Correction appended
University apartment residents are questioning UCLA
Housing’s management of a new Westwood project after
construction delays forced the department to place single students
in a families-only complex this summer.
Ninety-five single graduate students lived at one point this
summer in University Village, a gated complex on Sawtelle Boulevard
about four miles south of campus that serves students who are
married or have families.
Though 75 of those students have moved into Weyburn Terrace
““ the new university apartments in Westwood Village ““
the project’s construction, originally slated to be done in
summer, is still not complete.
Half-opened windows covered in dust face Veteran Avenue on the
projects’ west side, giving a view of the raw, unpainted wood
lining the structures’ interiors. Only three of seven Weyburn
Terrace buildings are done; the remaining four will open in
November and December.
Many students with spots reserved in Weyburn Terrace are
attending law or medical school, and 20 have opted to stay in
University Village until December instead of moving in the middle
of their academic semesters, which started in mid-August.
Though the number of single students remaining at University
Village is small, residents have raised questions about UCLA
Housing’s decision to place them in the complex, which has a
waitlist of over 600 and is described on UCLA Housing’s Web
site as for “families only.”
“This place is ideal for married students. If people are
waiting, they should have had priority,” said Fasiha Kanwal,
a UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine graduate living in
University Village and doing a residency at the UCLA Medical
Center.
The Village boasts a daycare center and an outdoor pool where
giggling children splash as their parents chat in the sun. Fliers
advertising reading and theater classes for children clutter
bulletin boards along tree-lined pathways dotted with play
structures.
UCLA Housing Director Michael Foraker said his department
notified University Village residents this summer to explain why
single students would be residing temporarily in their complex.
Many were UCLA’s top choices for their respective programs,
and housing was part of their recruitment packages, Foraker
said.
“The graduate students that were promised housing have
been provided for. … Had we not been able to put them in family
student housing, then they would have had to have found spaces for
themselves in private sector housing,” he said.
Because of time and resource restraints, the department
contacted only those at the top of University Village’s
waitlist ““ about 80 students who would have been able to move
in over summer ““ about the situation, Foraker said.
Most of those 80 families have already been offered a spot in
University Village as Weyburn Terrace’s staggered completion
has progressed and graduate students have moved in there, he
added.
Soha Yassine, a fourth-year religion studies student who lives
in University Village, said she was on the waitlist for nine months
before getting a spot there. Apartments ideal for married students
and those raising children are limited, she said.
“We really don’t have that many housing options. We
are having to pay for their lack of planning, lack of
responsibility,” Yassine said.
The construction delays underscore the university’s
dependence on outside companies. The Weyburn Terrace work is split
between three contractors, who began reporting in late March
difficulties securing materials like concrete, steel and plywood,
Foraker said.
Foraker says he feels his staff have managed the project and
delays as best they could, given their reliance on
contractors’ and subcontractors’ schedules.
But first-year law student Kiran Patel said his first semester
at UCLA has been more hectic than necessary because of the confused
move-in schedule for Weyburn Terrace.
When Housing informed Patel in late July he could move into the
new complex at the end of summer, he was pleased because he felt
Westwood was a “pedestrian-focused” area, “a nice
exception” to the made-for-cars city Los Angeles is known to
be.
“A week or two later, there was another e-mail that said,
“˜Actually, no, it’s not finished,'” Patel
said.
The e-mail stated he would be placed temporarily in University
Village as work on Weyburn Terrace continued.
Patel moved into the families-only complex around Aug. 15. He
had a car but no parking space at UCLA, so he commuted to class on
the Big Blue Bus.
And though there was an upbeat community of graduate students at
University Village, the neighborhood was bland, with few
restaurants and coffee shops, Patel said.
“There isn’t that much there,” he said.
Patel was preparing to settle in at Weyburn Terrace on Sept. 18
or 19, but found out that same weekend he would have to wait
another week for final touches on his unit to be done.
The university hired movers for students, but Patel chose to
transport his furniture and belongings himself this past
weekend.
Though he’s now living in his room of choice ““ a
Weyburn Terrace studio close to campus, bars and places to study
and eat ““ Patel says his first month at UCLA has not been the
introduction he was expecting.
“They should have realized there were delays, and should
have allowed some kind of buffer. … We had to go along for the
ride that the contractors and subcontractors took (Housing)
on,” Patel said.
Correction:Friday, October 1, 2004
"Weyburn Terrace suffers delays” should have said that
Housing Services notified 200 students on the University Village
wait list that single graduate students were moving into University
Village temporarily.