The California Coastal Commission has approved UC Santa Barbara’s latest housing plans.
The 412-bed Santa Rosa residential Hall will be torn down and replaced with four new buildings to accommodate 1,688 beds as part of the East Campus Housing Project.
The project was approved by the commission on Wednesday without any discussion, as part of the commission’s consent agenda.
The commission also approved the university’s request to exceed height requirements. The maximum building height for that site is 65 feet, but the project includes one 85-foot-tall building, one 75-foot-tall building and two 65-foot-tall buildings, according to the Coastal Commission report.
The commission also waived parking requirements. Instead of having to provide onsite parking, residents will park in existing campus lots 22, 38 and 50.
The project also includes adding 1,688 bicycle parking spaces.
Santa Rosa Hall opened in 1955 off UCEN Road. It is located near two other two-story residential dorms: Anacapa Hall and Santa Cruz Hall.
Those three, with the nearby eight-story San Miguel and San Nichols residence halls, are known as the Channel Island 5 residences on the university’s East Campus.
A $566-million budget for the project was approved by the UC Board of Regents in December. The project is funded by a combination of external financing and grant funds, according to the UC Regents report.
The university also plans to remove 131 non-native trees and replace them with 166 drought-tolerant tree species. An environmental resource specialist would conduct pre-construction bird surveys to make sure any sensitive bird species would not be negatively impacted by construction, according to the Coastal Commission report.
Construction is set to start this June and is expected to take two and a half years.
The East Campus project is the second phase of a two-phase project to provide 3,500 new undergraduate student beds.
The first phase included construction of the San Benito housing project, which started last summer. That project will add 2,224 student beds in seven apartment-style buildings by fall 2027.
San Benito is being built on the northwest corner of campus on a roughly 5-acre site between Mesa Road and Stadium Road, near Harder Stadium and across the road from the campus police department.
The university is building the new apartments and residential halls instead of the controversial Munger Hall project that would have had 3,500 students in one tall residence hall.
The university revised its housing plans after backlash from students, staff and local officials, who were concerned about overcrowding and safety because of the building’s size. Others criticized the building’s lack of windows and natural light.
