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Tuesday,
February 24, 2004 |
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Not
fair
Laura
Vaillard is a junior international communications
and psychology major from Cordoba, Argentina.
Looking
for an apartment can be a frustrating hassle. But looking
for an apartment at a walking distance from campus, in
the middle of the semester, during a cold winter afternoon,
can make this hassle even more frustrating.
Bellaire residents recently received a letter from Award
Co. Realtors and Property Management saying they need
to leave the apartments by April 30, because the owner
plans to use the facilities for other purposes.
TCU students were told in an attached letter that they
would be allowed to move out May 15, so it wouldn’t
interfere with graduation.
TCU owns the land and plans to tear down the condominiums
to create 400 parking spots.
The parking lot will alleviate the parking problem, but
where are the people who live in Bellaire going to live
after the condominium is torn down?
Most Bellaire residents live there because they don’t
have a car and it is easy to walk to class.
Apartments within a walking distance of campus are limited,
so students will have a hard time finding a new place
to live after they move out.
In Kristy Cubstead’s article about the Bellaire apartments
Feb. 13, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Don Mills
said “TCU has ‘offered to provide campus housing
in the summer or next fall if they wish.’”
As stated, it sounds like students won’t have a problem
finding a place to live if all they have to do after they
move out of Bellaire is move back into the dorms.
However, the article omits the fact that on-campus housing
is significantly more expensive than renting an apartment
in Bellaire, so it is not an appealing option for students.
Besides, students will lose many of their freedoms by
moving back to campus.
I was also very disappointed to see that Cubstead’s
article ignored how the issue affects the students living
in the apartments.
My roommate and I, for example, moved to the Bellaire
House Condominium Jan. 13. Before we moved in, we asked
the person who was renting us the apartments if it was
true the apartments were going to be torn down in June.
The employee of Award Realtors and Property Management
Co. told us they didn’t know anything about that.
So my roommate and I decided to ignore the rumors and
move in.
After we received the letter Tuesday, we could not believe
it was time to start apartment hunting again. Finding
a new place to live won’t be easy. So we’ll
have no choice but to move back on campus or start begging
our parents for a car.
We all know how that goes. So right now the only option
is to start packing. |
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