The board has voted to go ahead with the ill-sited commuter apartment complex on Reservoir Road (article from Dartmouth). The proposal was paused after faculty objected (Dartmouth, Valley News, The Dartmouth) but those objections seem to have been insufficient to put the project in the bad-ideas bin with the College Park dormitory proposal.

Campus Services has a good explanation of the project (pdf), and the planners have done a thorough job of explaining to neighbors what their goals are (presentation video). There is an emphasis on smart growth and so on — which is exactly right for the neighborhood. That area does need a building at the corner of Lyme and Reservoir Roads. But the idea of busing undergrads out there — of filling the apartments exclusively with people who should be living with their peers on the walkable campus that is centered more than a mile to the southwest — is completely contrary to the new-urbanist principles behind the village centers idea. Bizarre.

And this means that the entire College Park dormitory siting process was for naught. The result of that process was the rejection of College Park in favor of a great site near the heart of the campus, on Crosby Street. That is where this new student housing was meant to be built, and where it should be built.