Lookout Update: UCSC says it will start constructing Student Housing West in the spring 

UC Santa Cruz officials say they’re planning to begin construction in the spring on a long-delayed project to add around 3,000 beds of housing on campus, but opponents say ongoing lawsuits could prevent the university from doing so.

The Student Housing West project includes two sites. A location on the East Meadow at the corner of Hagar and Coolidge drives at the base of campus will include 140 new two-bedroom apartments for students with families, a community room and an early childhood center that can care for 140 children. The Hagar site will start construction in 2024 and open to residents in fall 2025, according to UCSC spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason.   

After the Hagar site is completed, the university plans to begin construction of Phase 2 of the project, on Heller Drive on the west side of campus. The university will demolish the current family student housing and existing child care center to start construction on six buildings that will house about 2,700 undergraduates and 220 graduate students. The campus estimates this second phase will be completed by fall 2028.

The project was first approved by the University of California Board of Regents in 2019 and originally slated to open by 2022. Legal challenges delayed the project. 

Opponents of Student Housing West, who have filed a series of lawsuits against it, have focused on the Hagar site partly because they say the East Meadow should be preserved as a natural landscape. They also challenge the university’s promise to offer affordable rents. 

Don Stevens, who chairs the local group Habitat and Watershed Caretakers, says he doesn’t believe the university can start construction this spring. The group has filed two lawsuits specifically against Student Housing West and a third against the campus guiding document for future development, called the Long Range Development Plan. 

“I’m very doubtful that they will start construction in the spring because of the existing lawsuits,” he said. 

Stevens said the latest lawsuit against Student Housing West, which was filed in April, is scheduled for a court hearing March 7, and he believes a judge could potentially issue a ruling that may prevent the university from moving forward with the project. Because of that, Stevens said he doesn’t believe the university can start construction this spring. 

His Berkeley-based attorney, Stephen C. Volker, wrote in an email that another one of the ongoing cases against the project is currently in the court of appeal and “may result in an order overturning its approval.” He added that he expects a ruling within 90 days.  

Asked whether the lawsuits could delay the school’s spring timeline to begin construction on the Hagar site, Hernandez-Jason said: “I can just say that our plan is to begin construction in spring.”

In addition to lawsuits from Habitat and Watershed Caretakers, the university still faces separate, ongoing lawsuits by the City of Santa Cruz that are not related to Student Housing West. Instead, the lawsuits are about the Long Range Development Plan and water access.

In one lawsuit filed in January, the city argues that UCSC’s 2021 Long Range Development Plan doesn’t adequately consider the impact on the community if the university doesn’t have enough housing for all of its projected 8,500 additional students. 

The second lawsuit is a dispute over whether the city is required to supply water to UCSC property outside of city limits. In August 2022, a judge ruled that the city isn’t obligated to provide water access to the property outside of city limits. The university appealed the ruling.

Since last spring, Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley and UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive, along with their respective legal teams, have been trying to reach an agreement on both cases out of the courts. 

Those negotiations are ongoing, Keeley told Lookout last month. “They’re being conducted in good faith and we are continuing to meet and to me that’s a positive thing,” he said. “But we got a pretty considerable distance to go.”

Hernandez-Jason declined to comment on those lawsuits or provide updates about negotiations with the city, saying only that what Keeley said was accurate. 

Some campus families say the construction projects couldn’t come soon enough.

UCSC history professor Ben Breen and his wife, Roya Pakzad, say the lack of accessible child care has taken a toll on their well-being and their finances. The family lives across the street from the location where UCSC plans to construct its child care center but currently has to drive 30 minutes one-way to reach their nanny. They spend about $30,000 annually on child care fees for three days a week for their daughter. 

The university’s Early Education Services program is offered only to students with children. The proposed center at the Hagar site will be open to staff and faculty in addition to students once completed. 

“It’s just so frustrating. We can’t afford full-time child care,” Breen said. “It’s very hard to get off waitlists, and we both work full time.” 

They have a 2-year-old and a second child on the way early next year. Years ago, they thought Student Housing West would be completed in time for them to be able to send their first child there. 

“Now, it looks like it won’t be available in time for our new kid, who’s going to be ready for care in 2024,” he said.  

(Lookout founder Ken Doctor, a trustee on the UCSC foundation board, has been among the Student Housing West project’s critics.)

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