Please see this update from our partners at CHAMP! - Campus Housing Alternatives for Munger Hall Please!
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Dear Members and friends of CHAMP!,
We hope everyone has enjoyed their summers so far. The CHAMP! leadership team has been on a bit of a hiatus following our June 1st event, Munger Hall: Student and Public Response Panels, but we’re gearing up for Fall quarter and new opportunities to push for better UCSB student housing. In this newsletter, we’ll share some updates and materials from the response panels and recent UC Regents meeting, and a vision for the upcoming school year.
Recap of our June 1st Event: Munger Hall Student and Community Response Panel
“Something to revel in”… The students “schooled university administrators on what a professional planning process looks like.” -Carolina Miranda, the LA Times
“An amazing rebuke of their university’s purblind pursuit of the Munger Hall mega-dormitory project.” -Josh Niland, Archinect News
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It’s been almost 3 months since our public forum, and the feedback has been nothing short of amazing. A few hundred people, representing a diverse set of stakeholders, participated in-person and streamed the event at Campbell Hall. Deb Callahan, Chair of CHAMP!, gave the opening and closing remarks. Gene Lucas, professor emeritus, presented for the University on Munger Hall’s current design, and listed some myths and facts about the building as currently planned. Afterwards, the students of the Advanced Environmental Planning class (ENVS 135B) presented a detailed and thoughtful alternative housing plan to Munger Hall that could house between 3,731 and 6,573 students. The event concluded with an hour-long public comment period in which local planners, UCSB students, Isla Vista community members, and more were able to comment on Munger Hall and the student presentations. Rita Bright, instructor of the ENVS 135B class, moderated the public comment period. The full recording of the evening is available on YouTube here.
We’d like to thank the sponsors for this successful event. It could not have happened without the generosity of:
UCSB’s Environmental Affairs Board (EAB)
Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN)
The Central Coast Green Building Council (CCGBC)
The American Institute of Architects Santa Barbara Chapter’s Healthy Housing Subcommittee (AIA-SB)
Looking Towards the 2022-23 School Year
CHAMP! has a small but dedicated leadership team— what makes us unique is that we’re a group of students and alumni working together. However, this means our calendars all look very different and in-person meet-ups happen infrequently. We are looking to grow CHAMP! membership for the upcoming school year so we can increase our bandwidth to take on projects and events and make the kind of impact our campus community needs. We were very fortunate to partner with the students of ENVS 135B for the June 1st public hearing, but to take on more technical challenges like that in the future, we need your help!
We’re looking for folks who want to fight for Munger Hall housing alternatives and can help contribute to events and projects we have in the future. Stay tuned for more information.
The best way to support CHAMP! and stay in the loop right now is to subscribe to this newsletter— tell your friends to sign up on the CHAMP! Website at BetterHousingForUCSB.org. If you have a particular skill, interest, or focus that you would like to share, please add this information to your registration message. If you are interested in becoming a student leader in CHAMP!, please reach out to [email protected] to let us know.
The UCSB housing crisis continues, and so does our work.
CHAMP! Treasurer Steve Guttmann Provides Public Comment at the UC Regents’ July Meeting
The UC Regents gathered in San Francisco July 20th and 21st and offered a public comment period each morning, accessible via Zoom. Steve Guttmann prepared comments on behalf of CHAMP! to keep the issue of Munger Hall before the Regents, and demand that they (1) “bring transparency to the development process so that concerned stakeholders can be heard at the right moments”, and (2) “make sure that alternatives to Munger Hall are fully evaluated and considered.”
Steve’s comments were a follow up to those provided at a previous Regents meeting by members of the AIA Santa Barbara Chapter’s Healthy Housing Sub-Committee. “The work that AIA-SB did to lay the groundwork in both written and verbal testimony was invaluable as we continue to drive home the message that this project should never be built,” said Steve. His comments at this meeting also followed delivery to the Regents of a letter from the Association of University Architects which reiterated many of the criticisms that have been raised before, and added their own concern about the lack of appropriate “place-making” and how unresponsive the project is to UCSB’s settings.
To read Steve’s public comment delivered to the Regents, visit this link.
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Thanks for reading and being a supporter of CHAMP! Enjoy your summer and stay healthy!
- The CHAMP! Leadership Team
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