Are Cal Poly students hurting housing availability in SLO? Here’s what university says
How big of an impact does Cal Poly’s student body have on housing availability and the cost of rent in San Luis Obispo?
It’s less than many people would guess, according to university representatives.
While some community members are quick to blame Cal Poly’s student body for taking up housing in SLO, Cal Poly’s vice president for student affairs, Keith Humphrey, said that narrative is not credible.
“I’m always surprised about that narrative, because the data on university enrollment growth over the past 22 years shows that the university has built more beds than we have increased our student enrollment,” Humphrey said.
Cal Poly is the largest housing provider of any California state university, investing more than half a billion dollars into student housing since 2000, according to Matt Lazier, assistant vice president for executive communications and media relations.
During that time, he said, student occupancy nearly tripled.
Fall semester enrollment at Cal Poly rose from 18,475 students in 2005 to 22,022 in the fall of 2021, according to university data.
During that period, Cal Poly built the Canyon Village Apartments buildings and yakʔitʸutʸu residence hall on campus while doubling up more rooms. That raised housing capacity by roughly 6,000 beds, according to Cal Poly.
That means the university has been building new student housing developments faster than new students have enrolled, Lazier said.
Cal Poly intends to make around 8,500 beds on campus available for the fall 2022 semester — enough for around 37% of all enrolled students.
There are plans to add more living space over the next decade, including a new on-campus student and faculty residence hall northeast of the intersection of Slack Street and Grand Avenue that will provide around 200 units by 2026.
“The 10-year horizon has close to 3,000 beds planned to be added into campus with no university plans to grow enrollment by anywhere near that amount,” Humphrey said.
Around 11% of the student body lives outside of the city of San Luis Obispo and commutes to the university, lowering the overall impact of the student body on the stock of available houses.
Humphrey cited Cal Poly’s Campus Master Plan as one way the university intends to alleviate housing pressure.
That plan includes objectives such as reaching 15,000 beds on campus by 2035 without significantly increasing the number of students enrolled.
The university intends to house 65% of the student body on campus by the end of the plan’s duration in 2035, a goal that is motivated by concern for local housing impacts and the performance of students.
Once all necessary expansions to housing have been made, all first- and second-year students will be required to live on campus, Lazier said. Currently, only first-year students are required to call campus housing home.
“Our own internal data shows us — as well as national data — that students who live on campus perform better academically and graduate quicker, and that’s the business that we’re about,” Humphrey said.
“We also know that when we do move students onto campus, it will create more housing in the local community for individuals who want to live and work in the city of San Luis Obispo. That includes our own faculty and staff.”
“We really work together with the city when we’re talking about enrollment growth and the ways that the university, through enrollment growth or additional housing, helps to offset the cost of services in the city,” Humphrey said.
San Luis Obispo Mayor Erica Stewart said the city is encouraging Cal Poly “consistently to actually live up to their master plan and to actually build that housing so that it can free up some housing in the community.”
In the meantime, she said, the city can take action on some measures to keep rent prices stable.
“There’s some challenges around fair market value and the fact that we can’t control fair market value as a city, but what we can do is try to help with deed-restricted housing,” said Stewart, who is a Cal Poly graduate.
This story was originally published July 13, 2022 at 10:00 AM.
