Comments on: Corvallis student apartment project faces opposition

By: Current OSU Student

Current OSU Student — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:02:50 +0000

I live within decent biking distance of school so I bike daily and keep my car parked in my driveway. Although I do know a huge amount of students who live far from campus so they drive and park their cars in those neighborhood streets and either walk or bike from that point to campus so it isn’t just the students already living in that area. I would never move into that area so that I am totally exempt from ever having that problem.

By: Robert Bierma

Robert Bierma — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 07:46:49 +0000

I happen to have gone to OSU. I know exactly where you are talking about and in no way do I dispute the description that you put forth. In fact I know it to be very true. What I would say is that first they are proposing a 2:3 parking ratio. Secondly and more importantly is that this is exactly the type of housing that is needed to help alleviate the parking problem as you described in your neighborhood. housing that is close enough to campus to where you can not need to drive a car or even bring one to Corvallis for that matter. I would hazard to guess that most of the people parking in your neighborhood live farther from campus then these proposed apartments. If you want a more livable city having more walkable housing options close to campus should be a key priority.

By: Skip Rochefort

Skip Rochefort — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:53:14 +0000

I’m not sure if Mr. Bierma lives in a college town but as an OSU faculty who lives in the College Hill neighborhood I can offer this anectodal piece of evidence. We live in a purely residential neighborhood with no student housing on our block. It is an old neighborhood with alleys, one car garages, etc. Each day by 9am our street is completely full with OSU related parking (students and staff). However, by 5 pm or so, we could park in front of our house.
One of our neighbors moved out, couldn’t sell their house, and rented it to 5 college students (boys). They have 5 vehicles plus each of their girlfriends appears to have a car, so now we can’t park in our neighborhood even at night.! The past weeks when the students have been gone, the street is completely empty except for 1 car from each neighborhood house. It is refreshing to come home from driving my daughter to swim practice and not have to fight for a parking space….but I know this is only a temporary Christmas present.

So Mr. Bierma, don’t think these poor college kids are as poor as you think. The car ratio may not be 1:1, but it’s pretty high.

By: Robert Bierma

Robert Bierma — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 07:28:28 +0000

100 extra cars yeah right. that’s amusing every person in the apartments has a car which in no way would be true. there parking ratio seems pretty perfect for the college town demographic of Corvallis and is in a great location to not need a car.