The mayor of Eugene and the city manager will join the newly formed Save Westmoreland Coalition Tuesday night to discuss the University’s intent to sell Westmoreland Apartments.
The Save Westmoreland Coalition is made up of representatives of various student and community groups that are opposed to the University’s intent to sell the 404-unit complex.
University student Tesia Blonski hopes the meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday in the EMU Fir Room, will reiterate the coalition’s opposition to the sale and will give more elected officials a chance to hear student concerns.
“It’s basically just a public forum to be like ‘this is exactly what the University has presented to us, and this is exactly why it doesn’t work for us,’” Blonski said.
Blonksi said the University’s plans to help the 592 tenants who may be displaced by the sale amount to “pretty much nothing.”
The University has formed three task groups to help the 87 leaseholders who are international students, to help students financially in their search for housing and to address the students who have children at the Westmoreland Child Care Center and will need a new daycare provider if the apartments are sold.
University President Dave Frohnmayer told the University Senate at its Nov. 30 meeting that the groups will survey all Westmoreland tenants beginning in January to determine their housing and financial needs.
The property has been valued at between $15 million and $18 million, though officials say that appraisal was conservative. Frohnmayer has said a portion of the proceeds will go to helping tenants finance their moves if necessary.
The University is working carefully to draft a survey that is thorough and asks all appropriate questions regarding students’ financial and housing needs so more questioning is not needed, Interim Vice President for Student Affairs and Director of University Housing Mike Eyster said.
“What we don’t want to do is waste students’ time,” Eyster said.
Eyster emphasized that the survey does not mean each tenant will be showered with individual attention.
“I wouldn’t want to leave people with the impression that there’s going to be like a case manager assigned to each individual students, because we’re not staffed to do that,” Eyster said.
Frohnmayer said during the senate meeting that the details of a support plan for tenants cannot be set until it’s determined who the buyer of the 21-acre property is. Numerous organizations have shown interest in the apartments, namely the Metropolitan Affordable Housing Corporation and St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County, Inc.
Representatives from those organizations have said that if they do purchase the property they’d like to maintain it as low-rent housing, but only a few of the units could be occupied by students because Internal Revenue Service tax credit rules prevent full-time students from using tax credit housing.
“It all depends on what kind of funding they use to make the purchase,” Eyster said.
The Westmoreland Tenants Council submitted a public records request to the University’s office of the General Counsel, asking for, among other things, all documents relating to the financial state of Westmoreland and all documents that mention the decision to sell the property.
Randy Geller, director of policy and legal affairs for the University, responded to the request by saying the cost of producing such a large amount of documents could be substantial. He encouraged the council to narrow the request to decrease the search and preparation time and thus the cost of fulfilling the request.
The University Senate unanimously passed a motion at its Nov. 30 meeting calling for the University to waive the costs.
Geller could not be reached for comment.
University spokeswoman Pauline Austin said in an e-mail that Geller will not comment because his written response to the tenants council details the reasons for the possibly substantial cost of fulfilling the records request.
Contact the news editor at [email protected]
