Becky Johnson, vice president of Oregon State University-Cascades, says she wants to be a good neighbor. As the lead proponent for the university’s expansion to a full-service, four-year college, that sentiment has placed her on the frontline with neighbors. And, since last April, the university has convened a board of community members the school calls the Campus Expansion Advisory Committee (CEAC), which has researched topics ranging from housing to traffic and parking around the school’s planned expansion at Southwest Chandler Ave. and Southwest Century Drive.
The goal is to keep everyone happy. But that’s a difficult task.
Over the past month, public discontent has coalesced in the form of a citizens’ group called Truth in Site. Its main complaints center on what it sees as a potential glut of traffic on the westside and rowdy college students who might become neighbors. In late March, the Truth in Site group held a meeting at The Bend Armory and attracted about 200 area residents, either displeased with OSU-Cascades’ current expansion plans or just curious enough to attend the gathering. Johnson was one of those in attendance.
That meeting also served as a platform for Truth in Site’s leader, Scott Morgan, to launch two campaigns—one, a letter writing barrage that would have overwhelmed even Santa Claus, as the group sent dozens of grievances to city council (and the Source), and, two, an announcement that the group planned a legal challenge to OSU-Cascades’ expansion at its planned site. At the meeting, the group leader said he hoped to collect $50,000 to mount a legal challenge. The group claimed to have already raised $10,000 that March evening.
But for all the huff and puff, it seems as if there’s nothing to sue about at this stage in the process.
Paul Dewey, Central Oregon LandWatch’s Executive Director, said Morgan’s group approached him two weeks ago in relation to its possible legal challenge.
“They actually asked me to represent them—that’s why they contacted me in the first place,” Dewey, who founded the nonprofit land-use oversight group in 1985, said. “I said I couldn’t.”
LandWatch hasn’t taken a stance on the university’s siting plan, but the group “might on the master plan,” Dewey said.
Truth in Site also approached Bill Bernardy, a member of CEAC’s housing task force, about joining its ranks. He said he also declined.
On April 3, Morgan said Truth in Site would no longer be making comments to the media on advice from an attorney, leaving Bend residents in the dark regarding his group’s future plans.
As an organizational tool, the group maintains a Facebook presence, posting photos and articles related to the school’s proposed expansion. On March 17, a survey was posted to the Truth in Site page, giving seven options for siting the proposed university (even though OSU-Cascades has already purchased the 10-acre site). Those options include neutrally-labeled locations like “Juniper Ridge” and “Hooker Creek,” but the group took poetic liberty with the purchased site on the westside, calling it the “Pumice Pit/Landfill.”
When one commenter remarked that all the options should be listed more neutrally, the page’s moderator accused her of libel. (Editor’s note: That commenter works for the Source‘s sibling organization, Lay It Out Events.)
Explaining the university site-plan review process, Bend’s city attorney Mary Winters said that if a hearings officer does approve OSU-Cascades’ plan for the 10-acre lot, Truth in Site can make an appeal. To do so, the group would need to cite development code it believes the project would violate. However, that 10-acre parcel is currently zoned limited commercial, which allows a wide variety of use—anything from a grocery store to a school.
“What’s going to be in front of a hearings officer—and if there’s an appeal, in front of council—are the criteria for site-plan review,” Winters said last week in her downtown office on city hall’s second floor. “And that’s really all they can consider, which has to do with parking and traffic. It’s a permitted use, as are many other things.”
Bottom line: Although the appeals process allows Truth in Site a slim avenue to pursue its challenge at this stage of process, it’s likely a dead end.
Of course, there is still the potential rezoning of an adjacent 46-acre plot which OSU-Cascades plans to develop during a second phase of the campus development.
(To be continued?)
This article appears in The Green Issue.
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I lived across from the dump for 10 years and I think OSUC will be a huge improvement. Of all the concerns presented by the NIMBY opposition, only the parking issue is real. That issue can be addressed if OSUC thinks like the students that will be attending the school. Students will take the path that is cheaper, easier and more time efficient. The school can not dictate this behavior as the school planners think, so a parking policy that entices students to park on campus instead of on adjacent streets and parking lots needs to be created. The present 300 space lot plan falls short of this and will lead to conflict for the school. This would not be a good start for OSUC.
They can write letters, bitch and complain all they want but the bottom line is this wonderful addition to the west side of Bend will happen. All these issues can and will be worked out. It would appear that this group has taken a page out of the outdated playbook of Broken Top……. NOT IN MY BACK YARD and I will sue because I want my little world to remain, well you know my little world. A small minded group of people who could care less about how to make Bend a better community for future generations. Shameful behavior by people who should know better.
Cantor – an official whose duty is to lead the singing in a cathedral or in a collegiate or parish church. Guess the church of “The Source Weekly” is all in for this tiny footprint of a college.
And the choir sings…”we want a wee college on the West side, design our city on the fly, everyone who has an issue with this is just another NIMBY cry cry…and all the Source Weekly girls sing…build us a second high school on the West side, no, no we meant boutique community college, ha, ha, ha, we can just pretend its a college…
Dave, congratulations on having your opinion published.
I live out East and can clearly see the shortcomings. But maybe I just have higher expectations and a bigger vision for Bend.
Please forward this to Santa and any community rag that doesn’t mind receiving readers opinions.
I lived in Corvallis for 2 years and attended OSU for my undergrad. Parking and housing for college students there is a nightmare. If people on the Westside think that this will be any better here they are wrong. Students from out of town will bring cars and need housing. Already apartments and single family homes get 100’s of applications within minutes of posting. Bringing a 4 year college to the heart of town is only going to exacerbate the problem. Students will fill business parking lots and side streets like they do in Corvallis. This is extremely poor planning on the part of OSU and the city of Bend.
Our family has been going through the college selection process this past year and of the schools where my daughter applied, all required students to live on campus for a minimum of one year and up to three years. There were also restrictions on bringing a car to many of the schools she considered. This issue can be managed here, as it has been in many other places…