Although mini-dorms and administrative citations have been hot discussion topics at the College Area Community Council meetings in recent weeks, last Wednesday, the weekly public gathering focused on something different.
That night CACC President Doug Case said the meeting would be strictly about the 32 environmental impact report comments brought forth by the council and community members; however, mini-dorm related concerns such as student population and parking, did factor into a few comments.
San Diego State released the draft EIR for its updated Campus Master Plan last month. The 30-day public comment period, during which anyone could comment on issues addressed in the EIR such as projected traffic impacts or housing plans, ended on Friday.
One concern was the status of the Paseo project, which one comment called “indefinitely stalled” and requested that it be removed from the EIR along with the stalled sorority housing, because they were dead projects. Another comment asked for SDSU to identify its plans for redevelopment of the site. At the meeting, one member of the community called the undeveloped site an “eyesore.”
Tyler Sherer, director of community relations and special projects at SDSU, said he did not support these comments and that the Paseo project was a priority for the university. The university is working toward getting the EIR approved before it can move forward with the project, Sherer said.
Projected population increases were also a concern for many members of the community. One community member asked why SDSU was planning a 40 percent growth over the next 20 years when the campus has already reached impacted status. Lauren Cooper, associate director of facilities planning at SDSU, said that as a public university, it is SDSU’s job to provide higher education for the area and the state.
“We still have to grow to reach the demand,” Cooper said. “We’re raising the quality of applicants but it doesn’t slow down the demand.”
Another College Area resident suggested that SDSU should adjust its admission policy to decrease the number of students it accepts from outside its service area as a way to keep the population down.
Along with housing and population, transportation and parking were the most commented areas of the EIR. To moderate parking problems, one comment suggested that SDSU consider increasing student fees to provide free trolley and bus passes to all students, as other California universities do. Sherer said increasing student fees requires a student vote. Michael Matthews, vice president of university affairs for Associated Students, did not support the comment.
“It’s unfair to make students pay for fees they’re not going to necessarily use,” he said.
The council removed the part about raising fees after Matthews’ comment.
Parking is a big issue in the College Area and one comment identified a potential problem in the EIR regarding the loss of on-street parking. It said that increasing the number of lanes on Alvarado Road between Reservoir Drive and 70th Street, as proposed, would require the removal of on-street parking, which is currently used to capacity. The council said if the project is to go through, something must be done to alleviate the significant impact on available parking.
The final and most debated comment stated that unless the state legislature agreed to fully fund SDSU’s fair share of mitigation measures (or the cost of off-site transportation improvements to the area, made necessary by its development and defined on the Master Plan Web site), the “5,000 FTES Alternative” should be selected. As described in the EIR, this alternative would cap the student enrollment at 30,000 instead of 35,000, significantly reduce the size of the proposed Alvarado Campus and cut the number of housing units in the Adobe Falls Faculty / Staff Housing project in half.
Sherer said he opposed this comment because the process for seeking funding for “fair share of mitigation” was new.
“What if the state legislature comes up with a process that would (fund the project) over 10 years?” Sherer said. “I disagree with waiting for the state legislature to get it together.”
A council member said she doesn’t want the university to start building before it knows if it’s going to receive funding or not.
