Campus building plan faces vote

Attracting the best and brightest is a top priority for any major university, but UC Santa Barbara recruiters face a stacked deck: astronomical housing prices that sticker-shock the brightest luminaries.

“Many of our faculty can’t afford housing, and when faculty leave, the No. 1 reason is lack of affordable housing,” said Donna Carpenter, vice chancellor of administrative services.

Santa Barbara is one of California’s most expensive communities, where the median price of a house runs from $599,500 in the county to $1.02 million in the city.

So the university is pinning its hopes for more affordable housing for students and faculty on an ambitious proposal to develop a patch of open space in the “north campus” area more than a mile from the school. That area is mostly undeveloped, but would be built adjacent to an existing residential community that is part of Goleta.

Many who live here vigorously oppose the university’s plan. They say the new buildings would be too tall and would block ocean views, obliterate a common green area and shoo away kestrels, white-tailed kites and other wildlife.

“We use that field on a daily basis,” said Reed Radke of Goleta, referring to the area slated for development near a coastal bluff and wetlands. “I consider it a community and environmental treasure.” The dispute comes to a head today at the monthly meeting of the California Coastal Commission.

The panel is notoriously strict about development near the coast, but in this case the staff is recommending that the board approve the project with specific conservation measures.

The university seeks to build two housing projects, one for faculty and the other for students, on a 174-acre parcel. The faculty housing would consist of 172 dwelling units, including single-family houses and condominiums, with some buildings as tall as three stories on 26 acres. Nearby, the Sierra Madre Family Student Housing Project would have 151 units on 18 acres.

But Goleta residents oppose high-density housing. They worry that the university is going to create another Isla Vista, known for its rampaging drunken college kids, in their backyard.

“They call it affordable housing, but that’s a lie,” Radke said. “They aren’t going to give it to first-year biology professors. It will go to favored faculty ... people who can afford it.”

Worse still, opponents say, the Coastal Commission is letting UC Santa Barbara get away with things that other developers couldn’t. They point out that the agency’s own staff report on the matter concludes there are inadequate buffers between buildings and wetlands and that the commission’s own ecologist concluded the project lacks sufficient measures to protect environmentally sensitive habitat.

“They should be accountable like any other developers would be,” said Mary Jo Comer, a Goleta resident for nine years who lives across the street from the proposed faculty housing.

John Ainsworth, deputy director of the Coastal Commission, acknowledges some of those concerns and says there are tradeoffs. He said the Coastal Commission staff is willing to give up a bit of environmental protection to gain a lot more in another nearby area.

Specifically, the university, Santa Barbara County and Goleta have agreed to incorporate 69 acres of nearby land into a conservation area. The property, owned by the university and once slated for development, contains excellent wildlife habitat and wetlands and is adjacent to other conservation and park areas where more open space is expected to be added in the future, Ainsworth said. He said that by clustering development into high-density areas, less land is harmed.

“We think it’s reasonable and a very good deal to cluster residential areas where residential areas already exist,” Ainsworth said.

“In the end, it’s more protective of coastal resources.”

Within the faculty and student housing areas, Ainsworth said, there will be small areas of land set aside for habitat, efforts to restore and protect degraded areas, and trails and paths.

If the Coastal Commission approves the project, it will still require approval from the office of the University of California president and possibly the Board of Regents.

gary.polakovic@latimes.com