The University of California Board of Regents earlier today issued Student Housing West finance and project approvals, allowing the campus to move forward with the development. The campus will solicit bids for the first phase of the project later this year, with the goal of starting construction in early 2024.
Student Housing West includes bed space for more than 3,000 students. The project, spread over two campus sites, also allows UC Santa Cruz to expand childcare services.
Student Housing West provides the most rapid and direct route to creating more housing for undergraduate and graduate students. Stable, affordable housing is a foundation for student success, one of the campus’s highest priorities.
“A UC Santa Cruz education is transformational, and studies have shown, time and time again, that for students to be successful, they need their basic needs met. Student Housing West will go a long way in helping us meet the housing needs of our students,” Chancellor Cynthia Larive said. “I’m thankful that we are finally moving forward with this project.”
A number of local elected officials offered their support for the project. Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley traveled to the Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco, telling the UC leaders of his support for the university and Student Housing West, and that the Santa Cruz City Council voted unanimously to back the project. County Supervisor Zach Friend also urged approval, noting in a letter to the board the tremendous local need for more student housing, and the connection between housing and student success.
In the first phase of the Student Housing West project, UC Santa Cruz will build 140 new two-bedroom apartments for students with families, a community room, and a childcare center. The new early childhood education center will serve up to 140 children of faculty and staff as well as students, roughly double the capacity of our current facility. The new Family Student Housing community will be adjacent to the intersection of Hagar and Coolidge drives, across the street from existing employee housing, close to a local elementary school, and near the main campus entrance. The new housing community is anticipated to open for students with families in fall 2025.
After the new Family Student Housing community is built, UC Santa Cruz will remove the aging buildings currently home to students with families so that the campus can build six new buildings that will provide housing for approximately 2,700 undergraduate students and 220 graduate students. The campus anticipates that the second phase could be completed in fall 2028.
There are currently limited on-campus housing options for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students. Many of these students must find housing in the surrounding community, which remains in a severe housing crisis like much of the state.
All of these new on-campus beds are in addition to the roughly 600 that campus is adding through its ongoing renovation and expansion of Kresge College.
In addition to providing significantly more housing, Student Housing West will advance the campus’s long-standing commitment to sustainability. The project includes solar panels and other energy-efficiency design features as well as a water-recycling facility that will allow UC Santa Cruz to reuse wastewater for non-potable uses, such as flushing toilets and irrigation.
Regents certified the project Environmental Impact Report and approved the business terms and design in March 2019. Since then, the project has been mired in the courts, with lawsuits challenging regental approval and EIR certification. Santa Cruz County Superior Court has twice upheld the adequacy of the EIR, as did the Sixth District Court of Appeal. Regents re-approved the project in March 2021. A final appeal filed by a project opponent is pending.
“Moving forward on Student Housing West is a milestone for our campus, and I’m thrilled for the students who will ultimately benefit, but university leadership understands that one project does not solve our housing woes,” said Chancellor Larive. “We will continue to steadfastly pursue additional housing opportunities for our students, faculty and staff.”
FAQs
What is happening with Student Housing West?
To move forward with plans to build housing for more than 3,000 students, UC Santa Cruz secured finance and project approvals from the UC Board of Regents. This means that the campus will be able to solicit bids to build a new housing complex for students with families at the intersection of Hagar and Coolidge drives. This first phase of the project will include 140 two-bedroom apartments, a community room, and a new early childhood education center.
When will construction begin for the first phase?
UC Santa Cruz will solicit construction bids later this year with the goal of starting construction in early 2024. The Family Student Housing community is anticipated to open in fall 2025.
When will construction begin on the second phase?
Once the new Family Student Housing community opens, UC Santa Cruz will be able to tear down aging buildings and construct new housing for upper division undergraduate and graduate students along Heller Drive, on the west side of campus. This phase of the project will include six new buildings that will provide housing for approximately 2,700 undergraduate students and 220 graduate students. The campus anticipates that this construction will be completed by fall 2028.
Why has the project been delayed?
Student Housing West was first approved in early 2019, though lawsuits prevented the campus from meeting its original timeline to build more housing.
What changed with the financing?
UC Santa Cruz secured approval from the UC Board of Regents to implement Student Housing West as a campus-managed capital project. The project was initially proposed and approved as a public-private partnership. Switching to UC financing will be cheaper than private financing, and enables UC Santa Cruz to move forward in the most cost-effective and expeditious manner without further delay from ongoing litigation.
