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Chris Saltveit feels like he’s being picked on.

Saltveit, arguably the largest developer of multifamily housing in Corvallis, said he and multifamily developments in general are unfairly targeted by irate neighbors and city officials they have in their hip pockets.

Anne Thomas, one of those neighbors, said she has every right to be irate.

鈥淎 lot of people move to Corvallis to enjoy quiet neighborhoods in a small town, not to listen to college kids scream and yell at all hours of the night,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t doesn’t help when you have half a dozen or more of these kids crammed into a big, ugly townhouse in a row of big, ugly townhouses that smother entire blocks.鈥�

Saltveit said he finds neighbors’ attitudes perplexing.

鈥淚t’s an interesting dynamic,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t’s your typical college town where people want to retire and live. They want all the amenities of a college town, but they don’t want to live with college students.鈥�

Saltveit’s typical student housing projects are three-story townhouses that line streets near the Oregon State University campus. Each unit has four or five bedrooms.

Students often pack themselves into houses and apartments, Saltveit said. At least his units are clean, properly maintained and relatively new, he added.

鈥淭hey seem to be popular with the kids,鈥� he said. 鈥淪tudents do like living there. They can have friends next door.鈥�

Saltveit squeezes in as many students as he can in light of a city law that states dwellings can have no more than five unrelated adults living together. He has been building his townhouses since 2005.

鈥淚 had been building custom homes in Beaverton and buying homes for investment rentals, renting them to regular folks,鈥� he explained. 鈥淭hen I just came down here and saw some older homes where the rents were pretty high. I was shocked to see how much rent they were getting.

鈥淚t seemed like a lot of money, so I bought a couple of older homes. It was hard to find anything for sale down here because the houses were just plain horrible. I don’t want to say landlords were exploitative, but they were pulling money out of these things like there was no tomorrow.鈥�

Saltveit gutted and remodeled homes for about a year and a half.

鈥淭hen a large piece of property zoned R-20 opened,鈥� he said.

Corvallis’ R-20 zone lets developers build up to six stories.

鈥淎 lot of developers were looking at that,鈥� he added. 鈥淭he neighbors had a meltdown.鈥�

He opted against building any six-story apartment complexes, choosing instead to go with townhouses around the campus perimeter. He started with 36 units.

鈥淭hey were brand new and really nice,鈥� he said.

Thomas said it depends on the eye of the beholder.

鈥淚 would say they were the first of the flurry of homogenous, boring student housing,鈥� she said.

They were also expensive, Saltveit admitted.

鈥淗owever, they had gas heat,鈥� he said. 鈥淎t the end of the day, you’re going to pay less because you’re only paying $60 a month for heat.鈥�

Saltveit also tore down old fraternity and sorority houses zoned for high density.

鈥淗e has done a lot to destroy the character of the campus community,鈥� Thomas said. 鈥淧arking has become an absolute nightmare.鈥�

Saltveit said he sympathizes with that assessment. Many of the houses in the neighborhood were built in the 1920s with no garages.

鈥淩esidents would go to the store in the afternoon and come home to find out they couldn’t park in front of their own house,鈥� he said.

Saltveit said he wishes neighbors were equally sympathetic to the challenges he faces.

鈥淏y code, you have a minimum density to meet,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou’re not going to build a single-family home. You just don’t have the density. So, people are freaking out.鈥�

Thomas said Saltveit has building codes on his side. Saltveit said it is the reverse: Corvallis citizens are clever adversaries.

鈥淭hey are very smart, very educated,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey can’t come out and say, 鈥楧on’t build it.’ They have these unbelievable design requirements you have to meet.鈥�

There are specific ratios for the size of a house in relationship to its garage. There are specific numbers of windows required, depending on a house’s size.

鈥淭here are a million architectural details,鈥� Saltveit said. 鈥淚t’s really overwhelming. I was able to work through that and get a product design.鈥�

Then neighbors come up with the idea of requiring one parking space per bedroom.

鈥淭he city council didn’t give anyone any window to respond,鈥� Saltveit said. 鈥淭he council will stand up and go on and on and on about affordable housing, but they’ve effectively eliminated multifamily housing.鈥�

Corvallis Planning Division Manager Kevin Young said that is overstating the matter. The parking requirement the city council approved in November was an honest attempt to control parking congestion near the OSU campus, he said.

Young admitted that the parking rule will make multifamily housing development more difficult.

鈥淚 think this rule change will make it more difficult to do that sort of development, but I would not go so far as to say it would be impossible,鈥� he said.

Mike Moore, a general contractor in Corvallis, said there seems to be a war in the community between practical, no-nonsense construction professionals and people who may live in local neighborhoods but spend most of their time in ivory towers.

鈥淭his is a huge change in law that is largely driven by aesthetic preferences and emotional arguments,鈥� Moore said.

Thomas said neighbors had to do something.

鈥淭he situation was getting completely out of hand,鈥� she said.