A group of tenants in apartments on West Beaver Avenue will be displaced, starting in July, to make room for a new borough parking deck.

The need for parking, both on campus and in downtown State College, is a constant concern and object of student complaint. The borough, in taking the initiative to plan for an additional deck, is taking a step in the right direction to meet an expressed need.

Obviously, in order to put a deck anywhere near where parking is needed, some existing structure would have to be uprooted.

However, the way that decisions to use the West Beaver Avenue property were made was unfair to the tenants who live there.

Full disclosure of possible use of a property is part of a fair, conscientious landlord-tenant relationship. In this case, the borough notified owners of preliminary plans for the deck in January. On March 1, the State College Borough Council passed a resolution for eminent domain to condemn the buildings and convert the property into public land for the deck. On March 22, a Haranin Enterprises employee notified its 25 tenants in the area that they must vacate the rented property at the end of July.

Some tenants had already signed leases for the following year -- some students who spoke to The Daily Collegian said they signed in October -- and must now search for new housing at a time when most apartments are already filled.

The company said it did not notify tenants earlier because the borough's decision on the land was not final. Common professional courtesy would dictate that Haranin Enterprises would tell its tenants of the possibility of the negation of a lease, giving them time to consider other housing options.

Now, they are forced to scramble to find a home at the last minute.

Also, this is crunch time of the semester, and the students who are also tenants of this location now have the added stress of finding a new place to live -- when they thought they had settled housing arrangements well in advance.

A new parking deck is something that the town needs, and that will undoubtedly be appreciated when it is completed in July 2005. Parking has been a large problem here for quite some time.

However, not telling tenants about a possible seizure of their apartment building -- of their home -- amounts to unethical business practices.