By EMILY SANDERSO
Tenants of the soon-to-be obsolete Wyview trailers will receive a newsletter at least once a month, have first priority on the waiting list for Wymount Terrace and personalized attention from the Housing Office, as communicated in a question-and-answer period for Wyview tenants by Dean Fairbank, assistant vice president over Student Auxiliary Services, and David Hunt, director of Housing Services.
The meeting, organized weeks ago by Bishop C. Wilford Griggs, was held in the cultural hall of the stake center west of the Stadium Thursday. The meeting allowed Wyview tenants to voice concerns they had about their displacement during the next year so that new apartments can be built on the land.
'What can we do to accommodate everyone that we can?' Fairbank said. 'When we do something this large, and this is a multibillion dollar project, there are going to be some displacements.'
Wyview tenants will be moved out of their trailers in three phases, according to a map of the area which was on display at the meeting. Tenants in the first phase will need to be moved out by May 1. Tenants in Phase II will be out by September, and tenants in the third phase will be out by January or May 1997.
A fourth phase will cover the area occupied by chicken coops owned by the Animal Science Departments. Housing Services plans to tear down the research facility and build a new one in Spanish Fork, although the Animal Science Department is reportedly not too happy about it, an administrator in Housing Services said.
Tenants in each phase are free to move anywhere they like, although Wymount Terrace is the least expensive and the most economical. Tenants in the first phase can also move to areas in the second and third stages until their deadlines, Fairbank said.
'If there's a vacancy, you'll be in it. Based on our projections, we should be able, keeping this cycle, to take care of everybody who's moving if they want to move into Wymount,' he said.
Some tenants at the meeting were concerned that they could not get a better deal anywhere outside of Wyview. Their rent is $10 or $15 less than Wymount, and they have exclusive washer and dryer hookups and swamp coolers which make electrical bills and laundry more economical.
In response, Fairbank said rent rates go up practically every year because of the increase in expenses. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not finance housing, so all expenses for housing must be paid out of tenants' rent.
'Housing is not a profit-oriented thing,' said Bart Stoddard, manager of the Business Office in Housing Services, in a recent interview. 'Auxiliary Services does not receive money from the church. They are expected to stand on their own without church subsidization.'
Stoddard, who handles rent and placement of BYU tenants, said he met with each family in Phase I in January.
'I met with families individually ... to discuss with them what their options are,' he said. 'I will meet with tenants in Phase II around the end of March and the first part of April.'
At the meeting, Fairbank encouraged Wyview tenants to meet together and find out who was going to leave the area and who would be moving into Wymount.
Fairbank said he was concerned about the time crunch they had to deal with in the first phase.
'The real hang up of the first phase (is that) we have to do it in such a short period of time,' Fairbank said. 'We have to move out 48 trailers in 30 days.'
Fairbank agreed to fence in the area where they will be moving out trailers during that 30 days in order to protect children. The area will be fenced in for the construction, under federal law, without fail.
Hunt said he would look into creating a new play area for the children, since their playground will be torn up in the first phase. He also said they would look into prohibiting construction workers from smoking and would put up warning signs for children and their mothers.
'Your kids are one of our biggest priorities,' Hunt said.
With some hesitation, Fairbank said the four new apartment buildings to be erected during Phase I are projected to be near completion in September.
'I've been here 20 years, and we've never finished a project on time,' he said. 'We're always behind.'
Fairbank addressed the construction boom on campus.
'There's a need. We just happen to be doing them all at once,' he said.
'(The new apartments) were approved (by the church) because we are so pressed to house married students.'
Wyview tenants, like all students, have to move a lot. Some at the meeting were upset that the extra move would mess up their plans. People in the first phase will have to move out five days after graduation, one woman pointed out. A man who was graduating said he wasn't planning on moving until his daughter was out of school in June. Now his family will have to move twice in one month.
'We're all pretty much transients because we've moved so many times,' one woman said.