UCSB Long-Range Plan Greeted with Skepticism in Goleta
Officials and neighbors air their concerns but some question the need for university growth at all
While official comments have not been made on the recirculated portions of the UCSB Long-Range Development Plan’s Environmental Impact Report, Goleta leaders have made it clear they are not satisfied with the university’s plans.
“The (UC) Regents need to realize that our community can only accommodate a certain amount of growth,” City Councilman Michael Bennett said during a public forum on UCSB’s plans Tuesday.
The UCSB blueprint is a development plan that aims to grow the student population on campus by 1 percent per year, for a total of 25,000 students enrolled by 2025. To accommodate the student growth, UCSB, one of the South Coast’s largest employers, is planning to provide housing for them as well as staff and faculty needed to support the student body increase. Portions of the plan’s Environmental Impact Report are being recirculated, to address the hotter issues in the community, like housing, traffic and water supply.
While the development is expected to take place completely within the campus, local residents aired their concerns about the effects of growth on the surrounding community.
Members of the Storke Ranch neighborhood, adjacent to UCSB, turned up to repeat the concerns they have with the traffic impacts should their cul de sac portion of Phelps Road be connected to the campus’ Mesa Road on the other side of the gate. Thirty-four trips along two-lane Phelps Road could turn into thousands of trips if the road is used to get to and from campus, they said.
According to Executive Vice Chancellor Gene Lucas, the university is “agnostic” about the idea of opening Phelps. With the promised widening of El Colegio Road this summer, the neighbors might not have to worry about their street.
Still, there were concerns about UCSB’s population growth and the kinds of resources available to support that growth.
“The university needs to look at sustainability in the context of the entire community,” said George Relles, speaking for the SUN Coalition, a group affiliated with the Santa Barbara County Action Network and created with the intention of monitoring the university’s development and its effects. The UCSB buildout, he said, may pre-empt Goleta’s own plans for development because of the anticipated impacts of the population growth on campus.
Not necessarily so, said Alissa Hummer, a UCSB representative. The long-range plan assumes a rate of population growth similar to that of the surrounding communities. Taking into account Goleta’s General Plan data, she said, the university development will not take so many resources the city could not support its own projected increased population.
“We’re not pre-empting any development that’s currently identified in the city’s plan,” she said.
Several people suggested improvements on transportation, proposing various mass transit systems and other measures intended to reduce the number of drivers on local roads, in the hopes that UCSB will lead the way to a mass transit way of life in the suburban Goleta Valley.
That kind of lifestyle change responsibility is too much to expect from the university, commented Councilman Eric Onnen.
“We need a more achievable goal for transportation,” he said.
Yet others suggested a lowering of UCSB’s target 5,000 student increase.
“Why can’t we stay with the number of students we’ve had,” asked Mayor Roger Aceves.
The city’s comments will be submitted to UCSB before the March 30 official close of comment on the long-range plan’s recirculated Environmental Impact Report. Click here to view the document or submit comments.
— Noozhawk staff writer Sonia Fernandez can be reached atsfernandez@noozhawk.com.
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