The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted in closed session Tuesday to sue UC Santa Barbara over its “failure to comply with its housing obligations” for students, faculty and staff.
County Counsel Rachel Van Mullem said the board unanimously agreed to initiate litigation against the Regents of the University of California for UCSB’s failure to build enough housing for its growing population under the 2010 UCSB Long Range Development Plan Mitigation Implementation and Settlement Agreement.
This comes eight months after the city of Goleta filed a lawsuit against UCSB, claiming the university violated the settlement agreement, which ensured the growth in student enrollment would be met with building more on-campus housing.
Supervisor Gregg Hart, who represents the Second District including the UCSB campus, read a statement on behalf of the Board of Supervisors during Tuesday’s meeting:
“The 2010-2025 University of California Santa Barbara Long Range Development Plan Mitigation Implementation and Settlement Agreement between UCSB, the county of Santa Barbara, and the city of Goleta signed by the UC Regents provided UCSB the opportunity to grow in a responsible, metered manner from 20,000 to 25,000 students, and ensured that the growth would occur matched with constructing on-campus housing for students,” Hart said.
“The agreement addressed the expressed impacts to the surrounding community by the projected growth of up to 5,000 students, 336 additional faculty and 1,400 additional staff.
“The county of Santa Barbara remains steadfast in its ongoing assertions to UCSB to build the required housing and fulfill the terms of the agreement in order to provide for the needs of the students and reduce impacts to the surrounding communities.
“While every opportunity has been afforded to the university of completing the construction, to date UCSB has failed to construct all the beds needed. Despite ongoing requests for a timeline related to the construction of the housing, it is apparent that the required beds will not be in place prior to 2025, when the agreement expires.
“The county and UCSB have enjoyed a longstanding relationship of working collaboratively to address the needs of a shared constituency. Unfortunately at this time, very simply, UCSB has breached the settlement agreement by failing to provide the required housing of its students, faculty and staff.
“Despite numerous attempts by the county over many years to secure a reliable timeline as to when UCSB will build the required housing, there is no timeline or commitment by UCSB for when the requirement will be addressed. Litigation was the only path remaining to compel UCSB to act upon their obligation,” Hart said.
“This is not an action we take lightly,” Board Chair Joan Hartmann said before adjourning the meeting.
Last year, the Board of Supervisors accused UCSB of violating the Long Range Development Plan.
In October 2021, Hartmann told Noozhawk that the county had been in mitigation and settlement discussions with the university, and she believed that the “negotiations have gone as far as they’re going to go.”
Housing shortages at UCSB got so bad last year that the university put up several hundred students in Goleta-area hotels, and some resorted to living in their cars so they could continue attending classes.
UCSB has proposed building Munger Hall: an 11-story, 4,500-student dormitory that sparked local and national outcry over its design, which includes window-less rooms and high-density living spaces.
In June, the UC Regents approved plans for a 540-unit housing project on Ocean Road for faculty and staff members.
UCSB released a statement in response to the county’s announcement:
“UC Santa Barbara has been involved in extensive good-faith discussions with the County over student housing since experiencing significant and unanticipated undergraduate enrollment increases several years ago at the behest of the State of California. The University and the County have a shared goal of providing more on-campus housing for our students.
“The University remains committed to building more affordable on-campus housing for our students, in addition to the recently completed projects that created an additional 1,500 student housing beds. We look forward to continuing our discussions with the County and are hopeful that any lawsuit does not result in needless and expensive litigation, instead of ongoing collaboration.”
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.