored a series of meetings with neighbors, fraternity representatives, other students and police, a year ago instituted guidelines for student groups living off campus.

“The major problem is the younger students,” Santos told the Planning Board.

Santos, who mentioned the lack of social outlets in the town, said the major problem is noise.

Roullard told the Planning Board that eliminating fraternities and sororities wouldn’t eliminate noise issues in the town.

The ban issue was also discussed in a Planning Board workshop session held before Monday’s regular meeting.

Roullard said in the workshop that he favored adopting standards for proper behavior for any property in town. “Our house has a pretty good record,” he said.

University spokesman Robert Caswell and Craig Hutchinson, vice president of student university life, attended the Planning Board meeting.

“Our alumnus and Inter Fraternity Council president did a great job of presenting the case for not approving the current version of ordinance change,” Hutchinson said following the meeting.

Besides the proposal to ban new fraternities, Gorham is also considering a measure to regulate existing fraternities. The two fraternity houses in Gorham’s downtown are now those of Sigma Nu on School Street and Delta Chi on Preble Street. Several women students also reside at a former sorority on Preble Street.

Fraternity and sorority issues are expected to be discussed when the Town Council’s Ordinance Committee meets at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 21, at Gorham Municipal Center, 75 South St.

Town Councilor Matt Robinson, chairman of the Ordinance Committee, said in a council meeting last week that an October agenda would include an item about fraternity issues. Robinson could not be reached by telephone Wednesday by the American Journal deadline.

Meanwhile, the town is soliciting bids to sell a former fraternity house at 27 Preble St. seized by the town this summer for back taxes. It was the home of Gamma Omega of Phi Kappa Sigma. The town is placing restrictions on the deed aimed at prohibiting fraternity or sorority ownership or use of the property.

Dan Santos, president of the Inter Fraternity Council on the Gorham campus of the University of Southern Maine, speaks at Monday’s Gorham Planning Board meeting to oppose a proposed ban on off-campus fraternities. The board agreed with Santos, and voted 6-0 against recommending the ban to the Town Council. (Staff photo by Robert Lowell)