Ventura College housing still in play after Newsom signs bill

Ventura College’s plan to build affordable housing on campus has been delayed in Sacramento, but the project is moving forward and the college’s president is “cautiously optimistic” that a bill signed Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom means the state's promised funding will come through.

Last year, Ventura College won a $63 million state grant to build housing for 320 students as part of a program that awarded nearly $1 billion to 19 colleges and universities. But those projects were thrown into doubt when the 2023-24 state budget bill took the money back to help reduce the state deficit. That legislation rescinded the grants and instead told colleges and universities to borrow the money for their new dorms, and Sacramento would fund the debt payments.

But there was no guarantee the state would make all of those payments. And while the University of California has access to credit for major construction projects, community college districts operate independently and don’t always have an easy way to borrow tens of millions of dollars.

Senate Bill 142, which Newsom signed Wednesday, calls for the state to borrow money for the community colleges’ housing projects. The bill doesn’t actually include this financing — it only expresses “the intent of the Legislature” to include it in the 2024-25 state budget — but college officials see it as a reasonable temporary solution.

"This is really helpful. This provides a commitment that they will work with us," said Lizette Navarette, the executive vice chancellor for the California Community Colleges system. "Now districts and colleges will be able to continue planning or executing their projects, knowing there's a commitment from the state to affordability."

Ventura College had planned to be in construction by now on its campus housing, but the uncertainty over the funding has slowed things down, since college leaders didn't want to spend money that the state might try to take back.

The college has picked a site — a vacant spot on campus where a pool used to be — and has completed its environmental studies and hired a project management firm, said Ventura College President Kim Hoffmans. It is now in the process of hiring an architect.

The project should break ground sometime next year and be finished sometime in the 2025-26 school year, Hoffmans said. That's about a year later than originally expected.

"We feel better and we're still moving forward at Ventura College, but we're cautiously moving forward," Hoffmans said. "All these delays just make the cost go higher."

The project's budget has already gone from $65 million to around $90 million, she said. The state isn't going to provide more than $63 million, so the rest will fall to the Ventura County Community College District.

Ventura College plans to build 95 apartment-style units, each with between two and four bedrooms and a kitchen and bathroom. Most units would have two students in each bedroom.

Rent will be between $500 and $900 per person, depending on the unit. Spots will be awarded based on need, to students who can't afford to rent in Ventura.

There will be plenty of students who qualify, as apartments in Ventura can be out of reach even for many mid-career professionals. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Ventura was $2,150 last summer, according to the real estate firm Dyer Sheehan, which conducts annual surveys on rents in Ventura County.

"It's a huge need for our students," Hoffmans said. "Especially during COVID, we realized that for a lot of them, their home learning environment is not conducive to student success. ... To actually live on campus in affordable housing is really going to help."

Ventura College won the competitive state grant program in part because rents in the city are so high, Hoffmans said. Other factors in its favor: a construction site was available, and the campus is centrally located on major bus routes and close to grocery stores and other amenities, which is important because the college doesn't have a dining hall.

On-campus housing is rare in the community college system, offered at just 11 of the state's 116 campuses. With rents increasingly unaffordable for students, it is likely to become more common in the coming decades. In addition to the Ventura College project, Moorpark and Oxnard colleges have each received $250,000 state grants to study the feasibility of campus housing.

The state funding is essential to keeping campus housing affordable, Navarette said.

"We're not going to charge higher rents to make these projects pencil out, which is what a university dorm does," she said.

Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Newsom signs bill to restore funds for Ventura College campus housing