Council May Delay Vote on CLU Plan

The City Council, facing protests by some residents, will decide today whether to delay a Jan. 26 public hearing on Cal Lutheran University’s multimillion-dollar proposal to expand and upgrade the campus.

About 25 residents living on Cedar Heights Drive, near the southwest corner of the campus, oppose the university’s master plan to build faculty housing and a student dormitory within a few hundred feet of their homes.

Forty public meetings were held last year by university officials.

Nonetheless, residents say they were not notified of the project until last month and are concerned about the effect it will have on their neighborhood.

Over the next 20 years, CLU’s plan calls for more than doubling the size of the university, adding new academic facilities, classrooms, administration buildings, a performing arts center, a $40-million athletic center and the new faculty and student housing.

Dan Siefert, a 49-year-old engineering consultant who has lived on Cedar Heights Drive for 14 years, wrote to the city saying there were numerous errors and omissions in CLU’s plan.

Siefert said he met with city officials, including Councilman Andy Fox, last week to voice the neighborhood’s concerns, and he hopes the city will wait before approving the plan.

“We feel like a delay in the vote to approve the master plan is justified,” Siefert said.

“Without us having an opportunity to really work on this thing, it doesn’t seem right to approve it.”