After spending her freshman year in a triple dorm in North Mountain, Maddy Romine, a biomedical engineering sophomore, was excited to have a room to herself in the traditionally upperclassmen apartments in Poly Canyon Village, or PCV.
But now, she lives in an even smaller space with more roommates than she initially signed up for.
“It felt unfair. There wasn’t a lot we could do about the situation,” Romine said.
Due to delays in new student housing construction, Cal Poly has moved some new transfers and continuing students to PCV. Some apartments have received two relocated students, making their four-person, four-bedroom apartment into a six-person, three-bedroom apartment, with the fourth bedroom converted into a study room.
The change affected 80 PCV apartments as of Sept. 9, according to University Spokesperson Keegan Koberl. The relocated students will move into the new building, łktoʔ, when it is complete. The university has not informed students of a move-in date.
“It was hard not to feel frustrated with the school,” Romine said. “That is their poor planning. [Now] students have to deal with it.”
Romine said that because of how cramped their current living space is, due ot the arrival of new students, her current bedroom feels smaller than her freshman year resident hall did.
Romine’s living room also has two study desks since one room could only fit four study desks for the six roommates. The two desks take up about half or a quarter of their living room.
“It is definitely tight in here, as you can tell,” Romine said.
The kitchen, Romine and her other roommates noted, can be one of the tightest spaces when students want to eat or clean at the same time.
Romine’s roommate, Samantha Sweet, a nutrition sophomore, described feeling shocked when she received the email while she was on vacation.
Sweet has a nut and fish allergy, so adding unknown students to the apartment made her nervous.
“Adding two more people into such a small room and a shared kitchen means shared utensils, shared food,” Sweet said. “At some point, it just brings in a lot more risk.”
Sweet reached out to Cal poly’s Disability Resource Center about this issue. The DRC looked into it and gave her options such as an exemption from living in PCV or moving to another building. However, Sweet wanted to live with her original roommates.
“In the end, I decided to just stay because they told me it was basically this or find new roommates or find new housing,” Sweet said.
At the time of the new students assignments to PCV apartments, the DRC informed Sweet that every apartment in her building would also have two additional students. However, some students who were told that they would get new roommates did not actually end up receiving any.
Due to students dropping their enrollment from Cal Poly before the school year started, not as many students received the additional roommates, according to Koberl.
Transfer students made up the majority of the students who were assigned to new housing. They are not a part of Cal Poly’s two-year housing requirement, so transfer students were free to decide if they wanted to live off campus.
Transfer student Seth Ondo was relocated and was originally supposed to live in łktoʔ. The psychology junior received his housing assignment in July. He received an email that he would instead live in PCV in early August.
In the new suite-style łktoʔ housing, the layout is similar to how Ondo lives now. This is two students per bedroom in a six-person suite.
However, the bedroom dimensions for łktoʔ are about 180 square feet while the PCV bedrooms are about 108 square feet.
This makes the łktoʔ double bedroom about 66% larger than Ondo’s PCV bedroom.
“I was expecting a lot worse going into it,” Ondo said. “Considering that it hasn’t been too bad.”
However, Ondo noted the inconvenience of moving out again, especially if Cal Poly makes students move out in the middle of the semester.
“It’s still weird because they were saying you would have to move to the new building eventually,” Ondo said. “But, there has been no updates on that so I don’t know what to expect.”
Student compensation
Originally, Cal Poly emailed impacted students stating they would only receive a couple hundred dollars to make up for the unexpected situation. Residents still living in a single room but with new roommates would receive $100, PCV residents temporarily sharing would receive $200 and relocated students would receive $300.
However, after students complained about the lack of compensation, Cal Poly changed it, so all impacted students only had to pay half of the original rent.
For the fall semester, affected PCV students originally owed $8,600 in housing fees but now pay $4,300. Students who were supposed to live łktoʔ originally owed $7,384 in housing but now pay $3,692.
“It’s definitely more fair than the $100 or $200 off,” Sweet said.
Now, about a month into this new living situation, Romine and Sweet say they feel used to living in a smaller space with new people.
“I would say that everyone in my apartment has been able to adjust pretty well,” Romine said.
Eliana Borbon, a mechanical engineering sophomore, is one of Romine and Sweet’s original roommates and lives on the top bunk in her room. Borbon noted she has enjoyed having new roommates.
“I like having the company,” Borbon said. “It’s really nice to come home nad see the five of them … I didn’t think it would owkr out, but it kind of worked out perfectly.”
Romine and Sweet reached out to their new roommates after they found out they were living with them and hung out before moving in. Sweet noted they get along great and are respectful of her allergies.
“[It is] obviously small quarters, and the rooms are a little small,” Sweet said. “But, it’s the best that it could be.”
