End to UCLA Housing Crisis Seen in Building, Buying

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End to UCLA Housing Crisis Seen in Building, Buying





By DANNY KING

Staff Reporter

The University of California at Los Angeles is taking several aggressive steps to cope with its housing shortage, spurred by an expected 12 percent increase in students by 2010 and a desire to lessen the ratio of commuters.

“We would like to continue to make the transition from what’s historically been a commuter campus to a predominantly residential campus,” said Michael Foraker, director of housing at UCLA.

Later this year, the university plans to begin construction on a 2,000-unit housing complex for single graduate students, northeast of the intersection of Veteran and Weyburn avenues.

Also in the works are plans to build dormitories for up to 2,000 undergraduates in the northwest part of the campus and to purchase existing apartment complexes in Westwood’s North Village.

The moves are aimed at increasing the university-owned housing stock by 50 percent over the next eight years and thus provide housing for an additional 4,000 students tough goals given that UCLA is located in one of the city’s most densely populated areas.

“If they already own the land, they’re much better off by building,” said CB Richard Ellis Senior Vice President Laurie Lustig-Bower. Apartment prices in the Northwest Village of Westwood are among the most expensive on the Westside, she said. “It’s going to be competitive with Brentwood.”

The school hasn’t kept up with growth in its student population over the past three decades, forcing thousands to commute and contributing to major traffic problems on the Westside. Between 1992 and 2000, a period in which no new residential facilities were completed, on-campus housing increased to 6,400 from 5,300.

“We’ve been operating at or over capacity since 1976,” said Angela Marciano, associate director of housing and hospitality services at UCLA.

Dorm locations

The 1,378-unit first phase of the graduate-student complex, called the Southwest Campus Housing project, could be complete for the beginning of the 2003-04 academic year.

Looking at five prospective locations on campus for undergraduate dormitories, the university wants to complete the 750-bed first phase in time for fall 2004 classes.

UCLA is supplementing these construction efforts with purchases of apartment complexes in Westwood’s North Village. In December, it purchased a 35-unit building at 475 Gayley Ave. for $7.2 million.

“When there’s a bargain and we can do it, we’ll do it,” said Diana Brueggemann, executive director of local government and community relations at UCLA.

Foraker declined to estimate UCLA’s projected investment in the overall housing increase, but back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate the total cost for undergraduate and graduate housing additions could approach $200 million.

The plan is a response to Tidal Wave II, a state mandate to accommodate the growing demand for public education. The University of California system will increase total enrollment to 210,000 full-time equivalent students by 2010, up from the current 147,000.

Of the increase, 4,000 FTEs are earmarked for UCLA, adding to the 34,000 already there. Factoring in part-timers, 4,000 FTEs could translate into up to 5,000 additional bodies.

UCLA is attempting to mitigate the effects of this 12 percent enrollment increase by ensuring that a higher percentage of students can walk to school.

“By the end of this decade, we would hope that 58 percent of campus enrollment would live in a combination of university-owned housing or privately-owned housing within walking distance of campus,” Foraker said. “That would be up from about 46 percent currently.”

The proposed complexes would border the densely populated North Village just west of campus. Made up almost exclusively of apartment complexes, North Village covers only an eighth of a square mile, but its population swells to as many as 20,000 during the school year, said Shelley Taylor, president and founder of North Village Improvement Committee.

The new housing and 2,000 planned parking spaces may not lessen traffic between the San Diego (405) Freeway and UCLA even with a proposed increase in shuttle service.

“We didn’t envision that many parking spaces that close to Veteran Avenue that may have been na & #271;ve on our part,” said Westwood Hills Property Owners Association President Carole Magnuson. She describes her 600-home neighborhood, which is bounded by the freeway, the campus, Sunset Boulevard and the Los Angeles National Cemetery, as “Ground X as far as traffic goes.”

Still, the additional housing will be a welcome for many in the crowded neighborhood.

“(UCLA) is a good neighbor their properties are well taken care of,” said Taylor.

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