University President Dave Frohnmayer argued his case successfully to the Oregon State Board of Higher Education on Thursday and Friday, convincing its members to approve 10-1 the sale of the Westmoreland Family Housing Complex to Eugene developer Michael O’Connell Sr. for $18.45 million.
The board approved the sale with the stipulations that the University report back to the board in 2007 and 2008 on the status of the mitigation plan, as well as prepare a housing plan in early 2007 that will address the creation of housing that will fit the needs of all types of students.
Frohnmayer told the board Thursday that the sale is “unquestionably an action that is in the long term interests of the University of Oregon, its students, its faculty, its future and our larger community.”
He contended that because the University must rely more on its own resources each year, it has an obligation to find ways to generate funds.
“Without the proceeds from this sale we couldn’t take advantage of opportunities that are otherwise in the interests of this institution’s future,” he said Thursday. “We are expected to use good business judgment … that maximizes and leverages the assets that we do have. That’s what we’re attempting to do. We’re not pursuing this to spite our students, we’re pursuing it in the interests of all of our students.”
State Representative Bob Ackerman, ASUO President Jared Axelrod and members from the Save Westmoreland Coalition also argued their cases in front of the board Thursday, saying that the University is turning its back on low income and international students by cutting off the University’s only affordable housing unit.
“We are here to ask you to protect this extremely important asset for future students,” Axelrod said.
Because of the controversy surrounding the sale, the State Board conducted an unusually extended series of testimonials from both community members and the University administration throughout the past month. The board heard nine hours of testimony during a special trip to Eugene in June, and an extra Thursday session was added to the board’s meeting to hear debate.
Before board members cast their votes Friday, Frohnmayer announced that the University decided double the grant for students who have already moved out of the complex to $300.
“This issue has human faces attached to it,” Frohnmayer said. “These are not simply raw issues of the movement of University resources to address future issues just seen abstractedly. Of course it’s extraordinarily important that we do this, in my view. But I well recognize that there are human consequences or at least human anxieties that are associated with any move of this kind.”
After the extended testimonials, it took less than 10 minutes for a motion to be made to approve the sale. It passed 10-1, with student Board member Gerry Blakney casting the only no-vote via conference call. He could not be reached for comment.
Ackerman said he saw the approval as an act against the board’s own policy to further diversity.
“(The board’s decision) was anti-student, anti-nontraditional student and not in the interest of higher education,” Ackerman said in a telephone interview Monday.
“If you shut down Westmoreland’s 404 units, there’s 404 students who have more difficulty with their education,” he said. “That builds up over time.”
‘We’re going to stop this’
Even though the State Board of Higher Education, which has ultimate jurisdiction over the University, has given the green light to follow through on the sale, opponents of the sale say they’ll continue fighting.
“We are going to stop this sale one way or another,” David Zupan, a member of the Save Westmoreland Coalition said Thursday. “The University is removing access to higher education for all but those who are well off.”
Dan Stotter, a Eugene attorney representing the Save Westmoreland Coalition, said the coalition is planning legal action against the decision.
Their suit will take two approaches, Stotter said, the first involving how the University held documents from the Family Housing Board that would have helped it to make a more informed recommendation about the sale. Stotter said the other angle of the suit is that the Westmoreland property is not zoned for private use.
OUS General Counsel Ben Rawlins said the property became publicly zoned after Westmoreland was purchased by the University and thus does not have a precondition to be publicly zoned, meaning it can be switched through the city of Eugene to private zoning for commercial housing.
Stotter said that regardless of the outcome of future litigation, the process will at least “remind the University how important it is to have low income housing.”
“What ever the outcome is it’s going to be better than us not doing anything,” he said.
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