There was no glass in the living room windows when art history
student Ching Hsin moved into her university apartment Jan. 3. She
called to complain and maintenance staff covered the hole with
bolted wooden boards, which were still there two weeks later.
Because Helen Chun’s front door was not sealed properly,
crickets would come inside her room. Chun, a Graduate School of
Education & Information Studies student, would discover four to
five a day. The problem was pervasive among neighboring units.
Design|Media Arts student Takashi Kawashima’s new UCLA
apartment wasn’t ready when he arrived from Japan in August,
so he was forced to find temporary housing.
Ching, Chun and Kawashima each live in different buildings of
Weyburn Terrace, a brand-new Westwood complex run by the UCLA
Housing Administration for graduate students. Offered as an
incentive to some of the university’s most recruited
students, Weyburn Terrace has been home to widespread problems
since the first building opened at the end of July 2004.
While some students said they had few or no problems with their
living arrangements, dozens of others expressed frustration and
disappointment.
Students said multiple units flooded in at least three of four
open buildings.
They complained about living in unfinished apartments, citing
problems including faulty appliances, a half-painted bathroom,
elevators that broke frequently and a toilet that clogged
continually due to a chunk of wood stuck inside. Repairs often take
a long time.
UCLA Housing Administration Director Michael Foraker said staff
did not complete final inspections on Palm Court, the first
building to open, because they wanted to give students the earliest
possible move-in date.
Though the apartments’ phased opening was supposed to end
by September 2004, only four of seven structures are complete, with
just over 600 students living in the complex that will ultimately
house 1,387.
Each of three general contractors working on the over-$100
million project extended the timeline for construction on at least
three occasions, with the latest set of completion dates falling in
mid-March.
In a fall quarter interview, Foraker said Weyburn
Terrace’s stalled completion could cost housing about $5
million in rent, which the department factored into its annual
budget.
At that time, he said UCLA would ask contractors for
reimbursements for time when delays were not caused by
uncontrollable factors like the weather.
Two months after residents moved into Olive Court, one Weyburn
Terrace building, the lawns were crammed with construction rubble
““ scraps of wood, pieces of yellow caution tape half-buried
in the rocky dirt.
A broken red ceramic roof tile lay stuck, sunk a few centimeters
into the ground, washed there by weeks of heavy rain. A crater,
one-and-a-half feet in diameter and six inches deep, remained
filled with green water days after the storm.
Though employees have begun cleaning, planting grass and trees,
the aesthetic is still one of a work in progress.
To many students who signed up to live in the complex UCLA
advertised as premier housing, their experience at Weyburn Terrace
amounts to a broken promise.
An unfinished job
The lawn in front of each Palm Court apartment is lush with
green grass, lined with rows of flowering bushes. Palm trees stand
taller than the building, facing the quiet veterans’ memorial
across the street.
But the immaculate landscaping is deceptive.
Of eight first-floor apartments lining Veteran Avenue south of
Weyburn Avenue, at least four have flooded or had extensive
problems with leaking, residents say.
The kitchen ceiling began leaking in early January, says Katrina
Emmons, a law student who lives at Palm’s far south corner.
But she characterizes her situation as minor compared to others
she’s heard of.
“I don’t know anyone who lives here that
hasn’t had a problem,” she said.
A few doors down, biology student Adam Langenbacher says his
bedroom flooded twice by early October 2004, with workers tracking
the problem to a broken water heater. After heavy rains soaked
their apartments over winter break, residents of two corner units
had to move out.
Dennis Arguello, the project manager for Palm with general
contractor Gordon & Williams General Contractors, said the
types of complaints he’s heard about are typical of those
that occur when a new building opens.
But he added that the number of problems residents have had may
be “a little higher than normal,” something he
attributes to “bad luck.”
“I feel terrible about that,” he said.
“You pay good money, and you expect it not to leak, and it
happens.”
UCLA staff and contractors did not complete a “punch
list” for Palm, a standard procedure that entails finding and
fixing problems at each unit before residents arrive, Foraker
said.
Housing decided to bypass the process, accepting the building
from contractors on “good faith” so law students could
settle in before their Aug. 19 orientation.
The problems at Weyburn Terrace are not unusual, said Foraker,
who has worked with Housing since 1981. He remembers dealing with
similar issues when De Neve Plaza, Canyon Point and other
structures opened.
But while all buildings have problems at first, some are easier
to handle than others, said Kathie Goalwin, University Apartments
North area manager.
“Palm Court from my experience was the most difficult of
the four we have now,” she said.
Housing pushed contractors the hardest to complete construction
on that building, which could have led to problems, Foraker
said.
And Arguello acknowledges the final touches on Palm Court are
not complete ““ there is still work to be done.
A challenging situation
Sitting in their Magnolia Court apartment, political science
students Ryan Enos and Robert Robinowitz rattle off a list of
complaints one recent January evening.
The toilet broke five times. A few of the electric sockets
don’t work. The balcony door isn’t sealed properly and
lets in the wind. The bedroom door does not stay shut.
Complaints related to construction are not limited to Palm
Court, and Enos and Robinowitz’s story is typical of dozens
of residents across all four occupied buildings ““ a slew of
difficulties, large and small, that have to do with unfinished work
or faulty appliances.
Many students say they are frustrated by having to deal with
what they believe is a shoddy construction job as they cope with
starting graduate school.
Interviews with 88 residents revealed flooding unrelated to
toilets and dishwashers in 15 units spread across three buildings
““ Jacaranda and Magnolia Courts, which opened in
mid-September 2004, and Palm.
As of Thursday, Housing had received 89 complaints about
flooding and leaking at Weyburn Terrace since July, with some calls
being for the same units, said Shirley Wong, director of university
apartments.
According to an online survey on Weyburn Terrace which Foraker
said about 500 residents completed, many students found fault with
the quality of their living quarters. One of the most frequent
responses to an open-ended question was “my apartment
wasn’t finished when I moved in.”
While the project has been a challenge, the finished product is
not of low quality, said Arguello, whose company is still working
on Sycamore Court, set to be completed in March.
Amber Ngo, a receptionist with Swinerton, the general contractor
for Jacaranda and Olive Courts, said last week that no one from her
company wanted to comment on anything, including the work done or
the reasons for construction delays.
Robin Brown, vice president of Fassberg Construction,
Magnolia’s general contractor, believes the building will be
up to par with other company projects once workers fix initial
problems.
“Typically, you’re going to have a few items on the
list that need to be repaired,” he said.
Brown attributes many of the problems Magnolia residents
reported ““ including leaking and cricket infestation in
multiple units ““ to what he calls a “hundred-year
rain,” referring to the series of storms that dumped record
rainfall on Los Angeles these past few months.
As for construction delays, Fassberg construction was unable to
follow the original schedule, largely due to shortages in building
materials and labor, Brown said. Some subcontractors were working
for more than one of the general contractors at Weyburn Terrace,
exacerbating the tight situation, he said.
Arguello said his company is coping with the same issues.
Construction in Los Angeles is booming, meaning union halls are
empty and companies are working as fast as they can to snatch up
the plywood and other materials that aren’t headed for China
or Iraq, he said.
“It’s interesting,” Arguello said.
“It’s definitely been a challenge.”
After pushing contractors in 2004 to finish their work quickly,
Housing has a new mentality, Foraker said. He said along with the
waiting list for Weyburn Terrace, the pressure to move students in
quickly has disappeared.
Foraker said he’s now telling contractors, “hey,
take your time.” His department will not take new buildings
until they are in pristine condition ““ a change from last
quarter, he said.
Right now, Olive Court is about 60 percent filled, Wong said.
Housing recently posted on its Web site a note in red font which
reads: “Rent short or long term now.”
Management woes
It was finals week of their first term in graduate school, and
the fire alarms were going off constantly.
“I literally put earplugs in and I still couldn’t
even concentrate,” said Matthew Harris, a law student and
Magnolia Court resident.
He says when he called Housing repeatedly to complain about
alarms ringing six days in a row, the staff said the problem could
not be solved because they had to test every room.
Besides physical problems with apartments, graduate students
cite inconsiderate management as an issue that has plagued Weyburn
Terrace from the start.
Many residents, including out-of-state students, say the move-in
schedule ““ or lack of one ““ lent a bitter note to the
beginning of their time at UCLA.
They say Housing repeatedly announced postponements of opening
dates for the first buildings, often giving less than a
week’s notice.
Medical student Mona Rohit says she prepared multiple times to
move.
“That day, they’d call and say, “˜oh, wait,
we’re not ready,'” she said.
Foraker said while it’s understandable that students were
angry, his staff could not provide a concrete timeline because
contractors were still working on final touches.
“We just didn’t have a date to give them ““ we
weren’t in the driver’s seat,” Foraker said.
Many of the problems students experience stem from factors
beyond Housing’s control, Foraker said.
That maintenance crews sometimes do not show up until days after
students report needed repairs is often due to the fact that
Housing must contact contractors, who may or may not address issues
immediately.
“Some of them have been extraordinarily good,”
Foraker said. “In other cases, we could have been more
pleased.”
He said when the problem is minor ““ broken blinds or a
parking gate not installed promptly ““ Housing takes on the
job at its own expense when contractors don’t respond quickly
enough.
Housing does not keep a tally separate from regular maintenance
costs of the amount of money it spends to address these kinds of
issues, Foraker said.
Students can call 24 hours a day to report problems, and
high-priority problems like flooding are addressed immediately,
Wong said.
But Rohit, who lived in Palm Court in 2004, says when her
apartment flooded over winter break, nothing was done for about a
week.
Rohit, who lives in Orange County, says she visited her
apartment on four consecutive days to find it drenched.
“(Housing) said they had heaters and fans and things like
that to dry the carpet … (but) they still had not touched
it,” she said.
“They always give you the runaround, basically.”
Foraker said with issues like leaking, his agency must wait on
contractors to assess and fix the problem.
The university has a 15-year warranty on the buildings’
roofs, which are expensive “big-ticket” items, Foraker
said. If Housing crews attempting to repair a leak work on the
roof, that contract automatically expires, he said.
As for hospitality, Housing plans to conduct customer service
training for Weyburn Terrace staff in April 2005. The department is
taking additional steps, like refining a roommate-matching
application, to improve communication with students.
While problems like the hectic move-in schedule and incomplete
construction will likely not be repeated on the same scale next
year, many residents say they’re tired of having to absorb
the cost of mistakes they didn’t make.
There are so many bugs in Kawashima’s apartment that he
has resigned himself to living with them.
M.K. Asante Jr., law student and Palm Court resident, says he
has no idea why workers replaced his front door last week with a
new one that has a large glass window in it, but no blinds.
And law student Gloria Labbad is still living in the same
apartment that flooded twice, with water falling from the ceiling
and causing what looked like rivers of paint to run down the
wall.
She and her upstairs neighbors, whose floor was ripped out both
times as workers searched for the leak, tried to study over the
noise, the water and the dust.
They say they’re just hoping it doesn’t happen
again.
Bruin staff Lee Bialik, Ari Bloomekatz and Daniel Miller
contributed to this story.