Bend OKs OSU-Cascades campus: What’s next?

The Bend City Council unanimously approved the controversial OSU-Cascades Westside four-year campus plans on Monday. So what’s the next step?

“Council gave a verbal okay — they voted unanimously to uphold the hearing officer’s decision,” city Communications Director Justin Finestone said Tuesday.

The road has not been smooth, or short, so far — and Monday’s five-hour hearing was likely not the final step.

“It took a while — the testimony, and then council took time thoughtfully deliberating before coming to a decision,” Finestone said.

One major discussion was parking. And as of now, OSU-Cascades will have a total of 320 parking spaces.

It says that’s enough.

“We put four separate methodologies out there around what the parking counts will be,” OSU-Cascades Finance and Strategic Planning Analyst Kelly Sparks said.

But there were new conditions added by the council as it reviewed staff proposals.

“If parking becomes a problem for the campus in that neighborhood, then OSU would have to redo their parking plan with a lot of public involvement with the neighbors,” Finestone said.

OSU says it’s happy to comply, but it’s confident in what it calls a modern approach, expecting nearly a third of students to walk, bike, use transit or otherwise avoid driving to and from the campus.

“Is it aspirational? Yes. I think campuses need to be aspirational about what we are trying to achieve,” Sparks said.

The campus will be accepting application for fall of 2015, even if the physical campus does not yet exist.

“So we don’t anticipate that we will be hosting those classes on a new physical campus, we will be hosting those classes in one of our current buildings,” Sparks said.

While the decision was exciting for some; the opposition is also heard loud and clear.

“There’s a lot of really involved citizens on the Westside and throughout the city,” Finestone said.

While the road has been long, he added, “We’re glad that both sides are involved so we can have informed decisions and have a good plan in the end.”

But that plan still needs some work.

“There is still quite a bit of work to do for that 2015 campus,” Sparks said.

At the Oct. 15 council meeting, staff will return with a written decision, for a final vote — and then opponents have three weeks to file an appeal to the state Land Use Board of Appeals.

The official opposition, Truth In Site’s lawyer tells NewsChannel 21 that he is not surprised with the decision — and they will definitely be appealing –.