Reactions to Cabrillo On-Campus Housing

By Jondi Gumz

About 50 people attended a community meeting June 5 hosted by Cabrillo College to share plans to partner with UC Santa Cruz to build a four-story housing complex with 624 beds and a child-care center next to the softball fields in Aptos for $187 million.

That’s up from $160 million in January.

The concept is for 271 units: Families, 60 one-bedroom units; apartments, 56 doubles (two beds each) and 40 quads (4 beds each) and dorms, 84 doubles and 31 quads.

“I see the need,” said Jen Raanan, principal of Delta Charter High School, who expects to relocate during construction and hopes to get space elsewhere on the Cabrillo College campus and accept more of the 120 students on a wait-list. “To rent, you have to make $75,000 a year.”

Most attendees were neighbors concerned about cut-through traffic, speeders and congestion.

“You can’t get out of the driveway at 2 p.m.,” said Andy Muzzio, who lives on Soquel Drive and said this meeting was his first inkling of the project, which Cabrillo has been contemplating since 2021.

Susan Chapin said she sees people parking in her neighborhood to avoid paying for on-campus for parking.

Full-time students at Cabrillo could count on 60% of the units, and UCSC 40%, with the idea that Cabrillo students could finish in their requirements in two years, get mentoring from UCSC students, and then move into UCSC rooms in the complex.

Enrollment Down

The number of full-time students has shrunk in 10 years from 9,193 to 5,478 while part-timers has declined from 22,660 to 16,319, with the steepest decline during the pandemic.

Matthew Wetstein, Cabrillo’s president-superintendent, hoped to incentivize students who might otherwise work and take more time to finish their Cabrillo classes to go full-time and finish faster.

He said he and other community college presidents are lobbying for AB 811 to repeal the ban on repeating classes, which restricted community enrollment in classes such as choir, art, and foreign languages and sits in the Senate Education Committee.

Delta, which has about 100 students in grades 9-12, has been based at Cabrillo for 25+ years.

“We’re smaller than we were 10 years ago,” Wetstein said. “We have to find a space. I think we can.”

As for traffic, Wetstein said there was a need to flesh out traffic patterns for UCSC students. He said he expected to take 400 cars off the road with students living on the Cabrillo campus rather than driving to class – reducing the traffic impact.

There are no plans to create parking for student residents. Those with cars are expected to park in the existing lot.

Bradley Olin, who came from San Jose State four years ago to become Cabrillo’s assistant superintendent vice president of finance & administrative services, expects congestion relief with Santa Cruz County’s $26 million “Buffered Soquel Drive” project.

This year-long project will remove 111 parking spaces along a 6-mile stretch of Soquel Drive – such as those by Cabrillo College – and replaced by bike lanes, with other safety improvements. At one point, county engineers hoped to finish the upgrade by Christmas this year.

Bids were opened March 30. The winning contractor has not set a schedule yet. Work could start in late summer/early fall.

Cabrillo is asking the state for $111 million from the $2 billion earmarked over three years for university and community college student housing grants.

If the project is funded, construction would take two years.

UCSC’s share of the cost would be $70 million.

Steve Houser, UCSC’s director of employee housing and capital planning was in the room.

Cabrillo got $0 in the first round for a Cabrillo-student only project.

So changes were made, and Cabrillo got $242,000 for planning.

The child-care center is a priority because 30% of Cabrillo students have children.

If this on-campus housing project goes forward, Cabrillo plans to outsource the housing staffing to a nonprofit, as did Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa for its 800-student housing complex, but retain oversight over student discipline.

The rent must be sufficient to cover those staffing costs, Wetstein noted.

Despite a dire shortage of affordable places for students to live in Santa Cruz County, few students attended.

Winston Spedding, an engineering student, asked about aid for students in need.

Bodie Shargel, a music student at UCSC who grew up in Felton, asked about the rates for a single room compared to a family unit.

Olin said the average rent would be $925 per room.

Wetstein mentioned a range of rates from $750 to $1,150 per room, depending on the size of the units and privacy, but the numbers are not firm.

The preliminary figures are based on legislation earmarking $2 billion for university and community college student housing grants and requiring it be affordable and below market-rate.

Some in the audience contended the proposed rates are not affordable but they are below market.

Santa Cruz County is the second most expensive place to rent in the U.S. after San Francisco, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. To rent a two-bedroom unit in ZIP code 95062, renters need to make $61 an hour.

Average Rent

There is no comprehensive database on rentals in Santa Cruz County. Many are mom-and-pops that are not tracked.

ApartmentGuide.com which tracks large complexes, reports studio rent averages $3,377 per month.

One recent posting on Facebook is in Ben Lomond, one bedroom with office and a private bath in a 3-bedroom home, $1,290 per month. Studio in Boulder Creek, $1,500 per month. Two-bedroom apartment, complex has a pool, in Capitola, $3,300 per month.

This explains why so many college students locally triple up, quadruple up, quintuple up on a place to live.

As for water, another neighbor concern, Wetstein cited the smaller enrollment reducing usage.

Cabrillo College last updated its Facilities Master Plan in 2018, noting the growing popularity of distance learning but that was before the pandemic forced most classes into online offerings.

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For the February report on Cabrillo student housing see https://tpgonlinedaily.com/cabrillo-pursues-on-campus-student-housing-with-uc-santa-cruz/

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