Neighbors of CSUN Complain About Noise : Northridge: University accreditation team members are told that weekend nights have become unbearable since new dorms were opened.

Neighbors of Cal State Northridge complained to an educational oversight team Thursday that they are besieged with the byproducts of unruly students: excessive noise, empty alcohol bottles, food wrappers and even discarded underwear.

The 17 Northridge residents who attended the open forum of the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges, which assesses and certifies the performance of academic institutions, said that since the newest CSUN dormitories opened two years ago, weekend nights have become unbearable.

They said the university has been largely unresponsive to their complaints--over everything from gang violence to car radios blaring until 4 a.m.

“I don’t think they know how to run what is really a small city,” said Mike Chambers, a CSUN alumnus who has lived one block from the college for six years. “I feel that this university is running its community relations program with the neighborhood kind of like ostriches with their heads in the sand.”

After the meeting, the campus housing director acknowledged that there are problems, especially on weekends, but she said they are caused mostly by non-students and students who live off campus but come to the school in search of parties.

Diana Gruendler, director of housing services for the 2,000 dormitory residents, said she had noticed a slight increase in complaints this fall.

“Every call that comes in is handled,” she said. “We are just as concerned as they are about people who drive up and down the streets at 2 a.m. We get complaints from students about that too.”

The two accreditation team members who attended Thursday’s forum said they were alarmed by the neighborhood complaints.

As part of their weeklong investigation of the campus, they are studying its relationship to the surrounding community, they said.

“I look at this as a student governance issue,” said Cecilia Burciaga, an associate dean at Stanford. “I want to know what are the student alcohol policies on campus, what is the honor code, what kind of morals are these kids being taught?”

Raymund Paredes, vice chancellor for academic administration at UCLA and also a member of the accrediting team, said he would bring the neighborhood complaints to the attention of CSUN administrators, who he said had assured him earlier in the week that the university’s relationship with the community was “extremely good.”

Paredes also urged the neighbors to form a homeowners association so their concerns could be funneled through one spokesman.

Such organizations in Westwood led to many changes in UCLA’s growth plans, he said.

Campus spokeswoman Ann Salisbury said after the meeting that CSUN also had modified its expansion plans based on community comments during planning meetings held in the early 1980s.

That expansion includes the scheduled opening of a dormitory to house 928 more students next fall.

CSUN President James W. Cleary has formed a committee to investigate ways to limit access to the campus by outsiders, Salisbury said.