Munger Hall first pitched at CalTech, USC; dorm awaits changes at UCSB Nonprofit law firms back CBC & The Sweeps residents resisting eviction

Mark Alfred University News Editor

Executives and attorneys with two nonprofits — the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County and Housing & Economic Rights Advocates

— argued in a May 6 letter that the eviction notices delivered by Core Spaces to CBC & The Sweeps residents are null under a new county ordinance.

The law firms are working with the Core Spaces Tenant Association (CSTA), a group of around 70 residents dedicated to fighting the evictions. CSTA members, as well as an unknown number of other residents, plan to fight the evictions facing hundreds of tenants at the building by refusing to move out, according to CSTA organizer and fifth-year biopsychology major Sam Szepesi.

Mark Alfred University News Editor

Leo Herbstman Reporter

Before pitching the concept of a massive, largely-windowless student dormitory at UC Santa Barbara in the mid-2010s, billionaire philanthropist Charles Munger sought to build similar dorms with the same architect at the University of Southern California and the California Institute of Technology, financial records and sources at both campuses show.

Members of the Munger Hall project team believe both universities are interested in the project as of late and wish to convince Munger to build the dormitory at their respective campuses, a UCSB employee familiar with the team’s thinking told the Nexus on the condition of anonymity.

This comes as UCSB’s plans for Munger Hall are effectively in stasis as the design team awaits updates from the billionaire while he reviews potential changes