Santa Barbara's Continuing Housing Crunch and the Larger Issue - Part 2

We previously posted about UC-Santa Barbara's housing problems.* Although the legislature and the Regents want to increase UC enrollment substantially, there is also local opposition to be considered. 

From Noozhawk, 10-6-21, Jade Martinez-Pogue

...At a time when students are desperate to find housing on or near the oceanfront campus — with some living out of their cars or having to make an hourlong commute — the university is facing accusations of breaching its contract to accommodate housing for the increased student enrollment. In 2010, the university entered into a contract with Santa Barbara County and the City of Goleta in which the university committed to capping enrollment at 25,000 students through the year 2025, to build housing for the 5,000 students it planned on adding, and to construct about 1,800 new faculty and staff units.  Housing became the centerpiece of the 2010 Long-Range Development Plan. However, many community members were unhappy with the agreement and came together to create Sustainable University Now, an organization made up of community advocates. 

SUN, comprised of the Citizens Planning Association, the Coalition for Sustainable Transportation, the League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara County Action Network, among others, entered into a separate but parallel agreement with the university that created more specific housing accommodations and requirements, according to George Relles, a leader of Sustainable University Now and a Goleta environmental activist. Santa Barbara County and SUN are both accusing the university of violating the contract by not addressing issues of traffic, congestion and housing. 

The county has been in mitigation and settlement discussions with the university, but Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann said she believes that the “negotiations have gone as far as they’re going to go.” The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors planned to discuss the negotiations in a closed session during Tuesday’s meeting, according to Hartmann. The agenda included a closed session item to consider initiating civil litigation, and the Board of Supervisors reported no action out of the meeting...

The county’s contract with the university requires yearly meetings to look at enrollment numbers, and that meeting has not occurred at all this year, according to Hartmann. “The meeting was set, and evidently it did not get put on the university’s calendar,” Hartmann said. “We do not have a date that the university is willing to sit down.” Third District Representative Gina Fischer said the university used to publish a report that would detail where students were living, and that report has not been sent to Hartmann’s office in two years and can no longer be found online...

Full story at:

https://www.noozhawk.com/amp/county_accuses_ucsb_violating_long_range_development_plan_housing_shortage.

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2021/10/santa-barbaras-continuing-housing.html.