By Vic Cox

Last month, UC Regents approved plans and an Environmental Impact Report for 236 faculty housing units on UCSB’s 26.3-acre North Campus parcel and 151 family student housing units on the 21.5-acre Storke-Whittier parcel in the same vicinity.

The North Campus parcel is northwest of Ocean Meadows Golf Course, and partially abuts Phelps and Marymount roads on the parcel’s northern boundary. It will be a mix of one-, two-, and in the central portion, three-story units with a “Mediterranean architectural character,” according to the project description. These duplexes, townhouses, and single-family residences will sell as affordable housing.

Family student housing, also known as the Sierra Madre project, will be located adjacent to Storke Road on the east, just north of the existing married student housing, and would be composed of only rental units. Most of the rentals would be in three-story buildings of Mediterranean design.

“Given the region’s very challenging housing market, providing affordable housing opportunities to members of our campus community is both an important goal and an absolute priority for UCSB,” said Chancellor Henry T. Yang. He added that he was “extremely pleased” with the action.

Regental approval of the housing projects, a major piece of a larger Ellwood-Devereux coastal preservation plan, moves the whole package closer to consideration by the California Coastal Commission, the state’s final arbiter of coastal zone development. Certification of the EIR means agreement to the open space and resource management plan envisioned under a joint proposal by the University, Santa Barbara County, and the City of Goleta.

The joint proposal will move residential development from bluffs and environmentally sensitive areas to locations adjacent to existing housing. It preserves more than 650 contiguous acres, including over two miles of coastline, in a more or less natural state. (Some of the land was once part of an oil field.) Goleta, too, has certified its EIR on the open space plan and approved a land parcel swap with a private developer.

County action is expected soon on its part of the joint proposal. On Oct. 19 the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to certify the county’s open space EIR and a plan for housing on 9.5 acres adjacent to UCSB’s Storke-Whittier parcel.