The new College of the Canyons governing board is requesting that the college follow through on its original plan to build an on-campus, low-income student housing facility.
In an attempt to reverse the decision made by the previous board to return $62 million for low-income student housing, the new governing board on Friday approved rescinding the letter that was sent to the state confirming that COC is not going through with the project.
According to Friday’s agenda, the college received an invoice from the state in December to return the funds, and the funds were then returned in January.
Fred Arnold, recently sworn in as a board member, said that as the college’s job is to “serve the underserved,” then committing to student housing should be a top priority.
“We’re talking $62 million, and we’re short by 3%,” Arnold said. “As a community, we can’t figure that out? Yeah, certainly, when I look at those that object to it because they’re concerned about, ‘it’s going to take into the current instruction’ — let’s look at options where it doesn’t cut in at all, but it enhances it, because now we have students who are no longer couch surfing, living on the floor.”
It’s the first major action that the new board has taken. Board President Sharlene Johnson, Arnold and Darlene Trevino were all sworn in in December, while Edel Alonso and Carlos Guerrero remain from the board that initially made the decision in October.
David Andrus, interim president of the college, said the move is “premature” as the college does not currently have a plan for how to fully fund the project.
Arnold brought up the motion, which passed 3-2. Alonso and Guerrero voted against rescinding the letter.
Alonso has previously said that she is “proud of being fiscally conservative” with regard to declining the student housing funds.
According to Eric Harnish, spokesman for the college, there is not currently a timeline for the state to respond to the college’s request.
The initial action that led to Friday’s action saw the board decline $62 million in state funding, provided via lease revenue bonds and requiring multiple buildings to be put up as collateral, for the following reasons, as outlined in Friday’s agenda:
- Due to an increase in construction costs, the funding provided would no longer allow the college to build the same size facility as originally presented in 2021. The college had worked with architects to design a 209-bed facility, the cost of which would have exceeded the $61.8 million that was budgeted for the project. If the college were to go through with the 209-bed facility, funds would need to be raised or general fund money would need to be used to cover the cost of the increase, estimated at $5 million.
- The college could descope the facility to come in under the $61.8 million, which would mean fewer beds and fewer amenities for students. The operating costs would exceed the amount that would be generated through rents. Since rent is not a factor that can be increased due to it being low-income, the college would have to budget general funds to cover the annual costs of the building.
- The board and the college did not want to utilize two buildings as collateral for the lease revenue bonds. The original grant was awarded to the college through an application process, and did not require the college to work with multiple state entities through a lease revenue bond.
Another concern brought up by Jasmine Ruys, assistant superintendent of student services, during Friday’s meeting included how students in the housing facility would be serviced in case of emergency, such as the one that college faced when the Hughes Fire was burning in Castaic at the end of January.
“These are all the things that the board has listened to for the last two years, in regards to moving us to a 24-hour operation,” Ruys said. “So, I understand that this board’s concern is the $62 million. For me, it goes far beyond that — it is the well-being of that student here, every day all day. You are talking about changing our campus from a non-residential campus to a residential campus. It is very different. I want you to also think of not only food, the housing that goes along with that, the support systems for mental health, the support systems for students who are going through Title IX allegations.”
Ruys added that as the facility would only have roughly 200 beds, and there are likely five times that many students who could qualify and would apply to get one of those beds.
“How are we going to handle that, and what do we do for those people who we say no to?” Ruys said.
Andrus said he appreciated Arnold’s enthusiasm to help students, but that the project requires further analysis and college staff is not yet prepared to continue with it.
“I think when the motion was made tonight, and a second, there should have been a discussion about whether or not that motion is timely,” Andrus said, “or whether or not it could be made at a future board meeting after a secondary presentation about all the funding mechanisms, or whether or not some of that could have been presented tonight.”
COC was chosen as one of 13 community colleges across the state to be awarded funds via the Affordable Student Housing Grant to be part of what was initially billed as the first phase of low-income student housing projects. That funding was later taken back temporarily and then restructured from a grant to lease-revenue bonds.
The additional funding that would be needed to fulfill the project would likely eat into some of the instructional material and projects, according to staff comments made at the October meeting.
Andrus said the college will, as the board directed, request for the money to be returned, if that is still possible. College staff had indicated at the October meeting that once the money was returned, it was likely not possible to go back on that decision.
After that decision was made, the board and college staff discussed some other options to help students with housing issues. That preliminary discussion included: working with nearby California Institute of the Arts to see if extra dorms would be available at cheaper rates than the lower-end rent of $1,800 in the Santa Clarita Valley; looking at grant funding for individual students; and using general fund money to subsidize rents for students, though that idea had water thrown on it due to it potentially being seen as a gift of public funds.