Washington State University Vancouver is taking another step toward building student housing, requesting a code change that could allow up to 700 students to live at the Salmon Creek-area campus.
The Clark County Council is slated to meet this month to discuss updates to its development code, which would allow dormitories on campus.
Lynn Valenter, vice chancellor for finance and operations, stressed that WSU Vancouver is early in the process of building dorms. There isn’t even a project formally proposed; the only sign of residence halls are two blue squares sketched at the south end of a campus map in the university’s 2018 campus master plan.
“I don’t have a project that says, ‘I’m building the minute we get zoning,'” Valenter said.
If built, each residence hall could hold between 300 and 350 students. There were 3,577 students enrolled at WSU Vancouver as of fall 2018.
Valenter added that the university will still have to secure funding, since the state doesn’t fund campus housing.
“We’d need to partner somewhere,” Valenter said.
It’s all vague for now, but the proposed dormitories are already attracting buzz.
Vince Chavez, student body president at WSU Vancouver, called the addition of dormitories the “next natural step” for the suburban campus. Chavez used to be a student ambassador for the school, giving tours to prospective students. The most common questions he heard were about housing: whether students on a budget can afford an apartment, whether places to live are close, whether housing is accessible.
“It becomes difficult for our students to find affordable housing and go to school full-time, as well as thinking about those finances,” Chavez said. “It just seems like the next step and right move to make.”
But David Percival, president of the Mount Vista Homeowners Association, worries how hundreds of students on campus will affect the surrounding neighborhood. He fears additional students on campus might exacerbate parking problems in the neighborhood. Percival said commuting students often park on the streets surrounding the college on their way to school, and worries students living on campus will do the same.
“I just can’t see how it’s not going to be a problem,” he said.
For more information about the proposed zoning change, visit www.clark.wa.gov/community-planning/university-district-code-update. The Clark County Council will host a work session at 11 a.m. Jan. 16 at the Clark County Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin St.
