With less than a day before the State Board of Higher Education announces its decision on the proposed sale of the Westmoreland apartments, opposition forces rallied to defeat the University administration’s attempt to sell the family housing complex.
A small crowd and members of the Save Westmoreland Coalition gathered Wednesday afternoon on the steps of Johnson Hall to announce their plan of attack. In the nine months since plans to sell the property were announced, a storm of resistance has embroiled the proposal.
The final word from the State Board on the proposed $18.45 million sale to developer Michael O’Connell, the owner of a commercial and investment real estate business, will be released Friday morning after the board hears testimony at 3 p.m. this afternoon at Portland State University.
Eugene attorney Dan Stotter, representing the Save Westmoreland Coalition and Eugene Citizens for Affordable Housing, said there were several misconceptions perpetrated by University administrators.
“The decision about whether or not to sell the Westmoreland student housing complex has not been made yet,” he said. “We’re expecting that there will be substantial opposition to that proposal at the board level. We also expect that this decision will not be approved.”
The sale does not have any of the necessary community support, he said, citing the numerous resolutions opposing the sale passed by the University Senate, Student Senate, Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation and various neighborhood associations.
Stotter said if sale is approved he will represent the coalition and take legal action against the University. He contended that the University has violated Oregon Administrative Rules by keeping public documents from the Family Housing Board, thus preventing it from making a decision. He said it has also violated Oregon land use laws and Oregon state-wide planning goals that mandate the maintaining of housing for students and low-income residents and public participation. The property is also zoned by the city of Eugene for public land use only, not private use, he said.
Vice President for Finance and Administration Francis Dyke said the University’s proposed sale has been thoughtful and the administration has worked to minimize harm.
A mitigation plan, announced June 30, waives a rent freeze until June 30, 2008 for current tenants who remain full-time students and will allow students who left the complex to move back into Westmoreland before Aug. 31 without an application
fee to the new owner. Other provisions provide for a $150 moving reimbursement per household for tenants who have remained full time students and moved out between Oct. 20, 2005 and May 24 and the creation of additional child-care spaces through the purchase of a facility and increased staffing.
“We feel we’ve done a good job in concern with the mitigation
for the tenants and we feel we’ve laid out a very valid business plan,” Dyke said.
ASUO Campus Organizer Brett Rowlett said the administration
has neglected the vocal desires of the community to keep the property, which is seen as a haven for student families and graduate students who feel uncomfortable living on campus.
The property belongs to the citizens of Oregon, he said, and its
loss would be not benefit cash-strapped students.
“The citizens of this state are entitled to the accessibility and
affordability of education,” he said.
State Representative Bob Ackerman, who has supported efforts to halt the sale, said at the rally that his interest in the controversy had its roots in his own experience attending the
University’s law school in 1963 as a non-traditional student.
“…The acts of the State Board, on approval of this sale, are contrary to student interest and are completely decimate opportunities for (nontraditional students) at the University of Oregon,” he said. “The social cost of denying educational opportunities to these people, based upon affordability and accessibility issues is astronomical and can not be calculated with any reasonable certainty.”
Ackerman said the sale was based on “bogus” economic assertions including that the proceeds, which the University
has said it would use to buy-out debt owed to the OUS, would only create more debt when loans were reestablished to build new residence halls.
If Westmoreland is sold, Spencer View Family Housing will be the only remaining family housing facility, Dyke said, but that won’t mean a lack of slots for students with children.
She cited statistics showing that the current supply of family
housing greatly outstrips any demand.
Stotter and Rowlett also both attacked the financial logic behind the sale: Rowlett suggested that with the profits Westmoreland produced the University could have easily repaired the worn complex.
“Westmoreland student housing is a self-supporting and very economically viable complex, in fact, the data that we have reviewed … is that the Westmoreland student housing not only support itself but that it provides income streams for other student housing as part of the University’s system,” Stotter said.
Dyke refuted that notion as an over-simplification. The University is required to pool its income from all housing
sources, making such repairs unfeasible, she said.
“The way that accounting works the obligation for the
University is to balance the overhead for all housing with
the positive income from all sources,” she said.
Contact the news editor at [email protected]
Westmoreland: Will it sell?
Daily Emerald
July 13, 2006
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