TROY -- City police will crack down on student drinking and vandalism in the Beman Park neighborhood in the near future, officials said Tuesday.

"It's reached a tipping point fueled by alcohol. It's an issue of drinking and vandalism in the neighborhood. It's gone on for quite some time," Chief John Tedesco said.

Some of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students living in the neighborhood, which still has a sizable number of owner-occupied homes, have been taking a toll on the area with noisy parties, vandalism, public urination and defecation, city officials and residents said.

"RPI has an obligation to the city of Troy to make sure their students behave in a respectful way," said Councilman Dean Bodnar, whose district includes Beman Park.

"What's happened lately is the noise that used to be on weekends is running from Tuesday through Sunday," said Maryanne Pepe, a 15th Street resident who rents apartments to RPI students.

Last week's pre-St. Patrick's Day riot involving state University at Albany students in Albany led neighbors to speak up to demand action in Troy.

"We saw what happened in Albany with the recent examples of student misbehavior," Bodnar said.

Tedesco said the situation in Beman Park does not approach what occurred in Albany, but police will act to make sure that current problems do not grow any bigger.

An RPI spokesman said the university has worked with residents and city officials over the past 18 months to address issues in the neighborhood adjoining the campus.

"We have had and continue to have a good working relationship with the city and our neighbors to address off-campus student behavior issues as they arise," said Mark Marchand, a spokesman for the university.

The Troy Police Department is developing a stepped-up enforcement plan to deal with neighbors' complaints in Beman Park, Tedesco said. The escalated enforcement in the next few weeks will target drinking, noise, vandalism and lewd public behavior.

These issues have cycled up and down as problems in Beman Park, and the complaints are on an upswing, Pepe said.

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The City Council has attempted to slow down the congregation of students in neighborhoods by enacting moratoriums on the conversion of residences into "mini-dorms" where numerous students live in residences that have been converted to contain multiple bedrooms.