Post-football game parties have rocked the foundations in Fort Sanders with record players, eight-tracks, cassettes, CDs and now DVD players. There are even families in which a student has rented the same apartment inhabited by one of the student's parents a couple of decades earlier. (Wonder if the same socks were on the radiator?)

Anyway, the interest in that collection of houses, most divided into apartments, is an interest that transcends the rather ugly debate occurring there at present. The historic neighborhood got its name from a Civil War battle. It has once again become a battlefield pitting preservationists against property owners.

The city is trying to preserve the neighborhood from wholesale development by imposing a Neighborhood Conservation Overlay Zone on the core of the existing housing stock. The city would regulate any changes to the outward appearance of any of the structures in the designated area.

The property owners are hopping mad at what they view as unfair regulation that will put them at a disadvantage to out-of-town developers who will ring the neighborhood with high-rise student housing.

There is a called meeting of the City Council Monday night, May 15, at the Fort Sanders fire hall to discuss it.

There have been areas of town, like Fourth and Gill, where neighborhoods have been saved, brought back and transformed. Usually in these neighborhoods you could buy a dilapidated house for as little as $10,000, get some tax incentives, renovate it and become part of a gentrified neighborhood where property values have been raised and the living is great.

Fort Sanders is made up of a lot of income-producing houses, primarily rented to UT students, that make their purchase price fairly steep. The purchase of a house in Fort Sanders with rental income can run to more than $200,000.

The economic formula that transforms the usual historic neighborhood does not apply there. Given the commercial nature of the neighborhood, gentrification is not likely. It will not become a neighborhood populated by single-family homes filled with UT professors and administrators who want to live cheek by jowl with the students.

You could buy a condemned house in Fort Sanders; there are several. They go for $65,000 to $75,000. To bring 2,600 square feet up to code would cost an additional $130,000 for a total investment of $195,000. Anyone want to spend almost $200,000 for a personal residence in the middle of transient student housing, nightclubs and fast food restaurants?

The property owners in the proposed zone see that they are encircled by blocks that will probably be developed with more high- rise student housing, like the JPI complex built recently. This neighborhood conservation district would allow these developments around Fort Sanders but would prevent existing property owners from selling out and maximizing their investment in near-campus property.

They say the historic overlay will be an incentive for landlords to let buildings decay to the point of being torn away because they can sell the underlying lot for more money.

The property owners also see themselves governed by the Historic Zoning Commission, which would have final authority over any changes in the exterior of existing houses or any new construction. They don't see this board, which has done great work preserving historic neighborhoods, as being sympathetic to the rental businesses that dominate the Fort Sanders neighborhood.

Their fliers say they don't want a committee of outsiders telling them what color they can paint their houses.

The city has a dicey problem here. If the property owners do not get on board and try to make the preservation effort work, it would seem to be doomed to failure.

The city is engaged in a noble effort to preserve the Fort Sanders neighborhood. The most obvious question, however, is whether it's too late.

* Can any neighborhood program work if the property owners do not buy into the concept? It is important that property owners concerns be addressed.

* Is it realistic to use the Historic Zoning Commission to regulate transient student housing units?

* Is it fair to say outside developers can come in and build high- rise student housing all around several blocks of Fort Sanders at the same time you are telling existing property owners they can't?

* Are property owners being short-sighted? If the residential character of Fort Sanders is destroyed, who will want to live there? If you turn the place into a series of private dorms, will anyone want to live there? Are you destroying a potential gold mine if the convention center-World's Fair Park-downtown development plan comes together at the edge of the neighborhood?

The people trying to save the Fort Sanders neighborhood are to be commended for their efforts. But the people who have invested their life's savings in Fort Sanders property in the expectation of current law and practice are owed consideration.

Fort Sanders is a treasure for the city and a treasure trove of memories for thousands of East Tennesseans. Let's figure out how to save it, but let's be fair to the property owners.

Property owners all over the city have an interest in how it turns out.

Frank Cagle is associate editor of the News-Sentinel. He may be reached at 342-6294 or cagle@knews.com. This column also is available at www.knoxnews.com.