UC San Diego’s department of Housing Dining Hospitality (HDH) unveiled a new housing plan for the locations of Seventh and Eighth Colleges.
According to HDH Executive Director Hemlata Jhaveri, Seventh College will replace The Village, the current transfer student housing, beginning 2020. Eighth College will replace the Revelle College parking lots in 2023.
The proposal is part of the university’s housing mission called the 2018 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP). It aims to outline the development of not only the two new undergraduate residential colleges but also the current construction of the North Torrey Pines Living Learning Neighborhood and two new graduate housing areas, Nuevo East and Nuevo West.
The LRDP also aims for transfer students to have access to housing in the Rita Atkinson and Pepper Canyon East residences in 2020 and eventually Pepper Canyon West in 2022. Rita Atkinson is the current housing residence for graduate students located on the southwest corner of the Health Sciences Neighborhood. The Pepper Canyon Neighborhood is a planned housing project located near the Gilman Parking Structure.
“As we bring more students to UC San Diego, we must plan for everything needed to support them,” said Gary C. Matthews, vice chancellor of Resource Management and Planning. “We need to continue creating great spaces for people to learn, live and interact. But we must do this while aligning with our Strategic Plan, advancing our sustainability goals, and enhancing connections to and around campus.”
According to the LRDP report, the campus currently houses 11,620 undergraduate students, with 9,300 students in college housing and 2,320 students in non-college housing, also known as The Village. The report also reveals that on-campus housing was designed to house 9,270 students, leaving the university 2,350 beds over capacity in the 2018–19 school year.
The new housing plan aims to “decompress” undergraduate student housing on campus so that each college will hold 4,000 students, increasing the percentage of on-campus undergraduate students from 39 percent to 62 percent by 2028.
“UC San Diego continues to see a rapid growth in undergraduate and graduate student enrollment,” the report states. “As a result, the demand for on-campus housing has increased. The university’s Long Range Development Plan includes the accommodation of up to two additional undergraduate residential colleges to meet the needs of a growing student population.”
The LRDP has not been updated since 2004, which at the time acknowledged the need for a sixth residential college. The plan now aims to address relevant university concerns such as growing student enrollment, lack of undergraduate housing on campus, and soaring rent prices in the La Jolla market.
Anabel King is the Assistant Managing Editor for The Triton. You can follow her at @anabelkingg.
Correction: This article was updated on November 30, 2018 at 2:50 p.m. A previous version referred to the new graduate housing areas as “Mesa Nuevo East” and “Mesa Nuevo West.” We apologize for the error.