The city of Goleta has filed its planned lawsuit against UC Santa Barbara, claiming the university has breached its 2010 Long Range Development Plan Settlement Agreement.
The lawsuit, filed on Dec. 10, alleges that UCSB is in violation of the contract, which ensured that the pace of the university’s growth in student enrollment from 20,000 to 25,000 would be met with the construction of additional on-campus housing.
“As a result of UCSB’s unmitigated population growth and ongoing negative impact on Goleta’s housing shortage, the city had no choice but to resort to litigation to compel UCSB to abide by its promise,” the city said in a statement on Thursday.
The university has been the focus of complaints over the past months for its unprecedented housing shortage and gigantic Munger Hall dormitory proposal.
The city first announced its intent to sue the university on Nov. 5, saying that failing to provide sufficient student housing has had negative repercussions on the city, including UCSB’s placement of students in Goleta hotels, increasing housing costs for Goleta’s workforce, and a greater demand on the city’s public resources and services.
“I am disappointed that it has come to this because the City of Goleta has always had a good relationship with UCSB,” Mayor Paula Perotte said back in November. “However, the failure of UCSB to meet its obligations under the 2010 Long Range Development Plan Settlement Agreement to provide housing has made us reach a breaking point.”
The university’s plan to match student enrollment with additional housing is constructing the controversial Munger Hall dormitory, which is intended to house 4,500 students in a 1.5 million square foot, windowless dorm.
The project is projected to be complete by the fall term in 2025 — right on the cusp of the deadline for the Long Range Development Plan.
However, due to the “harsh scrutiny” that the Munger proposal received both in national and local press, Perotte said, the city is concerned that there “may be no certainty as to whether the needed student housing will be built in a reasonable time frame.”
While the university has not yet seen the lawsuit, it said in a statement on Thursday that it is “deeply disappointed that the City of Goleta felt it necessary to resort to divisive litigation that forces both parties to spend public funds in this manner.”
The university claims that it has never exceeded the enrollment target set in the Long Range Development Plan settlement agreement, and has added 1,515 beds between 2015 and 2017 with the development of the Sierra Madre and San Joaquin housing units, according to Andrea Estrada, UCSB spokeswoman.
“The university hopes the most efficient resolution of this dispute can be achieved so all energies can be devoted to serving California students and families and supporting the community through transformative research endeavors,” the university’s statement read.
— Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at jmartinez-pogue@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
