March 17, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jim Reinhart
Managing Director, Cal Poly Housing Corporation
(805) 756-1131

CSU Trustees Approve Cal Poly Faculty and Staff Housing Project

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- The California State University trustees gave final approval Wednesday for a 69-unit housing development for Cal Poly faculty and staff.

The approval means the Cal Poly Housing Corporation can now proceed with the project, named “Bella Montaña.” The homes will be located on a 5.3 acre parcel of land at the corner of Highland Drive and State Highway 1, across from the Highland Drive entrance to campus. Cal Poly already owns the land and will offer the homes at below-market cost to faculty and staff.

“This is a very important day for Cal Poly,” said university President Warren J. Baker. “Our recruiting efforts have increasingly been hampered by high costs in the local housing market. We know that young faculty with families find it particularly difficult to come to Cal Poly. This project will allow us to continue to attract and retain the highest caliber faculty and staff and is the first step in helping to meet the housing needs of our faculty and staff.”

The $24 million Bella Montaña project will offer 69 distinctively styled attached homes with 10 different floor plans. The homes will be clustered within 21 buildings. Construction is scheduled to start in April, and the first phase of homes should be available for sale in early 2007.

Cal Poly conducted a survey of faculty and staff last fall that showed strong interest in the project by those most recently hired at Cal Poly, said Executive Vice Provost and Chief Planning Officer Linda Dalton, chair of the non-profit Cal Poly Housing Corporation (CPHC). "Many new faculty now commute long distances to work in order to live in housing they can afford.
We selected this site so that faculty and staff living there will have easy access to the campus core. They’ll be able to walk to work,” Dalton said.

“The CPHC is following in the footsteps of well-established and successful employee housing programs at UC Irvine, CSU Fullerton, Monterey Bay, and Channel Islands. Programs of this type are structured to provide home ownership opportunities at below-market prices to initial buyers, as well as buyers in the future,” she said.

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