OCC holds off on some development, moves ahead with housing

Calling the ideas not fully developed, Orange Coast College officials announced Monday that they are temporarily halting plans to add a commercial “village,” hotel and parking structure for the campus.

In a meeting that drew more than 75 people to OCC’s student center, campus President Dennis Harkins said the college will spend perhaps the next few years refocusing.

“I don’t see [new plans] in the immediate future,” Harkins said.

The village and hotel — proposed for the campus’ southeastern corner, near Fairview Road and Merrimac Way — were among the more contested aspects of OCC’s Vision 2020, a development blueprint. Many residents in College Park, a neighborhood immediately south of Merrimac Way, expressed concerns that the hotel and village would be noisy additions that would not contribute to the school’s core mission as an educational facility.

They were also concerned about the height of the parking structure. Though planned to primarily serve OCC, it would have been constructed on the Orange County fairgrounds, near Fairview Road and Arlington Drive.

Campus officials contended that the hotel would be linked to hospitality education; the village was to help generate revenue as state funding for higher education dwindles.

Harkins stressed that OCC never “intends to make a strip mall.”

He added that the hotel, village and parking structure would not be taken off OCC’s master plan, which is a farther-reaching blueprint, but would be reevaluated and put through separate environmental impact studies in a few years.

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Dorms at OCC?

To the dismay of many attendees, OCC officials said they are still moving forward with on-campus housing for as many as 1,800 students.

The units are proposed for the campus’ undeveloped northwestern edge, near Pinecreek Drive and Adams Avenue.

Harkins contended that OCC’s studies have shown a student desire for housing and a more traditional college life than is available to commuters.

The housing, officials said, would be particularly geared to veterans, foster youths, athletes and international students.

Rich Pagel, OCC’s vice president of administrative services, stressed that the housing doesn’t necessarily have a revenue-generating goal.

“Anything that we generate with housing goes right back to the college,” he said, adding that dorms would probably be owned by the school but managed by an outside company.

OCC officials said housing will not be funded by Measure M, a nearly $700-million bond measure passed in 2012 to fund facilities throughout the Coast Community College District.

Residents said they worried about the traffic that would be generated by the development and noted that California community colleges historically have not provided on-campus housing, unlike four-year universities.

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What’s next?

With the village, hotel and parking structure out of the picture for the time being, OCC is working on an updated environmental impact report for its other Vision 2020 projects, including a new pool, gym, classrooms, recycling center and planetarium.

The report will be available for review and comment this summer and could be voted on by the college district’s board this August.

For more information or to provide comments, email [email protected].