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Young Scholars Defend Property Rights

Kerry Howley | 11.13.2006 2:00 PM

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Nine none-too-bright-sounding Georgetown frat boys do what Georgetown frat boys do best: infuriate D.C.'s most obnoxious residents.

The $2.4 million house that J. Brian O'Neill Sr. bought for his son is allowed only six unrelated residents under zoning laws. But if it's a residence for a "religious community," the number jumps to 15.

The solution? The Apostles of O'Neill. That's the name the young men used Oct. 2 when they filed paperwork to incorporate as a nonprofit religious organization.

O'Neill, who according to his Facebook page "doesn't really read much," is even hosting meetings with concerned citizens:

With a poster of porn star Jenna Jameson as a backdrop during the meeting, everyone avoided the subject of the Apostles and stuck to polite talk about such things as proper landscaping and noise, people who attended said.

Whole thing here. More frat boy news here.

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NEXT: The No-Mandate Myth

Kerry Howley is author of Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State.

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  1. thoreau   19 years ago

    I should ask my students about this. Since they're grad students, we can all chuckle about those pesky undergrads.

  2. FinFangFoom   19 years ago

    Hoya Saxa!

    (Georgetown didn't actually get fraternities in the past five years did it? PBK, et al, excepted of course.)

  3. R C Dean   19 years ago

    I dunno. They sound plenty bright enough to game the D.C. government.

    Of course, that's setting the bar pretty low.

  4. FinFangFoom   19 years ago

    It has less to do with the DC government than legal games played by the residents.

    Georgetown, fancy neighborhood that it is, has a university in the middle of it where the High Life does flow. Idiots who want to be able to say they live in Georgetown move in too close to the student areas and bitch about the students being students. Then the buyers complain that they are part of the neighborhood and are there longer than the students, etc., etc, nevermind the fact that there has been a university there for, oh, about 217 years. The university administration caves in and puts the hammer down on the students.

    While I was there, 97-01, it got increasingly worse and they shut down the block party where much underage drinking occurred. I am just glad to see that the administration is not putting the hammer down on these students.

    Maybe the current president isn't as much of a milquetoast as the last one.

  5. Ken Shultz   19 years ago

    FingFangFoom beat me to it.

    ...although Georgetown University, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't have fraternities (one of St. Elmo's clear frauds), the house in question is in Georgetown and I think that's what they meant.

    If I had to guess, though, I'd guess they go to George Washington. ...which should, I suppose, merit a "Hail to the buff and blue!", hippo pride something or other.

  6. Ken Shultz   19 years ago

    ...everyone avoided the subject of the Apostles and stuck to polite talk about such things as proper landscaping and noise, people who attended said.

    Hey joe! Didn't you go to George Washington?

    ...and now he devotes his time to proper landscaping and noise--must be somethin' in the water! ; )

  7. Kerry Howley   19 years ago

    You don't have to be in a fraternity to be a frat boy. It's a state of mind. Georgetown actually does have one frat (or did when I graduated) but that's beside the point.

  8. FinFangFoom   19 years ago

    I'm just asking, I know they didn't when I was there. I would assume that Ms. Howley herself knows since she went there, presumably after me. Though I suppose she could mean "fratboy" in the "drunken yahoo" sense of the term.

  9. FinFangFoom   19 years ago

    Oops, question answered.

  10. joshua corning   19 years ago

    Hey joe! Didn't you go to George Washington?

    WTF!?!? He went to a private liberal arts collage, and he is calling me undereducated...Jesus fucking Christ!

  11. thoreau   19 years ago

    You don't have to be in a fraternity to be a frat boy. It's a state of mind.

    Amen to that.

  12. Jon H   19 years ago

    "The $2.4 million house that J. Brian O'Neill Sr. bought for his son"

    That's a good argument for the estate tax, right there. A fool and his money parted for the sake of his foolish son and his foolish frat buddies.

  13. FinFangFoom   19 years ago

    GW is not a "private liberal arts college," it is a full-sized major university. It also has a metro stop. And frat frats.

  14. Geof   19 years ago

    The only frat I recall is the foreign service frat. I don't think that really counts. Glad to see we have a number of Hoyas reading hit and run.

  15. Frank   19 years ago

    Well, I can't stand frat boys, but in this case, good for them. Even people I despise are entitled to the same rights as everybody else.

  16. Ken Shultz   19 years ago

    FYI to all the frat boy haters out there--frat boys don't like you either.

  17. Johncjackson   19 years ago

    In the "college town" where I am from, the limit is 2 unrelated persons in a house of any size. Similar student/community dynamic though a less prestigious university/town. I haven't been there in awhile, but I imagine by now they have outlawed renting and landlording completely.

  18. kelley   19 years ago

    Darn, a missed opportunity for the Apostles of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

  19. JW   19 years ago

    Proof, yet again, that money donesn't buy you class.

  20. mk   19 years ago

    Someone send Borat there with some release forms stat.

  21. MUTT   19 years ago

    lets play "Guess".... when these scions get caught up exploiting desperate CA gal refugees- fleeing hellholes propped up by US tax bucks & military support- theyll snivel about the "free market". And "teases".
    Hey, I got an idea- How about transferring these parasites to a frathouse in Ramadi? Oh, thats right: they have more important things to do.......

  22. FinFangFoom   19 years ago

    Why all the animus to rich kids? I certainly fail to see what they've done wrong.

    And, MUTT, Jesus, please get back on your meds.

  23. Ammonium   19 years ago

    There's also a town near me that is trying to use the 2 unrelated people in a house law. It's interesting since many of the houses have been converted to apartments.

    Other "student friendly" policies include mandatory yearly inspections and a government registration of all rental properties. When the town finds that some evil landlord is taking advantage of these poor students by violating one of these ordinances, the town kicks the student out of the apartment. Since all the leases in the area are academic year leases, the poor student is pretty much screwed.

  24. dead_elvis   19 years ago

    J. Brian O'Neill Sr., chairman of O'Neill Properties Group in King of Prussia, Pa., bought the house for his son in August. He has told the Philadelphia Inquirer that his company's real estate holdings are worth $4 billion.

    Seems to me the most painless and sane way to resolve this is for Sr. to buy Jr. another house next door for the 3 excess people. Problem solved, and he could probably find enough dough shaking out his couch cushions.

    On the other hand, gotta admire those plucky kids. Fighting the good fight against arbitrary rules and favoritism for religious organizations.

  25. Happy Jack   19 years ago

    "doesn't really read much,"

    Where have I heard that before?

  26. Happy Jack   19 years ago

    The only frat I recall is the foreign service frat.

    That wouldn't be The Best and the Brightest would it?

  27. Homer   19 years ago

    Mmmmmmmm, fratwurst.

  28. D.A. Ridgely   19 years ago

    Money quote (literally!) from the WaPo article:

    "The neighbors call it blasphemy and a possible precedent-setting threat to property values."

    What, after all, could be more blasphemous than threatening Georgetown property values?

  29. FinFangFoom   19 years ago

    To be fair, Mammon does live on that street.

  30. martin   19 years ago

    "There's also a town near me that is trying to use the 2 unrelated people in a house law."

    Hmm, how about changing that to 1 unrelated person...could be a novel way to keep the frat boys chaste and improve morality in town.
    Wonder if it's been tried someplace.

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