Despite over a decade of student backlash, Cal Poly presented a proposal to develop a hotel conference center, senior living and student housing on nearly 40 acres of the university’s agriculture land.
The plan, which real estate service JLL created for the university, would use a portion of the university’s West Campus alongside Highland Drive, including the lemon grove and other areas of land that many agriculture students at Cal Poly utilize for class. The decision to develop on this land will be decided by this upcoming fall, according to University President Jeffrey Armstrong.
“These are places that students actively use, and at what cost are we going to remove them to build a senior living facility or a hotel?” asked Garret Gomes, agriculture communications junior and ASI Board of Directors representative. “It’s crazy in my mind.”
However, the university affirms that there will be no net loss of agricultural loss for student learning.
“While only a portion of the existing agricultural land in West Campus is currently being used for ag purposes — and some of it could potentially be repurposed for a future development,” University Spokesperson Matt Lazier wrote in an email to Mustang News. “The university has committed that students in CAFES would continue to have immediate access to the agricultural land needed to support their education, applied research and hands-on learning experiences.”
Cal Poly has considered developing housing and a hotel conference center on campus for years in order to bring in revenue as well as provide student and faculty living, Armstrong said at a town hall meeting with agriculture students on June 4. The presentation by JLL also included revenue estimates for the university, ranging between $15 million to $40 million per year in revenue within a 15-25 year time-span following development.
Over a decade ago, the university noted in a master plan update that the development of a conference center and hotel was viewed as a “poor use of University funds” by the public. Today, students at Cal Poly reflect a similar sentiment, urging Armstrong and other administrators to build elsewhere.
“No hard decisions have been made, but it looks positive,” Armstrong said at a student government meeting on April 1, where he proposed the plan in front of student representatives.
Gomes, alongside other ASI Board of Directors representatives, authored a resolution for the student government last year, outlining their opposition to non-agricultural development on West Campus.
His resolution last year was informed by talks of the proposed development circulating among College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, or CAFES, students in the last two years. But plans to construct a hotel and living centers on West Campus date back to 2015, when the university began updating its master plan, New Times reported at the time.
Some students have taken their concerns with development on Cal Poly’s lemon grove and other agriculture land to the public comment section of recent student government meetings, according to Bella Twist, an agriculture communications sophomore, which is where most of the backlash sparked this year.
Students urge the university to preserve land
For Gomes, developing on the West Campus, where he has done work for the last three years with the agriculture department at Cal Poly, goes against the university’s “Learn by Doing” mantra.
“I think the biggest concern is students aren’t being heard, but also students are upset that they are losing resources that they actively use here on campus,” Gomes said.
Armstrong and the university have proposed to develop on land that contains Class 1 soil, the best kind for agricultural production, according to Gomes. He said it is the most fertile land on campus, and it has been that way for generations of students.
“This is some of the best land that we can get within agriculture, and so while it might be easy to just remove those lemon groves because the land is already flat, this is irreplaceable land,” Gomes said.
At a public meeting on April 1 between the university president and the student government, Armstrong proposed that the development would incorporate “Learn by Doing” opportunities, including creating jobs and positions for students.
“They are the types of facilities that would become living laboratories for students in hospitality, business, architecture, engineering, construction management, psychology, communications, recreation, health sciences and many other disciplines — creating new opportunities for experiential learning that simply do not exist today,” Lazier wrote.
Twist, the sophomore agriculture communications student, said the Dean’s Advisory Council for CAFES advised students to send letters to the Cal State Chancellor’s Office in order to express their concerns with development on West Campus. The council is a group of representatives across various agricultural organizations in the state that collaborate with the college dean and university president at Cal Poly.
According to Gomes, students sent 50 letters to the Chancellor’s Office from student leaders of multiple clubs on campus including the Crops Club and Los Lecheros Dairy Club. Each letter shared personal experiences from students about classes they have taken on West Campus and work opportunities the area has given them, Twist said.
Study shows multiple classes impacted by development proposal
A study conducted last year by Matthew Grieshop, director of the Grimm Family Center for Organic Production and Research, and Scott Steinmaus, head of plant sciences at Cal Poly, highlighted the impacts losing this land would bring to CAFES.
“Replacing these fields with development would compromise Cal Poly’s educational mission and diminish its agricultural heritage,” the report reads.
“I think it’s just really cool to actually be out in the field, doing what you’re learning in the classroom,” Twist said, adding that friends of hers at other universities are stuck in classrooms without the opportunity to do field work in real time.
According to the study shared and made public with Mustang News, 1,173 students annually could be affected by the proposed development — an area of campus that serves 18 courses within CAFES at Cal Poly.
“I think it’s important to be well diverse on every facet of the industry,” Gomes said. “West Campus has provided me those opportunities to learn about irrigation, to learn about crop production, to learn about dairy production and so much more.”
Gomes said he has seen an increase in the university’s willingness to work with students on the issue. At his meeting with agriculture students on June 4, Armstrong said no decision will be made over the summer as the university approaches its semester conversion and a shorter summer.
“We’ll come back in the fall, and we’ll engage our ag alumni, our students and we’ll engage the campus on this as well,” Armstrong said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comment from the university.
