This post was updated July 27 at 8:18 p.m.
UCLA has pulled out of its agreement with Santa Monica College to build affordable housing for students at both schools.
SMC and UCLA planned to construct a building on SMC’s Bundy Campus near Santa Monica Airport. It would have housed 750 students in apartment-style units, each with four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen, according to The Corsair, SMC’s student newspaper.
However, a UCLA administrator told SMC in February that the university would no longer be able to participate in the project for financial reasons, said Don Girard, SMC’s senior director of government relations and institutional communications.
SMC does not currently offer any form of housing to its students. It received a planning grant from the state in 2023 and began hiring developers to pursue a housing project, Girard said. UCLA Housing heard about the plan and asked SMC if it could join the project, and the two universities began working together in December 2023, he added.
UCLA offers housing to over 14,000 students, according to the UCLA Housing website. The UC Board of Regents also allocated nearly $9 million in funding to build a new 19-story housing complex at UCLA on July 16.
[Related: UC Regents committee requests $8.7 million to fund Levering Avenue student housing]
Girard said seeing other UCs work on similar projects – including UC Riverside, which partnered with the Riverside Community College District to create apartment-style housing for nearly 1,600 students – made him confident in the feasibility of the SMC-UCLA plan.
“With UCLA’s help, we began to really see the potential,” Girard said. “There were some models out there as to what it could look like, so we were proceeding on the assumption that we would move forward.”
Kate Rodgers, the co-chair of the Student HOMES Coalition – an organization that advocates for affordable student housing in California, said partnerships between UC and California State University schools with community colleges are “not a new idea.”
Collaborations often happen because UC and CSUs can provide money, while community colleges can provide land, creating a mutually beneficial partnership. Other times, the two institutions collaborate on housing to create smoother transfer pathways for students moving from a community college to a four-year institution, Rodgers added.
“It sometimes works out as a Goldilocks partnership that they can come to,” Rodgers said.
Girard said that in November 2024, UCLA told SMC it could no longer self-finance the project and needed to fund it through a public-private partnership, through which the university would find an outside collaborator to help it pay. UCLA said it could be a full partner in the project and handle the entitlement process – in which a developer gains approval from the government – while financing through a third party to avoid debt, he added.
“UCLA and the University of California’s Chancellor’s Office have recently worked through several changes in personnel in top leadership, have reviewed the housing opportunities the Bundy Campus site offers, have reviewed UCLA’s financial capacity, and have indicated their support to proceed with the work outlined,” said minutes from a Jan. 21 Santa Monica Community College District Board of Trustees meeting.
Then, on a Feb. 13 Zoom call, Pete Angelis, UCLA’s associate vice chancellor for housing and hospitality, informed Girard and an SMC colleague that UCLA would not be moving forward with the project.
Angelis attributed UCLA’s withdrawal to budgetary issues, including increased costs of construction and changes in leadership, Girard said.
UCLA experienced turnover in its administration between December 2023 – the time it began talks with SMC – and February 2025, when it pulled out of the contract. Interim Chancellor Darnell Hunt replaced former Chancellor Gene Block in August 2024, with Chancellor Julio Frenk stepping into the role permanently in January 2025. Stephen Agostini also replaced UCLA’s former chief financial officer in May 2024.
Girard also said Angelis cited reduced support from the state and uncertainty regarding federal support to UCLA as reasoning for pulling out of the partnership. While in February, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget indicated that the state would reduce support to the UC by 8%, the final version of the 2025-26 budget – passed in June – did not reduce the UC’s funding.
[Related: Gov. Gavin Newsom, California State Legislature reach final state budget agreement]
A spokesperson for UCLA Housing and Hospitality said in an emailed statement to the Daily Bruin that it engaged in “early exploratory discussions” with SMC about a housing agreement, but eventually decided that the project would not “best serve the needs” of UCLA students.
“These conversations never resulted in a finalized agreement or formal contract. The intent of the initial exploration was to evaluate whether a shared housing model could support both institutions’ students,” the spokesperson said in the statement. “UCLA determined that moving forward with the project would not best serve the needs of our students. UCLA remains focused on developing and maintaining high-quality, below-market housing options that are close to campus and fully aligned with our educational mission.”
Girard said that while neither party signed an official contract, the project was seen as a “very serious process” – which included the SMC administrators touring UCLA Housing facilities and the consultation of attorneys.
Girard said that SMC plans to continue with building housing on its own, and will work with an outside third party to finance the project.
“The site is still a very viable student housing site,” Girard said. “We are in the process of moving forward.”
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