As UCSB Grows and Grows, It Falls Way Behind on Building Housing

Evidence of Santa Barbara’s extreme housing shortage can be seen everywhere ― fast-climbing rent rates, a median home price that just jumped from $1.5 million to $2 million, and long commutes for those who can’t afford to live where they work. Efforts to address the scarcity also abound ― higher densities, more granny flats, and new state laws meant to expedite development by limiting local control.

While the reasons are complicated and date back decades, the root of the problem is simple. There is just not enough construction of new housing supply to meet current demand. And here on the South Coast, there is perhaps no bigger contributor to the present day housing crunch than our world-renowned university.

That revelation is contained in a searing June 18 letter sent by a coalition of community groups known as SUN, or Sustainable University Now, to UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang. SUN accuses UCSB and Yang of breaching a legally binding 2010 Long Range Development Plan in which the university pledged to cap its enrollment at 25,000 students through the year 2025, to build dormitories for the 5,000 students it planned on adding, and to construct 1,800 new units for its growing ranks of faculty and staff.