Co-ops, Building Community Daily!
Residents holding out hope deal can save UCD’s Domes Solar Community Housing Association
Residents holding out hope deal can save UCD’s Domes
Led by a bagpiper, residents of the Baggins End Domes rolled four wheelbarrows filled with flowers and 3,000 letters of support for preserving the commune to the UC Davis administration building on Wednesday.
They called on Chancellor Linda Katehi to commit to preserving the 39-year-old student housing community.
UCD is considering an April 5 proposal by the Solar Community Housing Association, a Davis nonprofit organization, to lease the land for five years and repair the domes for continued student use.
On Feb. 1, UCD announced that it would not renew students leases on the 14 geodesic domes because of structural concerns and other health, safety and accessibility issues. The leases for the 28 residents expire July 31.
Speaking to the group of about 60 people in the Mrak Hall lobby, Fred Wood, vice chancellor for student affairs, stopped short of what the students wanted to hear.
“I think the Solar Community Housing Association proposal is a very good one. I think it’s very thoughtful and it’s got the right pieces in it,” he said, adding, “I can’t commit to where we’ll land yet, but I can commit to keep trying.”
Wood said there were no plans to bulldoze Baggins End, on the northwest corner of campus, nor were there plans to develop the land.
“I hear a lot about, ‘Oh, you’re planning a high-rise or parking lot’ — there are absolutely no plans for that site, at all, I want to assure you of that, in any plans I’ve ever seen or know about,” he said. “As long as we’re pursuing these good, viable alternatives, SCHA or academic alternatives for the site…, there will be no bulldozing.”
Among the students, some doubts persist about whether the administration wants to see Baggins End survive.
Dome resident Kara Fleshman, a second-year sustainable agriculture and food system major, said she’d seen positive signs but added that the community has seen past promises fall apart.
“I do genuinely feel like it’s a sincere effort on the part of individuals within the university. There’s some you get that feeling from, and there’s some you don’t,” Fleshman said.
“I am really excited about the negotiations that are going on right now, because we’re talking with the College of (Agriculture), the (UC) Extension, and (College of) Engineering and even, potentially, (the College of) Letters and Science (about future partnerships). The faculty have been extremely excited.”
In a written response May 20 to the Solar Community Housing Association proposal, Emily Galindo, associate vice chancellor for student affairs, wrote that the UC Office of the President would have to approve the lease agreement, and SCHA would have to show it was sufficiently capitalized and properly insured.
Galindo warned that the process could take “several months.”
Both an architect’s plans for the domes and the work would need to be approved by the campus, she added.
A company that inspected the domes estimated the cost to repair the foam interiors would cost $43,000 apiece, according to UCD, plus another $300,000 to make improvements in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Domes residents believe the repairs can be made more cheaply.
Because student housing does not receive state or campus funds, housing areas must be self-supporting.
This year, domes residents pay $2,712 for a yearlong lease. If the university is right about the cost of the repairs, however, rents might double.
UCD’s campus architect plans to further inspect the structures and lay out what SCHA would need to do to bring them up to campus and legal standards.
A task force, which includes residents, is looking at the future of Baggins End. Galindo said she wasn’t sure when its recommendations would be complete, but that she expected it would offer up a living and learning environment in keeping with the spirit of the Domes.
Danielle Fodor, a graduate student in community development preparing a thesis on the domes, said the students are running into bureaucratic hurdles as time ticks away.
A commitment from the chancellor could smooth the process, she said.
“What I want to see out of today is the same thing I discovered when I did my thesis,” Fodor told the crowd at Mrak, “which is that seeming diametrically opposed people like the housing department, the larger university superstructure and a group of rag-tag but inspiring, amazing and super-intelligent students can come together and make beautiful things happen.”
The students say the domes stand apart as a unique place for students to learn about living in an environmentally conscious and cooperative way.
Fleshman said a neighbor studying engineering might help her build a door frame, while graduate student instructors in Spanish or mathematics might lend her a hand with her classwork.
Just as importantly, Baggins End is a sort of oasis on the manicured campus where students can feel a connection to the land, she said.
Fodor said her 35 interviews about the history of Baggins End made it clear that generations of students have found it an inviting community where they grew as people.
“There’s no place that UC Davis excels more than in student-led sustainability — environmental, social, economic — and the Domes is all of those things,” she said.
“It shows that we don’t have to make the most money in the world to make the most amazing things, and we don’t need to destroy the Earth in order to grow our food and grow our community.”
— Reach Cory Golden at cgolden@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8046.
Comment
About
© 2024 Created by Mike Simpson.
Powered by
You need to be a member of The Co-op Underground to add comments!
Join The Co-op Underground