A California Assembly bill, which began as a collaboration between UC Santa Cruz and UC San Diego students, will take effect Jan. 1. The bill will streamline the process of developing student housing on coastal university campuses.
Many of California’s coastal universities, colleges and community colleges face severe housing shortages.
In hopes of creating a process that allows schools to build housing more quickly and efficiently, students from organizations including the Student Homes Coalition and the UC Student Association collaborated with California Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-San Diego, to create a bill.
Assembly Bill 357, also known as the Student & Faculty Housing Success Act, removes some red tape from the Coastal Commission’s process of approving campus housing developments. After it takes effect, supporters hope a higher proportion of proposed housing projects will move through the process more quickly, saving on costs and maximizing the amount of housing that can be built.
“Tens of thousands of students experience homelessness every single year in California,” said Kate Rodgers, policy director and co-chair of the Student Homes Coalition. “That problem is particularly acute at our coastal campuses, like UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara. … it is our hope that long term, we can bring these projects onto line quicker and at reduced costs, which will ultimately benefit students.”
In California’s coastal zone, development projects must be approved by the state’s Coastal Commission. This can present obstacles for colleges and universities as they make long-term plans for development, such as Long-Range Development Plans at University of California campuses, or public works projects at other institutions.
Often, when schools make minor tweaks to their long-term housing plans — for example, adding units or changing building heights — the plans must undergo a process with the Coastal Commission again, which can significantly slow down timelines, Rodgers said.
The bill, authored by Alvarez and sponsored by the Student Homes Coalition and several other student organizations, intends to remove redundancies from the Coastal Commission’s approval process. The new law authorizes the Coastal Commission’s executive director to determine when proposed changes to a long range development plan are de minimis, or small enough to have negligible environmental impact. It establishes procedures for the determination and approval of such amendments.
The bill also requires the Coastal Commission to defer to colleges or universities to determine parking requirements for student, faculty or staff housing facilities. This is significant, Rodgers said, because parking structures carry high construction costs and take up square footage that could be used for a higher volume of student or faculty housing units.
The Student & Faculty Housing Success Act was passed in October. Just a few months earlier, in June, Assembly Bill 130 was passed. The act makes sweeping reforms to encourage the development of more housing.
Among many other changes, including California Environmental Quality Act exemptions for infill housing projects and streamlined permitting, the bill requires the Coastal Commission to approve projects within 90 days, just as other public agencies are required to do. It also exempts some housing development approvals from appeal to the Coastal Commission, meaning approvals for such projects will be final and not appealable. This language in Assembly Bill 130 should work in tandem with Assembly Bill 357 to shorten the often-lengthy process of approving campus housing plans.
The bill’s supporters hope that the time and money universities and colleges save as a result of these legislative changes can be dedicated toward building more housing for students, faculty and staff.
Assembly Bill 357 was the brainchild of UC Santa Cruz and UC San Diego students who had seen firsthand the housing insecurity faced by students on coastal campuses. Alvarez worked with student groups to author the bill, and the Student Homes Coalition became its main sponsor.
Though the Student Homes Coalition was started at UC Santa Cruz, the school is no longer a member. One second-year UCSC student, Evelin Chavez, is working to change that. Chavez is an organizing director for UCSC’s Student Union Assembly and serves on the board of directors of the UC Student Association, another sponsor of Assembly Bill 357. As soon as Chavez arrived at UCSC, she became concerned about the housing situation for students.
UC Santa Cruz currently provides housing for 9,300 students. As of fall 2024, 17,940 undergraduates and 1,998 graduates were enrolled. According to a 2020 survey, 9% of UCSC students reported experiencing homelessness.
UCSC also recently changed its housing policy for continuing students from a priority system to a randomized lottery. With the priority system, low-income and first-generation students were more likely to be granted contracts for on-campus housing after their first year. Now, with the lottery system in place, all continuing students have an equal shot at limited on-campus housing.
Students who do not receive contracts for UCSC housing must brave the expensive rental market in Santa Cruz without much help, Chavez said. The lottery system, combined with high prices for both on and off-campus housing, has affected students significantly, Chavez said, and some of her friends have even transferred schools or taken gap years to save money.
“Low-income first-generation students are being pushed out of an education because they cannot afford to live near their campus,” Chavez said. “That is so unfortunate that these issues are hurting the students who need support the most.”
The lack of housing security led to other challenges for students getting their basic needs met, Chavez added. Students living off campus face uncertainty with transportation to and from campus, and students both on and off campus face food insecurity — over 40% of UCSC students reported experiencing food insecurity in a 2020 survey.
“Our campus climate really stems from all these housing issues,” Chavez said. “It’s an endless cycle that we see with students on campus.”
What Chavez saw inspired her to get involved with housing initiatives. She’s working with the Student Homes Coalition to get UCSC involved again. In the meantime, she has advocated for student housing with City Council members and worked on other local projects, including Measure C, in the hope of raising awareness for students’ housing struggles.
“I didn’t know why people weren’t talking about it enough,” Chavez said. “I decided that there has to be some change.”
UCSC’s long-range plan for development includes expanding its housing for 100% of new full-time student enrollment above 19,500, and housing for up to 25% of new employees, according to UCSC representative Scott Hernandez-Jason. The university is also planning to provide 40% more housing within the decade, he added.
The school has several housing developments in the pipeline. When completed, the projects will provide hundreds more beds for UCSC students. Projected opening dates for the project range from 2026 to 2030.
At this time, UCSC is not planning any developments in the coastal zone that would be subject to approval from the Coastal Commission, Hernandez-Jason said.
“We appreciate the state’s effort to support universities in having more flexibility in developing projects,” Hernandez-Jason wrote in an email to the Sentinel.
