What’s Corvallis to do about growth?

It's in the streets that are lined up with cars parallel-parked bumper to bumper. It's in the rows of three-story tall townhouses. It's in the trash that falls out into the street from Friday night parties, the traffic on Monroe, the sound of buildings being torn down to make way for new development. It's also murmured and grumbled about by longtime residents watching neighborhoods change and students who deal with few options, soaring rent and absentee landlords.

The rapid growth of Oregon State University over the last decade has changed the tenor of the city of Corvallis, leaving many neighborhoods, once populated by a diverse mix of people, to become overwhelmingly student-only enclaves. But the growth has also left many students without many options when it comes to renting, with some unable to find adequate housing when facing a rental vacancy rate of around 1 percent.

Tensions between the university and the city have grown so much that last year, the university signed a memorandum of understanding with the city and laid out plans for a committee to look at the problems that the university's growth had been causing in the city.

The conflict has left many with a bad taste in their mouths. Older, longtime Corvallis residents complain that parking limitations, traffic and noise from parties have gone up considerably over the years, while the expanding size of the university has led students to fan out into neighborhoods previously unused by them. Students also feel that many times, there is animosity toward them from "townies," that being called a "student" can come across sounding like a four-letter word and they have fewer housing options, leading them to move away from neighborhoods traditionally occupied by students.

Ongoing problems have led many to question the continued livability and diversity of neighborhoods, and they are worried about parking, availability and cost of housing, noise from parties and traffic.

Housing is hard to find

Kimberly Freitas began taking post-baccalaureate courses at Oregon State in summer of 2011 to help her fulfill the prerequisites to get into nursing school. After subletting a room for several months, she and another person planned to find and live together in a two-room apartment after they had to move out at the end of the December.

Freitas spent two months searching for a two-room apartment, but when her planned roommate backed out at the last minute, she found herself in a bind, looking frantically for a studio or one-bedroom apartment.

"If you don't know too many people that would like to live with you, and are hoping to live by yourself or with one other person you know, it can be really expensive to find a place," Freitas said. "It was really difficult for me to find an affordable place to live that wasn't too expensive and was either close to campus or downtown."

After worrying that she wouldn't be able to find a place to live, she eventually decided to move in with a person seeking a roommate in an apartment in south Corvallis.

But she's not the only one unable to find a one- or two-bedroom apartment. Bob Loewen, housing program specialist for the city of Corvallis, said that with the rental vacancy rate of the city hovering around .5 to 1 percent, one-bedroom places have been the most difficult to find.

"There are not a lot of studio, one- and two-bedrooms, which I have heard is more in demand," Loewen said.

Another effect of the housing crunch has been the rising cost of rent. Freitas was shocked to find out her friend in Berkeley, Calif., who had a two-bedroom apartment near the University of California campus there, is paying $850 a month, which is about the going rate in Corvallis for a place with similar amenities and location.

"Based on calls I've got from people complaining, since last spring I've got calls saying ‘my rent went up 10 percent' to as high as ‘my rent went up 50 percent,' and that was from an OSU parent who was pretty perturbed because they hadn't budgeted for that," Loewen said. "10 percent is about the going rate even though some people haven't raised their rent at all."

And it isn't just students that are being affected by higher rents. Many families, senior citizens and working-class people are being affected by higher rents and demands, making the search to find affordable housing in the city even harder.

"I've had calls from senior citizens who saw increases. Some could afford it; some couldn't and were forced to move," Loewen said.  

Hannah Johnson, an OSU student, also had a difficult time finding a place to live. She eventually found a place close to campus, but said that the heating in it is not very good and it lacks some amenities.

"Corvallis could definitely use more apartments with the growing amount of students, as well as nicer apartments," Johnson said. "Many of the buildings and houses in Corvallis are extremely old and could use some renovation."

The growing storm

When Ed Ray, president of OSU, gave a speech in 2009 envisioning what OSU might look like in the year 2025, he probably didn't think his words would cause so much consternation among residents of Corvallis. He said the university would most likely "have 30 to 35,000," which to many residents sounded like more than the city could handle.