UCSC officials tell Camper Park students they can stay through the end of the academic year

Last week, UC Santa Cruz officials told 41 students who live in a trailer park on campus that they had to move out by the end of March because of safety concerns. Now, officials say they can stay, so long as they unhook their propane tanks. 

Olivia Howell, a residential assistant at Camper Park, said she and others at the park were surprised and relieved to receive the update from university officials. 

“I was not expecting it,” she said Monday. 

Last Tuesday, Dave Keller, interim associate vice chancellor for Colleges, Housing and Educational Services, informed the trailer park’s residents in a meeting that the university couldn’t allow students to live there any longer until it could assess safety issues. He cited fire hazards, escalating mold issues, the lifespan of recreational vehicles and increased maintenance requests as the primary reasons why the university was looking to close the 40-year-old trailer park. 

Howell said during that meeting students were shocked, and they offered ideas to be allowed to stay – including unhooking their propane tanks. The propane tanks are used for the trailers’ kitchen stoves and some also serve as a water heater. However, Keller responded that the decision had already been made and students had to relocate. University officials encouraged students to make appointments with staff in order to find new housing. 

So when Howell and other Camper Park residents received an email Thursday saying they could stay, they were surprised and confused. In the email, Ryan Macleod, associate director of Affiliated Residential Community Housing, said housing officials agreed with the idea from students to unhook propane tanks. 

“We agree that this is a viable alternative to relocation and will allow all who agree to this option to remain in their trailers through spring quarter and the conclusion of their current contracts,” he wrote in the email. “Since this would eliminate the possibility of cooking inside the trailers, we will also provide a [free] Banana Slug Points meal plan to those agreeing to this option.” 

The Banana Slug Points meal plan provides three meals a day, seven days a week at the on-campus dining halls. The plan costs $2,567.34 per quarter or $256 for an average week of meals. 

Macleod added that students who want to move out can do so and keep paying the same rate they pay for Camper Park regardless of the housing arrangement they choose on campus. A unit in the park costs about $6,500 to $7,200 a year without a meal plan, compared to single units in the dorms that cost $21,429 with a meal plan. 

Howell said she thinks the majority of residents will stay until the end of spring quarter, and maybe five to 10 residents might take the university’s offer and end up leaving Camper Park for alternative housing. 

Living without the propane tanks will complicate things, Howell said. 

“It will be hard because I can’t use the burners,” she said, adding: “It’s not a horrible inconvenience.” 

She said some residents have health conditions – like a severe allergy or gluten intolerance –  that prevent them from being able to eat at the university’s dining halls, so the university is working with those students to find another option. 

Howell added that she’s trying to set up a meeting this week with housing officials to discuss maintenance concerns. She said in prior years, one primary maintenance worker helped with needed repairs and often taught students basic upkeep of the trailers. 

This past year, however, new workers, who Howell says aren’t as efficient as the prior worker, started to respond to requests. In several cases, Howell said, students noticed water leaks worsened after workers responded to fix pipes.  

In his email, Macleod also urged the residents to apply for university housing for the next academic year as UCSC will be doing an assessment to determine whether or not Camper Park will remain open after this year. 

Keller told Lookout on Monday that a working group will assess the safety and sustainability of Camper Park, and based on its review, the university will announce by the end of the year whether the park will continue to operate. He said the group will include representatives from the university’s fire department, police department, environmental health and safety division and Risk and Safety Services unit and will seek input from residents. 

Macleod acknowledged that the residents didn’t have as much time as other students to form groups to apply for housing. 

Students who apply as a group and can fill an entire apartment or residence hall room receive the earliest chance in the lottery to select a space. Students have been planning and forming groups for several weeks to submit applications during the application period, which opened Feb. 26. The deadline for all students to participate in the university’s housing lottery was Monday. 

“[We] will provide ongoing support to aid current Camper Park residents seeking university housing for fall 2024,” Macleod wrote. “If you are unable to secure housing during the lottery, extra consideration will be given to your waitlist applications with the understanding that you may need to be flexible in terms of the types of assignment you would accept and patient until a space matching your preferences becomes available.”

Howell said she will probably try to find housing off campus for next year “because the other places on campus are quite expensive.”

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