Housing begins planning for expansion on the Hill

The Housing Department will be unable to meet several of its goals for housing guarantees for incoming students without constructing more residence halls, according to the Student Housing Master Plan for 2007-2017, completed last October.

Among these goals are guaranteed housing for four years for incoming first-year students, two years of guaranteed housing for transfer students and two years for graduate and professional school students.

The Master Plan projects that UCLA will need to come up with at least 4,363 more beds by 2017 in order to meet these goals.

“We are working with our architectural firm to give us a design study for how they could fit those beds on the Hill within the existing real estate in a cost-efficient, environmentally sensitive manner,” said Peter Angelis, assistant vice chancellor of Housing and Hospitality Services.

Angelis said he wants to keep the Hill as UCLA’s main residential hub, and will not be looking into building in any other areas on campus.

However, any plans to begin construction on the Hill are still in the design phases, and concrete plans are still at least 90 days away, Angelis said.

Angela Marciano, director of Housing and Hospitality Services, said the cost of beginning a construction project on the Hill will fall mainly on the students.

“We are self-supporting, so any funds that we get come from the residents. In order to pay for this, we have reserves that previous residents have helped to build up and right now we are projecting about 5 percent increases (in fees) for new residents (when construction begins)” Marciano said.

A new building project on the Hill will also mean construction in very close proximity to student residences.

In 2005 when residents moved into the new Weyburn Terrace complex before construction was completed, there were reports of gas and water being shut off and complaints of excessive noise.

Suzanne Seplow, director of the Office of Residential Life, said she and her colleagues have brought in a staff to consult on the impact of beginning construction so close to other residential buildings.

“We have a lot of history in terms of building proximate to other buildings. There’s a whole host of things we do. For example, there is no noise-producing work during tenth or finals week, to limit the impact during critical times,” Seplow said.

Until construction begins, the Master Plan cites the “aggressive tripling” of students in high-rise buildings that were initially built for two residents as a temporary solution to high housing demands.

Alexa Johnson, a first-year economics student, lives in a Hedrick Hall triple and said her room is starting to feel crowded.

“It’s one thing to put two beds in one room, but three beds with one of them lofted and then three big desks? There just isn’t enough room for three people in a (residence) hall triple.”

Since the high-rise buildings were originally designed for only two residents and 81 percent of freshmen are currently living in triples, UCLA’s on-campus residences currently operate at roughly 125 percent capacity.

Marciano expects the number of triple occupancy rooms will remain about the same for the next few years before it can be reduced by more housing opportunities.

“As we have these residence halls go offline for renovation, we have to accommodate and absorb those students to get through these phases of renovation,” Angelis said.

The $26 million renovation project that closed the doors of Sproul Hall last year is part of a campaign to renovate each of the four high-rise residential buildings.

Over the next five years, each of the high-rises will be closed for 18-month periods, displacing just over 800 students with each building that is closed.

For a copy of the Master Plan please visit housing.ucla.edu.

Join the Conversation

1 Comment

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *