Waterbury, CT - Building Code Conflict over Yeshiva Student Housing

Waterbury, CT - Almost a dozen homes are at the center of a building code conflict, because of a rabbinical school that has been turning single homes into dorms, and for a long time the violations have been overlooked. Now officals are upset and they say that violations of the law will not be overlooked.

This isn't just a stop for this school bus. The whole bus got off and went in one of two nondescript houses on this residential block. What's going on? "They're being used essentially as high density dorms," says Republican Alderman Dennis Odle. "This is being done in about 11 different boarding houses now."
Alderman Odle represents the area and he says the dorms are for students of a yeshiva, a rabbinical school, but they're in areas zoned residential. Running what is essentially a boarding house here is illegal.
"It's a matter of maintenance, it's a matter of traffic in the area, it's a matter of noise," Odle said.
Odle says Waterbury has welcomed the Yeshiva and the growing Orthodox Jewish community, but the law is the law. "The idea that we're not going to enforce zoning at all or not going to enforce it for some groups or another is completely out of bounds," Odle said.

Messages left at the yeshiva office were not returned, and a couple of the yeshiva students said that this is just a temporary problem and the yeshiva is going to build actual dormitories on the campus in a year or two.