Veitch Announces New Plans for Oxy’s Future Growth

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Author: Ben Dalgetty

 

On Oct. 15 President Veitch announced that Occidental would withdraw and revisit its Specific plan, which laid out guidelines for the school’s development over the next 20 years and had been submitted to the city of Los Angeles. According to the e-mail announcement, Veitch made the decision “after a series of consultations with faculty, trustees, staff and local community leaders,” and had been examining the Specific plan since arriving at Oxy.

The Specific plan, filed with L.A. on June 2, 2008, is an actualization of the vision laid out in the school’s 2006 Master plan. The Master plan “describes an approach to the long-term physical configuration of the Occidental College campus,” according to the document. Its five main goals are to “restore and adaptively reuse existing buildings,” “build new projects that contribute to a coherent campus form,” “pedestrianize the academic campus,” “create green buildings and green landscapes” and “encourage and/or participate in neighborhood-compatible development.” The Specific plan delved more into details like square footage allotments for different buildings, parking space development and air quality restrictions. Unlike plans for individual projects, construction plans that fall under the umbrella of the Specific plan are not subject to stringent approval by the city.

The biggest factors in deciding to withdraw the plan were a desire to more freely pursue individual construction/renovation projects which had been part of the Specific plan, to adapt it to changing student services demands and incorporate the community more closely in the plans. There is not yet a timeline for when a new plan will be submitted to the city, according to Communications Director Jim Tranquada, who is closely involved in this process, but he said the goal was “sooner rather than later.”

Although a new Specific plan will be developed by the administration, Tranquada said “it’s not clear what the best mechanism is to address [Veitch’s goals].” While a Specific plan works for regulating what and how the school can build and renovate, a more comprehensive plan would be needed for mapping out the school’s future development with the community. “It’s possible that some aspect or aspects of the Master plan could end up being modified at some point in the future, but the Specific plan is the starting point for the conversation,” he said.

Oxy students were not consulted about withdrawing and revisiting the plan. “I found out about the changes along with the rest of the student body in the campus wide e-mail,” said ASOC President Andrew DeBlock (senior). “As far as I have been able to ascertain no students were consulted about this change.”

But, Veitch said in an e-mail interview, “one reason for withdrawing the plan was to create a more inclusive process and give students new opportunities to participate.”

Faculty Council President and ECLS Professor Raul Villa was equally in the dark on the possibility of withdrawing and revisiting the plan. In an e-mail interview Villa said, “The president’s announcement was a surprise to me. The Faculty Council was not consulted, nor informed that this was a possibility.”

Economics Professor Woody Studenmund, who currently serves on the Board of Trustees Buildings and Grounds Committee and chaired the Planning and Budget committee for the Master plan, also was not notified in advance of the decision, but wasn’t surprised. “I knew it was a possibility, but I wasn’t consulted.” He said, “We really wanted to get the Master plan and Specific plan approved as soon as possible [in the original process],” although he added that in retrospect the pressing need to renovate Swan Hall should have been considered.

Renovating and expanding Swan Hall, which is the Trustees’ top building priority, and constructing a new Alumni House are both “high-priority, time-sensitive” projects, according to Veitch’s campus-wide e-mail. Trustee emeritus Jack Samuelson ’46 recently pledged to finance the majority of the Alumni House, so it now has enough money to start planning.

According to Tranquada, it should be easier for the school to pursue the individual projects as opposed to the over-arching Specific plan. But, he said, “We’re dependent on the city for permits, and that is what is really going to determine how quickly we can move forward.”

Oxy’s tentative plans for other building renovations and constructions, notably the athletic facility, are still in search of donors. “[The] board has a strict policy that you need to have the money in hand before you embark on a major building project,” Traquada said.

While this helps the school remain fiscally responsible, it also curtails Oxy’s ability to predict when projects will happen. Blueprints for a new aquatic center circulated as early as 2003, and in spring 2006 Interm President Kenyon Chan “vowed it would be only a matter of months until ground would be broken for the new pool,” according to a 2008 Weekly investigation. Tranquada could only say that a new athletic facility was a high priority, but was still in need of more funding.

Both Veitch’s e-mail and Tranquada highlighted that the comprehensive academic planning effort which just begun would also benefit from not being confined by a Specific plan. As the school revises its academic plan it may wish to change what spaces are available for students and classes, and how they’re used. The first of these projects, which was not included in the withdrawn Specific plan, is the re-envisioning of the library as more of an academic commons, which held its first student focus group on Oct. 21.

In the e-mail Veitch expressed a desire for “local businesses thriving on York, Eagle Rock, and Colorado boulevards, pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly streets lined with trees and other attractive landscaping.” He also brought up the possibility of buying more property in Eagle Rock and Highland Park for faculty housing as opposed to developing Mt. Fiji, as proposed in both the Specific and Master plans.

The college currently owns forty-five houses in the community, mostly on Campus and Stratford Rds. Tranquada said, “There’s a long history of the college buying homes in the immediate neighborhood. I think what President Veitch is interested in exploring is moving a little farther out into the community.” He added that Oxy was also interested in using more off-campus houses for administrative functions, like the Intercultural Community Center and Alumni Relations building are. However, there are zoning hurdles from the city for institutional buildings in a single family neighborhood.

By revisiting the Specific plan Oxy can work to reduce the school’s physical impact on the area, which The Eagle Rock Association (TERA), a community advocacy group, finds “very encouraging,” according to the organization’s Oct. 11 eLetter. Bob Gotham, President of TERA and author of the eLetter, said in an e-mail interview that he is very interested in strengthening ties between Oxy and the community and proposed “having a student representative on our board in a non-voting capacity” as one possibility.

“I think that the school would benefit from working more closely with the neighborhood,” said DeBlock.

There was general consensus among those involved in the decision to withdraw the Specific plan, according to Tranquada. “My guess is that the president made the right decision [in withdrawing the plan],” Studenmund said.

Elissa Chandler (senior) was excited by the possibility of using Fiji for something other than faculty or student housing. She said, “I don’t know that much about it [withdrawing the specific plan], but I’m glad that he did it.”

Tranquada could not think of any immediate impact the withdrawal of the Specific plan would have. Although, “there’ll be more meetings,” he said, laughing.

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