Highlands rezoning may shift housing

A proposed zoning amendment for the Highlands neighborhood of State College Borough could reorganize where many University students will live in coming years.

At Tuesday's State College Borough Council meeting, Undergraduate Student Government Director of Town Affairs Jamie Klingler said if the proposed amendment passes in the Highlands neighborhood, students will be forced to move into outlying communities, such as Ferguson and Patton townships, when many would rather live closer to the University.

Klingler added that as University enrollment increases, more students will have to live off of campus grounds, and the amendment will help prevent that from happening.

Klingler said she disapproves of the amendment because the presence of University students in the community is important.

"We may be a transient community, but we have been here, and will continue to be here," Klingler said.

The Highlands neighborhood roughly lies between South Atherton Street, the Easterly Parkway, University Drive and Beaver Avenue.

The proposed amendment would change some areas of the Highland neighborhood from R-3 and RO districts into R-2, R3-H and RO-A districts. However, the amendment would not change the use of present buildings and would only affect buildings constructed in the future.

State College Borough Planning Commission Chairman Drew Hyman said Tuesday that changes are proposed to discourage large apartment structures from being built and therefore lower the density of the Highlands neighborhood.

Each zoning district has specific uses and guidelines, including the following:

-- R-2, residential district for single-family homes or duplexes.

-- R-3, same guidelines as R-2 with the addition of fraternity and sorority houses and multi-family dwellings not exceeding six units permitted.

-- R3-H, same guidelines as R-3, except multi-family dwellings cannot exceed four units. The purpose of this district is to provide a density transition between the R-2 and R-3 districts.

-- RO, residential office district that permits everything encompassed in the R-3 with the addition of offices, rooming houses and other small-scale businesses.

-- RO-A, same guidelines as RO, except a multi-unit building may only have three units and must not exceed two bedrooms per unit.

Borough Planner Rochelle Paletta said she estimates that the present R-3 areas that may be rezoned to R-2 areas in the Highlands area comprise about 50 percent of the changes involved in the amendment. She also estimated that three-fourths of the RO area in the Highlands is proposed to change to RO-A.

Borough council member Janet Knauer said the intent of the proposed changes is to minimize some of the density of the Highlands area and to maintain a healthy mix of residents.

"I don't believe this is an anti-student amendment," Knauer said "Yes, there will be fewer dwellings for students to move into in the future, but if they get mad at what we're trying to do, then I see that as inflammatory and inappropriate."

Knauer said she understands students want to live close to the University, but they also need to realize the impact they have on the permanent residents in their neighborhoods.

In addition to concerns of fewer apartments, Knauer said she hopes students realize some of the other impacts of the proposed amendment.

"We're trying to prevent some of the contributing structures to the historic district from being torn down to make apartment buildings," Knauer said. "I'm sure students have fond memories of walking through that part of town and looking at the beautiful older homes, and I would hope that students would support that."

Nina White, who has lived in the Highlands neighborhood since 1976, said the pending changes are not a retaliation of homeowners against students.

"It saddens me that students who know we're for the changes also think we're anti-student," White said.

White said the growing density in her neighborhood will limit diversity, an attribute she likes about the Highland neighborhood.

"We've liked the mix of people who live here," White said. "This is a fragile area and it's an issue of preserving what we have . . . . This fragile neighborhood contains things that the students enjoy, like the trees. That could be lost one day and replaced with apartment complexes."