For UC Irvine Neighbors, Debate Over Housing May Be Academic

Irwin Alber remembers a time he could peer out his living room window and see cattle grazing where UC Irvine’s dormitories and educational buildings now sit, and he fears his shrinking view will soon be obscured by university apartments.

Facing a housing shortage, the university wants to build enough dorms and apartments to accommodate the 1,400 or so students who are annually denied a place to live on campus.

But neighbors in Turtle Rock see the plan as an assault on their senses--noise from traffic, noise from students and bulky, box-like structures blocking their view. One complained that the residence halls going up at the western edge of the campus are more suitable for a correctional facility than a college.

It’s a classic neighborhood battle with a twist: The university is under no obligation to make good with its neighbors but says it’s trying.

On Oct. 9, UC Irvine officials will brief the Irvine City Council on one of their more contentious projects--a plan to build 500 apartments on 73 acres of grassland along Culver Drive, directly across from the half-million-dollar homes in Turtle Rock. The university has an option to build another 500 units farther south on Culver by 2007.

College administrators say they understand why residents are upset.

“If you hear that campus housing is going up right next to you, you think: ‘Noise and traffic,’ ” said James Craig, UC Irvine assistant vice chancellor. “But there are apartments on Campus Drive right across from the university where a number of students live, and we haven’t had any major complaints from over there. And we’ve had very few complaints about noise emanating from the campus.”

Like universities and colleges throughout the state, UC Irvine said it is unable to provide campus housing for everyone. Roughly half the students who request it each year end up living elsewhere. Steep rents in adjacent neighborhoods make the problem worse. So the school wants to build housing for 2,650 undergraduate and graduate students over the next four years.

At UC Irvine, freshmen and transfer students are guaranteed rooms in one of the campus dormitories for their first year. About half of the university’s graduate students land a spot in one of the two on-campus apartment complexes.

But of the 3,000 housing requests UC Irvine gets from its sophomores, juniors and seniors annually, only 1,600 are granted.

Construction to add 380 beds to the 1,200-bed Mesa Court--one of two dormitories on campus--is underway and should be finished by next fall. And by 2005, the Palo Verde apartment complex on campus will almost quadruple, adding housing for 770 graduate students.

But the housing off Culver Drive is causing an uproar. Craig said the university expects to house 1,500 students there starting in 2005.

Alber, who chairs the Turtle Rock Area Community Council activist group, said he was horrified when he read the university’s environmental study on the project.

“I call it the Great Wall of UCI,” said Alber, who has a view of the campus. “It starts with three-story units along Culver that are 35 feet high, followed up with four-story units and a 10-foot setback from the road.”

Alber, a 25-year resident, hopes he and neighbors can persuade the City Council to negotiate design changes with the university. He said they would like to see the setback extended to 100 feet, a three-story limit with only two stories on buildings facing Culver, and a greenbelt surrounding the development to buffer noise.

Councilman Greg Smith said he hopes the university will be willing to compromise.

“That UCI can do whatever they want without city approval is a great concern,” he said, “because if they go through with the plans as we’ve seen them, they will be in opposition to all the planning we’ve undertaken.

“It would dramatically change the environment in that part of town, and we’ve taken extraordinary measures to maintain a rural, suburban look. Building massive apartments close to the road would destroy all our efforts to protect that area.” he added.

UC Irvine officials say the plans aren’t set in stone. It will be several weeks, maybe even months, before they select a developer. And even then, the plan will have to go through hearings and obtain the approval of the University of California Board of Regents.

Until then, Craig said, university officials are willing to work with residents. “We’re trying to be very sensitive,” Craig said.