Housing, cease-fire, and more: Four things to takeaway from West Lafayette's meeting

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — This month's West Lafayette City Council covered several topics over the span of two hours that ranged from a resolution aimed at addressing the city's housing crisis, the mayor's State of the City address, the annexation of land into West Lafayette and a public protest calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.

A resolution that asks residents to help house Purdue students

Over the last few years, the City of West Lafayette has attempted to address the growing need for housing aimed at Purdue University students as the university continued to increase the school’s yearly admission rate, without providing additional housing options for students.

This issue grew to the point where West Lafayette and Tippecanoe County as a whole needed to acknowledge that the county was dealing with a housing crisis.

Since this issue came to light, the university began building new residential housing aimed at servicing its undergraduate and graduate students, but these housing projects aren’t expected to be completed until 2026 and 2027.

In hopes of alleviating the housing crisis in West Lafayette over the next few years as new housing projects are built, councilmembers Stacey Burr, Colin Lee and Laila Veidmanis proposed a resolution that aims to bring awareness to the area’s crisis and encourage residents to open their homes to Purdue students and potentially rent out rooms to incoming students.

The resolution specifically asked residents with underutilized living space that could potentially be rented out to students to apply for the city’s rental housing inspection program, which would allow property owners to rent out these rooms to students.

Councilmembers emphasized that this resolution was not promoting residents to create short-term rental options like Airbnb rentals, but, specifically, they wanted owners to promote long-term leases to students.

The resolution did see some pushback from residents who asked why the burden of housing students should fall on the shoulders of West Lafayette residents when it was a problem developed by Purdue University’s continual growth.

But ultimately the city council approved the resolution and hoped that it may persuade some residents to welcome students into their homes and help address the housing crisis of the county.

Purdue students call for city council to adopt cease-fire resolution

Since the start of the Israel and Palestine conflict, Purdue University students have protested on an almost weekly basis calling for the United States to push for a cease-fire in the Middle East in hopes that Israel will stop its bombardment on the residents of Gaza.

Student organizations Purdue Young Democratic Socialists of America and Students for Justice in Palestine moved their protest to March’s city council, calling for the council to adopt a resolution that would support a cease-fire in Gaza, acknowledge the genocide happening in Palestine and potentially see the city divest funds from supporting Israel.

Around 40 students were at March’s meeting, many of whom held signs reading “Free Palestine” and other pro-Palestine sentiments. There were several students who addressed the council, showcasing photos of Palestinians who have been killed in the conflict and asking how the council could move forward without supporting a cease-fire in the Middle East.

A couple of Palestinian students shared how their families have died in the conflict and shared how hurt they’ve felt by both Purdue University’s and West Lafayette’s silence on the conflict happening in Gaza.

After the students spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting, they left the city council meeting room and began chanting pro-Palestine statements outside city hall.

The chants could clearly be heard in the city council meeting room.

After the meeting, West Lafayette City Council Vice President Kathy Parker noted that the city council members were listening to the students and emphasized that the city council does not support genocide.

She also expressed that the city council members would discuss the idea of a resolution but did not know if they would ultimately create or adopt a resolution that would address the issues happening in Gaza.

Purdue Research Foundation voluntary annexation of land

The West Lafayette City Council received a petition from the Purdue Research Foundation requesting the council to annex two parcels of land that are approximately 60 acres and owned by the foundation into the current city boundaries.

The parcels of land are the agricultural land that lies between County Road North 100 West and Vicksburg Lane and below Shining Armor Lane.

The parcels are currently zoned for agricultural uses, but leaders from the Purdue Research Foundation have noted that they have plans to develop office and research facilities as part of the Purdue Research Park on this land.

The city approved the resolution and annexed the land into West Lafayette.

As part of the annexation, the city will provide public services such as street construction, street lighting, sewer facilities, water facilities, and storm water drainage facilities to the area within the next three years.

The city will also provide police protection, fire protection, emergency medical services, street maintenance, and trash and recycling collection services to the area.

State of the City

Echoing her sentiment from the Greater Lafayette Commerce State of the Cities and County event, West Lafayette Mayor Erin Easter expressed her appreciation for the growth of the city and her plans for developing the city.

Easter started off her speech by acknowledging the hard work the previous nine mayors of West Lafayette accomplished throughout their tenure to help cultivate the current state of the city.

She then highlighted one of the main aspects of West Lafayette that she plans to develop over the next few years, which is to address the city’s lack of a traditional downtown area.

Currently, the city's pseudo downtown is the Chauncey Hill area, where many Purdue University students mingle throughout the day.

In the upcoming years, Easter hopes to develop the area between River Road and the Wabash River and turn it into West Lafayette’s new downtown. The goal would be to redevelop those areas by creating housing, restaurants and retail opportunities, as well as office spaces.

Easter hopes to develop a sister downtown that will meet Lafayette’s downtown at the John T. Myers Pedestrian Bridge.

Noe Padilla is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email him at Npadilla@jconline.com and follow him on X at 1NoePadilla.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Four things to takeaway from West Lafayette's March meeting