Regents OK UCSC project for 2nd time
Student Housing West project was drafted to include 3,000 more beds on campus
The UC Board of Regents reapproved the Student Housing West project Thursday for UC Santa Cruz.
The project was originally approved two years ago, in March 2019. It was drafted to include 3,000 more beds on campus at affordable rates that are comparable to apartment rates in Santa Cruz.
The project boasts an additional facility on the corner of Hagar and Coolidge drives. It will support an additional 125 beds for students with families and will also feature a child care facility.
“Students should be focused on their studies — not whether they’ll be able to find an affordable place to live,” UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive said in a statement. “This project will offer our current students many more options for living on campus and allow them to avoid competing in the local housing market, which is only growing more expensive.”
A Santa Cruz County Superior Court rescinded the project’s previous approval in October over a handful of procedural violations. The regents rejected project alternatives as economically infeasible, despite a lack of sufficient evidence for the board to come to that conclusion, according to the ruling from Judge Paul Burdick.
The environmental impact report analysis was also only given to a handful of regents, the ruling stated. Only three regents voted on the approval. Nine regents are required to be present to meet a quorum.
Burdick’s ruling stated the UC Regents must set aside all documents and programs that lead the project’s approval. They were also required to set aside the approval of the project. However, the ruling did not bar the university from developing the project at a future date.
The ruling came after a handful of lawsuits surrounding the family living portion of the project. It is planned to be developed at the south end of the East Meadow. Local environmentalists have made this a point of contention around the project. The meadow is considered a dispersal habitat for the California redlegged frog, an endangered species.
Arguments for the project cite the need for additional less expensive oncampus housing. However, there is no opposition to the idea.
“The main argument offered in favor of the project, repeatedly, was that the need for on-campus housing was great and needs to be met as soon as possible, but all parties agree on that,” reads a statement from the East Meadow Action Committee, one of the staunchest opponent of the project’s extension into the East Meadow.
The project the regents reapproved Thursday does not differ from the one originally approved and rescinded, according to UC Santa Cruz Spokesman Scott Hernandez-Jason. The university hopes to start construction soon, he said. The university does not have an expected timeline for completion.
“I have come to understand that building anywhere on our campus is a tightrope walk. We live, work and learn in a stunning natural setting. Regardless of where we build, there will be impacts and opposition,” Larive said in a March 5 statement. “I believe strongly that Student Housing West, as approved by the Regents in March 2019, is the best path for us to deliver more desperately needed quality housing for our students as quickly as possible and at the lowest possible price.”