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Student Housing West Environmental Review

The proposed Student Housing West Project will develop up to 3,000 new beds of housing for upper division undergraduate students, graduate students and students with families on the west side of the campus. The project will include support spaces, amenities, and associated infrastructure. The project will be developed in phases, with at least 900 beds to be available for occupancy in Fall 2020 and the remainder of the project to be completed by Fall 2022. Implementation of the proposed project may require an amendment to the 2005 LRDP land use map, to change less than 5 acres of land on the west campus from Campus Resources Land (CRL) to Colleges and Student Housing (CSH).

The University will prepare a project-level Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to analyze the potential environmental effects of the proposed action. The University has issued a notice of preparation (NOP) to solicit the views of agencies and the public as to the scope and content of the environmental analysis (see link, below). The EIR scoping period ends October 2, 2017. An EIR scoping session will be held on Thursday, September 28, 2017, from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM at the Louden Nelson Community Center at 301 Center Street in downtown Santa Cruz.

AMENDMENT TO UC SANTA CRUZ 2005 LONG RANGE DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR STUDENT HOUSING

In April 2017, UC Santa Cruz published a notice of preparation (NOP) for a subsequent environmental impact report (SEIR) that would analyze the potential environmental impacts of an amendment to the UC Santa Cruz 2005 Long Range Development Plan (“2005 LRDP”). The project described in the NOP was the re-designation of 14 acres of land on the main campus west of Porter College from Campus Resource Land (CRL) to Colleges and Student Housing (CSH). The proposed amendment would facilitate the future development of on-campus housing for 3,000 students on a 50-acre site that would include the re-designated 14 acres.

Since the release of the NOP in April 2017, the Campus has advanced the planning for the student housing project and determined that adequate information is now available to evaluate the 3,000-bed student housing project for its specific impacts. UC Santa Cruz therefore is no longer planning to prepare the SEIR as described in the April 2017 NOP, and has issued a revised NOP for a project-level EIR that will evaluate the environmental impacts from the construction of the Student Housing West Project, including the impacts of an LRDP amendment.