UCLA Housing will today begin demolishing the Saxon Steps ““ which students use to travel between the Hill and the North Village ““ and will construct an 8-foot fence to close off the area where the path used to be.
Housing’s decision to remove the steps that lead from the intersection of Gayley Avenue and Landfair Avenue to Saxon Suites was first announced this past March and sparked an opposing petition from students.
In an interview earlier this year, Peter Angelis, assistant vice chancellor of Housing and Hospitality Services, has said that the unkempt Saxon Steps were never meant to be permanent, and have led to safety concerns. And the construction of a stairway at De Neve residential halls Gardenia and Holly Ridge has now rendered the Saxon Steps unnecessary, he said.
During the demolition, a temporary chain-link fence will be put up to prevent students from walking into the construction site, said Alfred Nam, director of rooms operations for UCLA Housing and Hospitality Services.
Green landscape and an irrigation system will eventually replace the steps, and construction is projected to end in about a month, he added.
Construction workers will also put up a permanent fence that stretches from the Southern Regional Library Facility on Gayley Avenue to Holly Ridge, Nam said. The fence will block off the entrance to where the steps once were and keep students from walking down the landscaped hill, which would be unsafe, he added.
The steel fence will be 8 feet high and made to look like wrought iron, Nam said.
Including landscaping, irrigation and fence construction, the project is estimated to cost $80,000. UCLA Housing will fund the project entirely, Nam said.
Tomohito Kondo, a fourth-year political science student, said he felt the steps were a useful path and it would be better to leave the steps as they were, he said.
Kurt Hanselman, a fourth-year anthropology student who lived in Saxon Suites last year, said he thought the steps were convenient for students like himself living in Saxon, but is not upset that the steps are being torn down all together.
“If I were living there again, I wouldn’t mind because the Holly/Gardenia steps are right there,” he said.