Daily Trojan USC.edu

Issue date: 4/2/08 Section: News

Afternoon stroll | An artist's rendition of what the proposed narrowing of Jefferson Street between Orchard Avenue and Royal Street would look like. The street would be more pedestrian oriented.

As USC prepares to present its master plan to the board of trustees, university students, faculty and administrators are wondering how the full-scale, multibillion dollar expansion will affect the campus dynamic and if the expansion would be positive.

The plan, which is projected to break ground in the next two to three years, will focus on providing students with a substantial amount of new university-owned housing in the immediate vicinity of the North University Park Campus.

Dowell Myers, a professor at USC's School of Policy, Planning and Development, said new university-owned housing is a much-needed solution for a number of the university's lingering problems.

"L.A. has enormously high housing prices because of a shortage of housing construction, especially apartment construction," Myers said. "As a center of urban activity, USC could really benefit from a significant increase in housing supply. Building this housing near campus will decrease rents."

Cesar Armendariz, University Park Campus Master Plan communication director, said one of the main goals of the plan is to take control of the housing market away from pricey developers such as Conquest Student Housing and to stabilize prices.

"We are planning to double what we already have in housing," Armendariz said. "If the market works like it's supposed to, master plan should stabilize prices by making it so companies like Conquest no longer have the ability to take up prices so dramatically."

While USC hopes to ultimately lower housing prices, Armendariz said rents for the new TrojanHousing complexes will most likely be more expensive than current university-owned housing, but less expensive than many privately owned complexes in the area.

"As inflation comes into play and things like that, prices will increase, but we won't see those huge leaps that we're seeing now," he said. "We're not in the business of making profits off of students. [Prices] will be what is needed to cover expenses."

Dowell also said the new housing would allow for a more vibrant campus atmosphere, as a greater amount of students would live within walking distance of campus.

"There will be more concerts, more events and more specialized retail," he said. "This will, in turn, make more people want to live on campus, which will cut even further into the percentage of commuters."

Fewer student commuters, Myers said, will cut down the amount of car traffic that often congests the Figueroa Corridor.

While many students said the new housing would improve quality of life, some students do not think that luring students closer to campus is beneficial to community relations.

"Housing is a real problem, so I'm glad they're trying to fix it," said John Major, a sophomore majoring in biological sciences. "But it will make USC less a part of the community. The university is basically already a bubble, and they're just making it bigger."

Major also said, however, that he would be very thankful for the extra housing options.

"Housing has been pretty crazy for me this year, so it would have been nice to have that option."

One of the goals in planning a city such as Los Angeles, Dowell said, is to design the infrastructure so that people are living as close to where they work as possible.

"If you have people living closer to work and school, there is much less traffic and less air pollution," Dowell said.

Dowell said one of the main problems currently facing the university is the traffic congestion that borders campus on all sides, but especially at the intersection of Jefferson Boulevard and Hoover Street.

As part of the plan, USC hopes to narrow the stretch of Jefferson between Orchard Avenue and Royal Street, making the crossing at Jefferson and Hoover friendlier to pedestrians.

"When you get to Hoover and Jefferson, it's the worst congestion," Dowell said. "You have all the frat boys on their coaster-bikes crossing the street and it's just not compatible. I have seen the plans that the university has in mind and I think [there is] a much more efficient use of that land."

Armendariz said university officials are not sure, at this point, where the traffic will be redirected once the stretch of Jefferson is narrowed, but conceptual renderings suggest that 30th Street will serve as an alternative route to the main intersecting streets on either side, Vermont Avenue and Figueroa Street.

"Narrowing that street will make Jefferson less of a thoroughfare and much more friendly to students," Dowell said. "It's just really difficult to get in and out of that area right now."

Many students said they have reservations about the plan's full-scale changes to campus, but that they have faith in USC's ability to provide for its students.

"People's normal routines will definitely be changed," said Shane Swerdlow, a sophomore majoring in public policy, management and planning. "But the university won't do anything that will ruin our college experience."



Coming Up



Thursday: An examination of the UPC Master Plan's effects on the community surrounding USC

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