Multifamily projects in Corvallis Seventh Street Station: 82 units specifically geared toward students Developer: Dallas-based Fountain Residential Partners Status: Application submitted to the city and under review Walnut Creek: 80 residential units and 66,000 square feet of industrial development not geared toward students Developer: Corvallis-based A.B.I. Enterprises Status: Land-use application approved by city last week Harrison Apartments: 91 residential units geared toward students Developer: Samaritan Health Services and Portland-based Project Ecological Development Status: Application pending – review before planning commission not yet scheduled Seavey Meadows: Mix of dwelling units, including 24 multifamily affordable housing units Developer: Willamette Neighborhood Housing Services Status: Permits approved, project under development Alexander Court: 24 multifamily affordable housing units Developer: Willamette Neighborhood Housing Services Status: Permits approved, project under development Source: city of Corvallis Planning Division

Year-round residents can sense when students arrive in Corvallis, city Planning Division Manager Kevin Young said. But this fall, people in the city could really feel it.

Enrollment at Oregon State University has grown rapidly in recent years, and the city has not had sufficient housing stock to meet demand. Some students are crowding into townhomes and neighborhood homes, while others are renting in Albany, Lebanon and Philomath and then commuting. Congestion in Corvallis is increasing.

But a solution – a partial one, at least – may be forthcoming. City planners say that in the past six months they’ve seen a sudden surge of interest from local and out-of-state developers to build new multifamily, off-campus apartment units. Also, the city is seeking to work with OSU to address growing pains.

OSU spokesman Todd Simmons said that the school has grown by 5 to 8 percent annually over the past several years.

“We have around 25,000 students this fall,” Simmons said. “And already we were looking at a situation in Corvallis where there wasn’t any vacancy in the rental market.”

Even before the beginning of this school year, the apartment vacancy rate in Corvallis was less than 1 percent, Young said.

The city always plans for the university to grow, Young said, but the rate was “a surprise.”

“It’s a mixed bag,” he said. “For our development services group that is continuing to stay busy with permit applications, it’s a good thing.”

Corvallis associate planner Jared Voice identified three multifamily developments approved by the city; one under review; one in the land-use process; and one the city expects to go before the planning commission in the next month.

Those six developments are a small number compared to the number of possible projects that could enter the application process, Voice said.

“There’s been an abrupt uptick in interest in developing multifamily units,” Voice said. “We’ve gotten calls from people all over the country who specialize in developing student housing.”

One of the developers is Portland-based Project Ecological Development, which is working with Samaritan Health Services to develop a 91-unit apartment building for students near campus, on the site of the former Heart of the Valley Care Center.

“There’s a big demand from the university side, and a lot is being met by infill, townhomes and students in single-family neighborhoods,” Project Ecological Development partner Anyeley Hallova said.

Apartments and similar housing are more appropriate for students than infill types, she said. But students are moving into all sorts of multifamily developments. One is affordable housing, because demand has pushed up rental rates, said Tom Gerding, owner and president of T. Gerding Construction.

“It’s making it very challenging for the year-round residents of Corvallis to find affordable housing,” he said.

Gerding’s company is working on two 25-unit affordable housing complexes in Corvallis. It also recently completed a 135-unit multifamily complex and will soon start work on an 82-unit student housing development. The Corvallis-based firm actually shifted its focus toward multifamily housing construction in anticipation of demand; in the past it built more commercial and medical buildings, Gerding said.

Corvallis resident Louise Marquering has lived in the city for 43 years. She started a group called “Corvallis Matters” to represent residents’ concerns about OSU’s rapid growth.

For her, the increasing student population has resulted in traffic congestion, especially near the campus. She also is concerned about the number of apartments that will need to be built to accommodate more students.

“OSU needs to be involved in planning how they will house the number of students they’re planning to bring,” she said.

Young said that the city and university are working to plan jointly for the future. City Council set collaboration with OSU as one of its four goals for the session. The two groups signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this year and have established a scoping committee with representatives from both the city and the university to determine where and how that collaborative planning might happen, Young said.

“Traffic conditions have worsened; that’s anecdotal,” he said. “And there are other issues that come with density: behavioral impacts of rowdy students, and impacts to neighborhood character (where redevelopment is happening).”

The university is already working on an update of its 2004 master plan.

“That will work well to address some of the issues that are happening now, and put in place some more long-term fixes,” Young said.

The college does plan to slow growth, and has plans to build at least one more residence hall on campus in the next few years, Simmons said.

Gerding expects construction growth to slow too. He noted that there is a limited amount of land in Corvallis where apartments can be developed.

“This year was a bit of an anomaly,” Gerding said.