Student housing update: SMC-UCLA agreement terminated
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has officially pulled out of its housing agreement with Santa Monica College (SMC).
A few months ago, SMC quietly announced that UCLA had pulled out of the partnership. A statement was released on March 12 in the minutes from the March 4 Board of Trustees (BoT) meeting, on the SMC BoT website.
“UCLA is no longer able to continue with the proposed joint affordable student housing project at SMC’s Bundy Campus. UCLA’s considerations leading to this decision were multiple, including substantially increased costs of construction (as experienced by housing projects currently underway), reduced operational support from the State leading to UCLA increasing the overhead it now charges to its housing program, great uncertainty regarding the status of Federal support across the institution, and shifts in leadership,” the minutes state.
UCLA did not offer a comment when asked about pulling from the partnership.
The BoT held a public meeting on Jan. 21, 2025 to discuss several proposals pertaining to the SMC community. One of these proposals involved a potential housing agreement with UCLA for SMC’s Bundy Campus.
Donald Girard, Senior Director of Government Relations & Institutional Relations, spearheaded the discussion about the potential collaboration. Girard said that UCLA called SMC about the potential partnership last December and learned that UCLA could provide a housing operation on a “cheaper basis” that could also “enhance” SMC’s reputation.
Girard noted previous trust issues between SMC and UCLA, while highlighting UCLA’s recent change in leadership.
“We’ve gone through a number of trust issues with them, so we are very pleased that they have come back to us after their own internal change of leadership. They've had a retired chancellor, an interim chancellor, and now, they have a permanent chancellor (Julio Frenk) and a new chief financial officer (Stephen Agostini). The UC system itself has had a change in leadership, so all those hurdles have been cleared, and now we’re in deep conversation,” Girard said.
According to the meeting minutes, the partnership proposed 750 student beds, in an “apartment style configuration,” primarily four rooms/two beds with a kitchen and two bathrooms. The rooms were to be split 50/50 amongst SMC and UCLA students, and UCLA was to operate it.
Anna Volz is the President of Volz Company, described on the company website as a real estate and operational advisory and program management firm. Volz spoke at the Jan. 21 meeting about the objectives for this potential housing partnership.
“This needs to be accessible, affordable housing for your students. It also needs to break even. We've never been looking for money from a general fund or some other source, we’ve always modeled out to be self-sustaining. Numbers haven’t changed despite fires and (we see) significant demand from our low income students and a lot of demand from non low income students,” Volz said.
According to Volz, across the discussions of what the partnership would look like, UCLA offered three possible options.
“A public-private partnership (P3) for our students, only that would use our entitlements and UCLA, which is very unique, would be offering management services, so we would have, in every single version here, access to all of their infrastructure,” Volz said.
The second option would not be P3, but with UCLA managing the housing. Both options would require SMC to go through its own entitlement process.
The entitlement process would entail SMC going through a lengthy process for approval from Santa Monica’s government to allow the construction of a dorm. Girard mentioned that an entitlement process wouldn't be the right fit for the Santa Monica Community.
“So if we want to build a classroom on the main campus, the law is very clear. We don't have to ask the city of Santa Monica for permission to do it. If we want to build a dorm on the Santa Monica College campus, the law is very clear that we don't have a statute that says you can. Some colleges are doing it anyway. We think this project is too big in a neighborhood that's too volatile to bluff our way forward.”
A P3 would have SMC partnering with a nonprofit that has no involvement with any college in the state of California.
“Well, the private is that it's not another agent of the government, so it's not another community college. It's not the state itself. So ultimately a not-for-profit entity would own the improvements while there is debt service on the property from about 35 to 40 years. So then what's different now, of course, is there would be a joint use agreement. And I'm not sure if that's going to be the exact legal term, but between us and UCLA to be involved in this public-private partnership together,” Volz said.
“The final offer was a 50/50 partnership with UCLA. UCLA and SMC would split 50/50 amongst their students into a 750 bed community, in which 375 beds would go to SMC students and the other 375 to UCLA students. On top of that, UCLA would still provide the management.
Volz and the trustees focused on option three, as they viewed it as the only realistic option. In this third option, SMC and UCLA look to find a P3 partner for this partnership. According to the meeting minutes, the project development would have had SMC and UCLA “determining responsibilities for design, construction, and timeliness in coordination with the P3 partner.”
It also mentions the project funding by the prospective P3 partner: “SMC and UCLA will determine which of the functions typically provided by a P3 partner will instead be handled by UCLA. SMC and UCLA will determine the process of selecting a P3 partner. SMC intends to recommend the three firms identified in its P3 qualifications process for UCLA’s Consideration.”
The partnership would have seen SMC and UCLA collaborating on responsibilities and criteria for each of these areas. “SMC and UCLA both have access to the work done by the Riverside Community College District and the University of California, Riverside, in preparing and approving an intersegmental affordable student housing agreement in June of last year,” the minutes stated.
UCLA would have also been responsible for the building and safety approvals, as well as the project’s compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
On January 21st, the motion to move forward with the partnership was made by Margaret Quiñones-Perez and seconded by Anastasia Foster. The motion received 5 ayes and 1 abstain from trustee Rob Rader.
When asked why he chose to abstain Rader responded with, “Education is the main priority. We are an institution of higher education. We do housing to support education, not education to support housing. Moreover, the state underfunds us for our core educational mission. It gives us nothing, or almost nothing, to pay operating costs for dormitories and housing.
Along with the update about the UCLA student housing partnership, the Board of Trustees announced at the March 4 meeting that SMC is sponsoring state bill AB 648, introduced by assembly member Rick Chavez Zbur. According to Zbur, the bill’s purpose is to increase affordable housing in local communities.
“The bill, if enacted, resolves t zoning issue regarding student housing. The bill affirms that staff and student housing on property owned or leased by a community college district serves educational purpose and is a state priority. Proposed legislation is an addition to Education Code to characterize staff and student housing as exempt from local zoning and will assist SMC as it proceeds with its effort to provide student housing,” the minutes state.
At a Directors meeting on March 10, a motion to endorse AB 648 was approved unanimously by Associated Students.