Citing record enrollment and lack of space, University Housing and University Planning are looking to build apartments and other facilities on property the school owns in the neighborhood east of campus.
What the University found, however, is a neighborhood association looking to slow the expansion. University Housing has already built one apartment complex for graduate students and is nearly finished with plans to build a childcare center that will accommodate 200 children in the area. It is now considering moving or knocking down half-century old houses on Villard and Moss streets to build more apartments.
Some members of the Fairmount Neighborhood Association do not want to see those houses go, and cite a 20-year-old growth management agreement between the association and the University as a reason why the houses should stay. Representatives of the University’s planning and housing departments say the agreement expired 10 years ago and was never intended to stop the University from building student housing on the property.
Jeff Osanka, a board member and longtime association president, said that a 10-year limit has never been mentioned in any negotiation with the University, and that the association has operated as if the agreement was intended to run forever. He had to search through the agreement for several minutes before finding the 10-year limit reference.
“That document was created so there would be a permanent agreement, and the University has a moral obligation to honor the agreement,” he said. “You can’t just alter or discard it because it’s inconvenient to your plans. Words like ‘cake’ and ‘eating it too’ come to mind.”
Osanka said the agreement has aspects based on a 50-year cycle, and if it expired, “That would be a dramatically different relationship between the neighborhood and the University.”
The sides differ in their interpretation of a policy the University adopted in the agreement. The passage in question says, “This plan should govern for a period of 10 years. At the end of this period … these policies should be reviewed and revised as changing circumstances and conditions warrant.”
The 10-year period passed in 1992, and the neighborhood association and the University continued acting as if it was in effect.
University Housing used its own money to pay for many of the 110 lots purchased in the east campus area since the 1950s. University Housing Director Mike Eyster said the money exclusively comes from students’ rent, and housing as a separate department doesn’t receive University funds.
The University purchased the property with the intent of building apartments or residence halls, and the need for more student housing is pressing enough that it must build apartments on some of the properties, Eyster said.
“We had a waiting list of 300 students for the new graduate student housing complex” on Moss Street, which has 72 units, Eyster said. “Everyone would like to keep the houses, but that’s not what they were purchased for, and the need for more housing is dramatic.”
Maintaining the single-family homes is simply not feasible, he said.
University Planning Associate Christine Thompson also said the University intended to use the property for student housing.
“When the University purchased the properties in the ’50s and ’60s, nobody would have imagined they would still be single-family housing 40 years later,” Thompson said. “That land was purchased for student housing.”
Thompson also said the agreement with the neighborhood association should be re-evaluated.
Eyster said he favors creating more apartment complexes like the graduate student housing and is finishing a proposal for another such building near the first. He said he does not, however, want to build a residence hall in the east campus area.
“It would be too far away from the nerve center of campus,” Eyster said.
Instead, the University should build a new residence hall between the Walton and Earl complexes, he said. Tennis courts are currently located there, but they could be moved to a less centralized location on campus, according to Eyster.
Laura Marriott, the current president of the Fairmount Neighborhood Association, said she is meeting with University Planning Director Chris Ramey on Friday to discuss the University’s plans for the area. She said she needs to study the agreement before making further comments about it, and will be “on the fence” until she studies it and meets with Ramey.
E-mail community reporter Marty Toohey
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