Students who go to UCSC desperately need more housing. Ballooning education costs, low salaries in the region, transportation problems, and stratospheric rents have put many students in a bind. In response to demographic and financial pressures, UCOP (central administration of UC system) and local campuses have decided to go with private developers and move as rapidly as possible. Decisions have been taken since 2017 with little or no input from students, faculty, staff, or architects. For instance, the administration and the private partner it has contracted with (Capstone Development Partners) have decided to move Family Student Housing, now on west campus, to the southern end of east meadow, between Hagar and Coolidge drives. It makes sense for a private company to lower its investment costs by choosing a site near existing infrastructure. It doesn’t make sense for the campus to build in the east meadow and ruin a protected environment when other possibilities exist.
I urge you to go to the website set up by the East Meadow Action Committee, and sign the petition. The website gives a brief history by Paul Schoellhamer of this calamitous, rushed decision by UCSC, under pressure from UCOP and private developers, to throw out responsible development and site part of the critically needed new student housing in the wrong place, the southern part of the East Meadow.
There is also a good article in
