Monday, 5/5/97 Hershey likely to give way to parking, offices
Quake damage cited as reason; students protest decision
By Allison Elmore Daily Bruin Contributor In June 1998,
approximately 300 UCLA students will be driven from their homes,
literally. Currently, Hershey Hall is the only residence hall on
campus that accommodates both graduate students and transfer
students older than 21. However, at the conclusion of the ’97-’98
academic year, it will be closing its doors, said Duke Oakley,
campus architect. Although a "final campus decision" has not yet
been rendered, the building’s 1959 addition of the men’s wing,
having suffered considerable damage to its foundation in the
Northridge earthquake, is likely to be demolished and replaced with
a multistory parking structure to service the Center for Health
Sciences. And as for the original part of the building, Oakley said
that "no one knows precisely how it will be used." Faculty offices,
however, are the current speculation, he added. The probable
demolition of the men’s wing is the result of a rather complex
domino effect. With the hospital having sustained substantial
seismic damages in the Northridge quake as well, it is also set to
suffer the same fate of the wrecking ball. A new structure,
however, is slated to take its place long before this occurs, most
likely on the plot of land currently occupied by Parking Structure
14. In order to prevent the loss of over 1,400 parking spaces, the
university has plans to construct a 500- car capacity subterranean
garage underneath the spot just recently occupied by Towell. And,
finally, this is where Hershey Hall enters the picture. If all goes
according to the present plan, the remaining 900 cars will then
take residence in the parking structure fixed to replace Hershey’s
seismically unsound 1959 wing. With automobiles set to take the
place of some 300 existing residents, a largely out-of-state and
international student body will be homeless next June, as UCLA
presently has no hard and fast designs for replacing the graduate
student housing. The housing administration is, at least,
"continuing to explore other properties as they come on the
market," including defunct sorority houses, to lease as "viable
alternatives" to Hershey Hall, said Michael Foraker, director of
the housing administration. And, according to the university’s 1990
Long Range Development Plan, a plot of land has been set aside for
the construction of new graduate housing along Veteran Avenue,
across from the veterans’ cemetery. Sometime during the upcoming
Fall Quarter, graduate students will receive a university survey
that Foraker hopes will gauge students’ exact desires and
expectations of future housing along with their views of the
university’s "current unmet needs." According to Foraker, the
housing office will then be much better equipped to "forecast
long-term requirements." However, Hershey Hall resident Matt
Williams, a doctoral student in the classics department, is wary of
such university attempts to petition student opinion. "On-campus
housing has a campaign. They might as well just throw (Hershey Hall
residents’ surveys) into a shredder for all it’s worth," Williams
said. Nevertheless, both Foraker and Oakley stress that the cost to
repair the earthquake damages suffered by the newer wing, when
combined with the cost of bringing the entire building up to
contemporary building code, would reach a total in excess of $15
million. And with a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
grant of $2.3 million to repair only the seismic damages to the
structure, a figure which, according to Oakley and Foraker, falls
significantly short of the amount necessary, they contend that it
is in the best interest of both the university and the students to
apply that funding to what FEMA refers to as an "alternative
project." This "alternative project" could ultimately take form as
new graduate student housing along the Veteran Avenue plot of land,
with the remainder of the funding amassed by debt financing.
According to Mira Hershey’s will, her funds were to be used to
construct a dormitory for women students. Nearly 70 years later,
the university’s tentative plans to use the old wing as office
space for faculty was not mentioned as an alternative option in the
will. And in contrast to university arguments, a number of
Hershey’s present occupants, along with other graduate students,
allege that the administration’s talk of an alternative project is
in fact far from being in the students’ best interests. Travis
Longcore, a doctoral student in the geography department who says
he is "very active in the campus juggernaut" of environmental
planning, asserts that the students’ criticisms of the present
plans for Mira Hershey Hall are exacerbated by two primary factors.
The residents are resentful no only because their opinions have not
been consulted in the decision-making process, but also because
they learned of the hall’s future through the rumor mill rather
than receiving any actual notification by administrators. "It is
entirely characteristic and predictable of UCLA that people who
will be the most affected are totally uninformed," Longcore said.
Jennifer Levine, a Hershey Hall resident and graduate student in
Afro-American studies, said, "Rumors are flying … We need to be
more informed. From one day to the next, it’s going to close, it’s
going to be open (beyond June 1997)." Foraker, however, noted that
the hall’s residents did receive a letter in December 1996
outlining the temporary structural repairs being made on the
building. He claims the letter made an allusion to a decision
possibly being made to take Hershey "off line" during the summer of
1997. The plan having since changed to close the residence hall in
the summer of 1998 instead, "all of the staff were informed as
recently as two weeks ago that it would remain open for the ’97-’98
year," Foraker commented last week. Regarding the December letter,
"it was a veiled revelation that something was up, a typical kind
of bureaucratic thing that didn’t say much," said Dennis Sexsmith,
a doctoral candidate in the art history department and a six-year
resident of Hershey Hall. Sexsmith claims to have heard through it
through the grapevine long before receipt of the letter that the
hall was set for closure. He alleges that the residents have not
received any written notification from the housing administration
because it outlines the delay of the building’s closure. The
university’s current plan of action may in fact be the "best
possible course," Sexsmith noted, "but it seems the people living
here won’t be considered. "Does anyone plan to have any
consultations with the people affected (by the closure of Hershey
Hall)?" continued Sexsmith. "It would seem (a) case of due process,
but that’s the style of UCLA, to do whatever it wants." Danise
Kimball, internal vice-president of the Graduate Students
Association, views the university’s plan to close the dormitory as
an affront to all international graduate students who rely on
Hershey Hall as their immediate and easily accessible place of
residence upon arrival in a foreign land. "(The university) made
this decision in their usual arbitrary and authoritarian way,
without consultation of the students that it affects. The decision
is part of a broader university attack against international
students who already face higher fees and a number of other
disadvantages," Kimball noted. Mark Swofford, a graduate assistant
at Hershey Hall, concurred with Kimball regarding the sheer
unlikelihood of an international student, even an out-of-state
student, "dropping by from Massachusetts to check out housing" in
Los Angeles during the interim between the closure of Hershey Hall
and the opening of speculated graduate student housing. In addition
to matters of convenience, Rita Alamshaw, resident director of
Hershey Hall and Hilgard Houses, contends that Hershey Hall offers
a community for graduate students and undergraduate transfers and
"a feeling that people know who you are, unlike your experience as
a student here where you’re just a number that gets herded around."
Homeowners east of Hilgard also argue that the replacement of the
hall’s 1959 wing with a multistory parking structure could hardly
be deemed to be in their best interests either. Although the
traffic will not exit directly onto Hilgard, its probable exits
onto Manning and Circle Drive South prompt the traffic into that
direction. Mark Stocki, director of transportation services, notes
that rather than creating an entirely new stream of traffic, its
course will simply "shift" from one area of campus to another. Some
residents immediately east of Hilgard, however, contend that a
"shift" in direction is all that is necessary to gridlock an
already traffic-clogged street. "(UCLA) can’t continue to throw its
mess in someone else’s backyard," said Sandy Brown, a 20-year
resident of Westwood and co-president of the Holmby-Westwood
Property Owners Association, in reference to the parking structure
that is to be placed within view of her house windows. Brown argues
that a new artery must be created if UCLA is to continue placing
parking structures within the campus, particularly along the outer
rim. "We don’t want any more of UCLA’s cars," Brown added. Such
issues of environmental impact will be analyzed and mitigated
within the Environmental Impact Report, most likely to be released
to the public in December. The release will accompany an open house
regarding the entire project of the new hospital, Hershey’s partial
demolition and the proposed parking structures to occur by the end
of Spring Quarter, said Mark Horne, assistant director of campus
and environmental planning. The only question then remaining is:
"What’s more valuable, a parking space or a graduate student?" asks
Brown. Previous Daily Bruin stories You’re never too old for
Hershey, February 7, 1996