Lack of student housing is a constant problem at UC San Diego. The university is adding 1,300 more beds this fall and another 2,500 more next year.
While 10,000 new beds have been added (or are currently under construction) in the past 5 to 7 years, UCSD Campus Planner Robert Clossin said that's still not enough to house all students who want housing on campus.
"Our target is 65%, or thereabouts, where we can be able to provide a four-year housing guarantee for all the students that want to live on campus," he said. "So while that's a lot of beds, it's still not quite enough to meet our goals."
Currently, only about 22,000 students receive on-campus housing or roughly 50% of the 43,000-plus student body.
That’s why UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla is presenting Wednesday afternoon to the University of California Board of Regents a 10-year, $2 billion plan to build more.
The proposed project is called the Pepper Canyon East Neighborhood District, located on the eastern edge of campus, where the Pepper Canyon and Matthews apartments are and near the Trolley Blue Line and Interstate 5.
It's a village-style housing development featuring six- and eight-bedroom apartment-style units, a campus hotel and student recreation areas and fields.
"It starts the process where we can hire architects and engineers and planners to really further investigate the site," Clossin said. "It's on a 20-acre parcel. It'll be built in different phases, so it won't all be built at once. And we are expecting a total of up to 6,000 beds potentially on the site."
Rent for those units is expected to be at least 30% lower than the market rate for the University Towne Center-La Jolla area near campus and 20% lower for the greater San Diego area.
In October 2022, the Associated Students of UCSD approved a resolution supporting the university's goal for a four-year housing guarantee.
With the campus enrollment expected to increase to over 50,000 students in the next 10 years, the university said it would be impossible to meet student demand without additional housing.
If approved, the first phase would start in the summer of 2026, adding up to 2,000 more beds.
