At least a year before Gavilan’s student/faculty housing plan is
finalized
Gilroy – Gavilan College trustees may not be able to talk about it, but college Superintendent Steve Kinsella said, “It’s no secret that the college has been considering alternate uses for the golf course for several years now.”
The Board of Trustees has met in closed session on those alternate uses in each of its last 20 board meetings since August 2005, but is still months to years away from settling the golf course’s fate.
“There might be a resolution this calendar year,” said Tom Breen, president of Gavilan’s Board of Trustees, “but maybe not. The stuff that’s out of our control, well, it’s out of our control.”
The college is using Public/Private Ventures, the Oakland-based nonprofit that has also worked on the San Benito and Coyote Valley land acquisition projects, as a consultant to help it envision how to use the land and to select a developer.
The most likely development projects, Kinsella said, are a residential facility for faculty and two for students, one of which would be reserved for adults older than 55. Kinsella said he could not divulge any specifics about the capacity of the housing facility or the cost of building it because such terms were under negotiation. Because the campus golf course lies on county land that has already been zoned for education facilities, the college will neither have to go through the city’s Residential Development Ordinance to acquire building permits nor get permission from the Local Agency Formation Commission to annex the land into the city.
Kinsella said the development would help students get housing at lower costs.
“It’s a great opportunity to create a student life,” he said.
A key benefit, Kinsella said, is that the housing facility would bring in more revenue for the college than the approximately $30,000 the golf course earns each year. While the course hosts about 400 golfers a week, green fees are low for the area, ranging from $10 for a 9-hole weekday play in the afternoon to $23 for a weekend 18-hole tee time.
While golfers said they would lament the loss of an affordable course in a pastoral setting, students were generally in favor of a dormitory on campus.
“It would be pretty cool if I could afford my own place,” said senior Ryan McBride.
“I’m all for the dorms,” added first-year student Genevieve Carlino. “It’ll bring more life to all the events that happen.”
Dale Clark, professor of chemistry, was similarly supportive of the housing for faculty. When he started teaching, he commuted from Santa Clara because of trouble finding housing in Gilroy.
“At least that first year, you’d be close,” he said.
Other teachers worried about the added complexities housing would present, including adequate supervision in the dorms and effect on security campus-wide.
Kinsella said that the college has considered these challenges, looked at institutions that have made similar transitions, such as UC Davis, and formed plans to address the increased staffing, food service and other demands. However, he said these plans could not be released while the college negotiates in closed sessions.
Breen points out that the nearly two years of discussion are typical for a project of this size and that there is no opportunity to speed up the process.
“People have to plug along, working on it, just like everywhere else in this great country,” he said.
