In 2009, Boston College made a bold promise — it would be the first university in the city to house every student who wanted to live on campus.

That pledge delighted neighbors, who were fed up with rowdy students crammed into single-family homes on their otherwise quiet streets. It also impressed city officials, who wanted colleges to house more students.

Boston College originally proposed to build 1,280 new beds by the end of the 10 years, and ultimately the city approved a plan for 940 new dorm beds. But now, seven years into a 10-year campus building plan, BC has added only 240.

After years of delay because of City Hall politics, a lawsuit from neighbors, and the construction slowdown during the economic recession, the school will open two new dorms this fall.

One is a new on-campus dormitory but the other is an off-campus apartment building the school purchased in 2008 and has now converted into a dorm. That plan has prompted pushback from both the city and neighbors.

One city official said this is not the ideal way for colleges to create dormitories.

“Let’s be very clear about that,’’ said Sheila A. Dillon, director of the Department of Neighborhood Development for Mayor Martin J. Walsh. “We want to keep the rental stock that we have intact for working individuals and families.’’

Neighbors of the one-time apartment building, at 2000 Commonwealth Ave., wonder whether this is a taste of the future: BC creeping into the neighborhood, rather than enticing students out.

“Is this residential area basically going to turn into Boston College?’’ wondered Christine Ochsner, who lives next door to the 17-story tower.

BC officials said the conversion was a cost-effective way to provide more beds and supervise students, many of whom were already renting from the building’s previous owners. It also allows BC to tear down a 790-bed dorm on campus to build a new recreation complex without causing a net decrease in dorm beds.

The school’s dormitory plans are but one part of a master plan that also includes new classrooms and sports fields. BC’s campus straddles the Boston-Newton line and now extends into Brighton along Lake Street, following its purchase of 65 acres from the Archdiocese of Boston a decade ago.

The school recently expanded its footprint in Newton, closing on a $20 million deal in May for 22 wooded acres on Hammond Pond Parkway that was formerly owned by Congregation Mishkan Tefila. It also owns five homes on Wade Street, near the 2000 Commonwealth dorm, and all but one house on College Road in Newton.

The Jesuit university is among many local schools that have heeded a push from City Hall in recent years to house more students. So far the Walsh administration has approved plans for 3,500 new dormitory beds and has 5,270 in the pipeline, Dillon said.

About 85 percent of BC’s students — a high number compared with other local schools — already live on campus. But it faces an unusually vocal group of neighbors who live in a quieter section of town than those near other schools.

Boston University houses 69 percent of its students on campus and Northeastern 67 percent, according to a 2015 study by the city.

Under BC’s master plan, several other dormitories were supposed to have been built by now, namely three on Shea Field along Beacon Street. While those dorms remain part of the school’s long-term plan, BC officials said they have no immediate plans to build them.

The school is now focused on building a baseball stadium on the former archdiocese land, in addition to the recreation complex. The city recently approved a plan to add an additional story onto that 215,000-square-foot complex.

In an interview, BC officials blamed former mayor Thomas M. Menino for delaying the school’s plans for new dorms.

When the college bought the Commonwealth Avenue apartment building in 2008, Menino accused BC of failing to heed concerns expressed by the neighborhood and the city about housing students on its traditional campus. The mayor, who died in 2014, subsequently said BC must first build an on-campus dormitory before it could proceed with any other building projects.

But BC officials said in the recent interview that as they began to follow that directive and plan for the on-campus dorm, the Menino administration delayed their attempt to gain city approval for the dorm by requiring many design changes.

“This was absolutely disgraceful in the length of time and the amount of resources that were spent in moving that project forward,’’ said Thomas Keady, BC’s vice president in charge of shepherding the college’s development projects through City Hall.

Dot Joyce, the longtime spokeswoman for Menino, declined to comment on BC’s assertions.

Keady is also a close advisor to Walsh, a BC graduate, and said the administration is more favorable to the school’s plans.

BC frustrated the previous administration because the college pays relatively little to the city in lieu of taxes, compared with other local schools. BC said it has paid taxes on 2000 Commonwealth Avenue and plans to continue.

Brighton neighbors sued the city in 2009, seeking to halt development on the archdiocese land. The suit, which was dismissed in 2013, accused the city of rubber-stamping the master plan without studying the traffic, parking, economic and environmental consequences to the neighborhood. BC said the suit did not slow their plans.

With Walsh in office, the school plans to revive another aspect of its long-term plan that officials say the Menino administration thwarted: adding as many as 500 dorm beds on the former archdiocese property.

Dillon, the City Hall official, said the city closely monitors schools’ dormitory progress. If colleges don’t follow through on promises, the city looks more critically at their other projects, she said, declining to cite an example.

“If they want to advance other development projects, they’ve got to show where they are with their other dormitory commitments,’’ Dillon said.

The effect BC’s ownership of 2000 Commonwealth Avenue will have on the neighborhood remains to be seen. School officials have met with neighbors in their homes to discuss the plans and hear concerns. In some cases, the conversations prompted the college to make adjustments.

Not all neighbors are upset about an increase in young people next door.

“We were all students once,’’ said Heidelise Als, who has lived for 30 years at 1990 Commonwealth Avenue, speaking in the quiet courtyard of her building, which borders the tower and opens onto the Chestnut Hill reservoir in the back.

Some neighbors in her complex asked that the balcony doors of the 17-story dorm be closed year round to deter rowdy behavior. The university plans to keep them locked except in the summer. The pool will be filled in.

Others worry about noise, and about the dorm’s effect on their property values. Ochsner’s condo, which she has owned for eight years, decreased in value this year, something she can’t prove is because of the dorm, but she wonders. “I don’t think there is a person in the world who would choose to live next door to an undergraduate dormitory,’’ she said.

Laura Krantz can be reached at laura.krantz@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @laurakrantz.