S.U.N.

[ From it's press release of 11/13/2008 ]

Today a coalition of Santa Barbara County organizations is announcing the formation of Sustainable University Now (SUN). SUN is the product of a series of meetings convened by the Santa Barbara County Action Network (SB CAN) to discuss community challenges raised by UCSB’s Draft Long Range Development Plan (LRDP). SUN members are committed to encouraging wide community participation in reviewing and responding to the LRDP draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR), which is expected to be re-circulated soon.

SUN members emphasize that they do not seek to oppose the University’s future development, but rather to improve it. Olivia Uribe, Associate Director of SB CAN, sums it up this way: “As a recent UCSB grad, I know firsthand what a great asset UCSB is to Santa Barbara County. Our coalition has been clear that we want to have a collaborative, positive relationship with UCSB.” SUN’s statement of principles echoes this approach, stressing the importance of careful planning: “Decisions made by and about the University will have far reaching and long lasting consequences for residents of the campus, Isla Vista, the Cities of Santa Barbara and Goleta and throughout Santa Barbara County.”

Richard Flacks, UCSB Research Professor of Sociology, is serving as interim chair of the SUN Coalition. In announcing the formation of the group he summarized the objectives of the organization as follows: “We want to make sure that this project is based on principles of sustainability, provides broad social benefits and that the project’s impacts on the area’s housing supply, water resources, traffic and commuting help improve rather than threaten our quality of life.”

SUN is requesting that local governmental bodies review and comment on the recirculated draft EIR.

The current list of Coalition members includes these organizations:

Coalition for Sustainable Transportation (COAST)
Community Environmental Council
League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara Audubon Society
Santa Barbara County Action Network (SB CAN)
Sierra Club Los Padres Chapter - Santa Barbara Group
Pueblo Education Fund
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

The Coalition’s Statement of Principles follows:

SUSTAINABLE UNIVERSITY NOW COALITION PRINCIPLES

UCSB is an integral part of the greater Santa Barbara County community.

The University’s current Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) efforts will set the stage for its expansion over the next twenty years. Decisions made by and about the University will have far reaching and long lasting consequences for residents of the campus, Isla Vista, the Cities of Santa Barbara and Goleta and throughout Santa Barbara County.

The LRDP should fully acknowledge the relationship and impact of the University’s development plans on other constituencies and jurisdictions. UCSB must ensure that the cumulative impacts on the resources it shares with its neighbors – roads and intersections, water supply, watersheds and sensitive habitats, etc. – are understood and specifically addressed.

We believe that the following principles should guide this process:

* The LRDP must be based on principles of sustainability and UCSB should demonstrate leadership in such areas as transportation, protection of natural resources, water, affordable housing, traffic, parking, energy conservation, climate change concerns, recycling, etc. UCSB development should seek to promote and include modern sustainability planning principles.

* Any UCSB growth plans should be warranted by broad social benefits as well as institutional needs. UCSB’s development must be at a level that maintains and enhances the quality of life of its surrounding communities.

* Concerns and impacts raised in the draft Environmental Impact Report should be addressed fully, openly, and inclusively, providing specific mitigations, timetables and detailed planning as part of the final plan.

* The final LRDP will benefit from and should be the result of substantial community involvement and local public hearings and meetings on the proposed EIR. UCSB should seek participation from all South Coast jurisdictions and constituencies, including, but not limited to, the City of Goleta, the City and County of Santa Barbara, agencies such as the Isla Vista Redevelopment Agency, the Isla Vista Recreation and Park District, the Goleta Water District, the Goleta West Sanitary District, the Goleta Sanitary District, neighborhood associations and individuals.

Ocean Road

How can building on Ocean Road NOT be considered as part of UCSB's Long Range Developement Plan?


[ From: "UCSB’s Ocean Road Project Raises Concerns - University Administration Facing Possible Housing Pressure," By Ben Preston, SB INDEPENDENT, November 13, 2008 ]

In an attempt to get going on a portion of its Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) for 2025, UCSB has been pushing to get a campus housing project proposed for Ocean Road considered separately from the rest of the plan. The university’s argument that this part of the already controversial plan could be initiated as an amendment to the university’s 1990 LRDP was met with skepticism from members of the public at a November 6 hearing.

Objections to what some are calling a piecemeal approach were met by comments from Tye Simpson, UCSB’s director of campus planning and design, [who] claimed at the meeting that the university is doing what any community would do when making an amendment to its General Plan. The project’s detractors argue that since the LRDP for 2025 is currently under review — of which the Ocean Road development is part — has not been passed, dealing with it separately goes against the existing LRDP and the California Environmental Quality Act process.

Adjacent to Isla Vista along the western boundary of UCSB’s main campus, the Ocean Road project would include 532 units containing faculty, staff, and graduate student housing, commercial space, and more than 1,000 parking spaces. The row of eucalyptus trees that now stands along Ocean Road next to Isla Vista’s easternmost houses would be removed, and UCSB’s student health center would be relocated. UCSB’s position has been that the housing and parking are much needed, but community activists say that it is over and above what that area can accommodate. “The project includes so much more parking than is required by the housing they’re building,” said Olivia Uribe, the associate director of the Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN).

“Even though the Ocean Road project is an integral part of the 2008 LRDP for 2025, [UCSB] is representing it as an amendment to the 1990 LRDP,” said Dick Flacks, a professor emeritus of sociology at UCSB and a member of SBCAN’s Board of Directors. Along with individuals and groups he said are “concerned with the future of UCSB as a part of the community,” Flacks recently formed the Sustainable University Now (SUN) Coalition to address the many problems they’ve perceived in the LRDP for 2025. “[The Ocean Road project] changes a lot of things. Height limits, for instance — there are buildings that will be taller than anything allowed in the 1990 LRPD,” he said. The apartments and town homes in the development would be anywhere from two to six stories tall.

Flacks... also said that extracting elements of the plan would go against the very nature of long-range planning...

Linda Krop, the Environmental Defense Center’s chief counsel, said that although the LRDP amendment process has been going on for nearly two years, the Ocean Road project is only a part of it, and is still subject to its own environmental review and scrutiny by the California Coastal Commission before anything can be done...

The next hearing for the Ocean Road project will be December 20, when many students will be gone for the winter holiday...