Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : CITIES : Chapman Center OKd, With a Proviso
Arguments raged back and forth for months, but the Orange City Council finally ended the debate between angry residents and Chapman College officials last week by voting to approve the college’s controversial $10-million Learning Center.
The 4-0 approval was made contingent, however, on a residential parking program to keep Chapman students from parking on neighborhood streets.
Opposition to the Learning Center was spearheaded by the Old Towne Preservation Assn., an organization of residents who live in homes beside the college. The group’s president, Dale Rahn, argued that the “height and mass†of the proposed multistory Learning Center “are inappropriate for Old Towne.†Some residents also feared that it would create more traffic and parking problems in the neighborhood.
The dispute over the Learning Center has provoked what many consider Chapman College’s most serious crisis since the private, four-year college moved to Orange from Los Angeles in 1954. After the Orange Planning Commission unexpectedly rejected the building plans on Oct. 6, Chapman College President G. T. (Buck) Smith said the institution might consider moving to another city.
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