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| "A Crowded Village Scene" Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot (1586-1666) --- It probably won't look like this. --- |
It won’t completely quench UC San Diego’s thirst for campus housing. But an idea has surfaced that’s likely to please students — and anger neighbors who already think the fast-growing school is far too big. Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, an engineer by trade and passion, said he is considering building a village near Interstate 5 that would house 5,000 to 6,000 students. The cost: way north of $1 billion.
Such a project would be among the largest housing expansions that any American university has undertaken in years. Khosla said that he’s exploring the possibility because many students can’t afford to pay for housing in pricey La Jolla and UTC, where the vacancy rate is 3.9 percent, lower than it is in Coronado, Point Loma and Mission Valley.
As UCSD prepares to begin the fall quarter with a record 42,300 students, the chancellor also said he’s trying to reduce the impact of students “going out there and living in the community and jacking up the prices” by competing for housing.
It’s the sort of comment that irks Patrick Maher, a businessman who lives in the nearby La Jolla Shores neighborhood. “I support higher education,” he said. “But our community is bulging at the seams. With the traffic from UCSD, you can’t get out of the shore or village. The university is out of control.”
The traffic problem is being compounded by the overall growth of the region. But others also see UCSD as the main villain. "The idea that UCSD should house and admit more students than the local infrastructure allows is abusive to the residents of San Diego, La Jolla and the millions of tourists who also use our roads and infrastructure,” said Cameron Volker, a retired real estate agent who lives in La Jolla Shores.
Khosla likes to float ideas, and his latest is still speculative...
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