BOTHELL, Wash. — Jannelle Loewen thought her college days were far behind her. She picked her house in Bothell for its peace and quiet.
“These particular trees I have to say have been my friends,” she said, pointing to the forest behind her house.
She says it’s a friendship that’s grown over the 30 years Loewen has lived there, but the University of Washington-Bothell campus is growing too.
“Seven years ago because of a great demand we were authorized by the legislature to bring in our first freshman class,” explained UW-Bothell Vice Chancellor Ana Karaman.
And the campus has exploded since then from 2,000 to 5,000 students with a goal of 10,000 including Cascadia Community College by 2019. Yet there’s only beds for 250 of those students on campus.
The university is already building more parking behind neighbors’ houses and now they want to build a 120,000-square-foot dorm.
“If you took city hall from downtown and put it behind our house but made it bigger, that would be the size of the dormitory,” said Katherine Podany, another neighbor.
The university can legally build closer to the houses than the planned 60-foot setback with a landscaping buffer at 30 feet and higher than their planned 45 feet, but the vice chancellor says they want to be good neighbors.
They’ve already hosted three public meetings about the project. Loewen has gone to them and says she won’t change her mind. She understands students want to live on campus—but — but she doesn’t.
“It would devastate me and the whole neighborhood, children,” she concluded.
The university stresses this is still just a proposed site. The next meeting will be March 1.Loewen and her neighbors tell us they’ll be there to provide opposition.
KIRO
