Cal Poly Must Build More Dorms

By Andrew Carter

On September 18th, I drove to Long Beach to address the CSU Board of Trustees to tell them the negative impact Cal Poly is having on our community because of its failure to build more dorms on campus. I laid out the facts and provided recommended solutions.

Here are the facts:

• The last dorm built at Cal Poly opened in 1973. Since then, enrollment has increased by 5,000 without a single additional bed being added on campus.

• Today, over 15,000 Cal Poly students live in the community. There are only 19,000 housing units available in town for the students and for the rest of us.

• Because Cal Poly has failed to build more dorms, housing prices in San Luis Obispo are rising faster than they are statewide -- up 86% in San Luis since 1995 vs. a 49% increase statewide.

• In general, the only people who can afford to buy property are developers turning single family homes into student rentals and wealthy out-of-area parents buying houses for their student children.

• Thankfully, Cal Poly is finally building new dorms. A new 800-bed dorm will open in 2002, and a 700-bed dorm should follow in 2006 or 2007. That's 1500 beds, but enrollment has increased by 1600 in the last two academic years.

• The 800-bed dorm will meet the existing housing shortfall, but the 700-bed dorm will house new students. Unfortunately, Cal Poly has made no guarantee the additional beds will be built before new students arrive.

• The Cal Poly Master Plan calls for enrollment to increase to 21,000. The entire increase is supposed to be housed in new dorms, but state funding may not be available to build those dorms.

• Cal Poly should not increase enrollment until after new dorms are built.

• Cal Poly should build all the dorms promised in the Master Plan. If the money is not available from the state, Cal Poly Foundation should build those dorms or Cal Poly should enter into a public-private partnership to fund them. College foundations at three other CSU campuses have built dorms, and CSU-San Marcos has entered into a public-private partnership.

• Capstone-West, a public-private developer, stands ready to work with Cal Poly, but the university has apparently no interest in working with them. The CSU Trustees should direct Cal Poly to do so.

• Cal Poly should build more dorms than in the current Master Plan. Cal Poly needs to accept the responsibility to house more students on campus and stop forcing the community to bear this burden.