If we can't shrink the room, maybe we could have smaller students...

Affordable housing?

We'll be reviewing the Regents meeting of this past week as time permits. But here's a piece on part of the meetings from the LA Times: 

UCLA has been planning the best deal in town for student housing: a new residence hall featuring shared living, study and socializing spaces with most rooms going for just $600 a month — 66% below projected market rates in the pricey Westwood neighborhood where the campus is located. But the eight-story, 545-bed project hit a roadblock Thursday, when the University of California Regents deferred a vote on its budget and design after raising crucial questions about whether the rooms were too small and what potential impact that might have on student mental health. The planned space is 265 square feet for three beds, desks, closets, storage space and a refrigerator.

“I don’t want to call these jails,” Regent Hadi Makarechian said during finance committee discussions Wednesday, “but ... these aren’t really good dorms.”

Regent John A. Pérez noted that research has found that “micro-units” have been linked to negative mental health effects. When a UCLA official said he was trying to keep costs down for low-income students, Pérez took umbrage at the implication that “for poor kids, this density is OK.” This prompted an apology from the official, Pete Angelis, UCLA assistant vice chancellor of housing and hospitality.

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, an ex-officio regent, lamented the trend of “smaller and smaller” spaces as campuses cram more students into rooms to address the affordable housing crisis.

“It really is worrisome,” she said. “What it comes down to is your efforts to use every square foot of land to produce space for as many students as possible. But there is a limit that can get us to the point where students can ... really experience negative mental health impact by the way that they’re being asked to live.”

The regents asked UCLA to come back with more information comparing the project’s room size and cost per bed to others across the UC system, along with student feedback on their living spaces. They will reconsider the project in November...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-22/uc-regents-question-small-room-size-of-new-ucla-dorm-delaying-approval.

If past history is any guide, there will be some modification and reframing and the project will be approved. At least, that was the history of the UCLA Grand Hotel (at which the Regents met) when in was up for approval, as long-time blog readers will know.