A one-of-a-kind student community
in Westwood

The Agora is a student housing project and will serve as student housing once it is completed. There are absolutely no plans to convert The Agora to a condo building, and that couldn’t happen legally without an entire new application process. The design and layout of the building wouldn’t be economical for condos either. The Agora’s architecture, design and programming all lend themselves to student housing, not condos.

Right, and global warming is a myth. The Agora is on the city-designated high-density corridor of Hilgard Avenue, across the street from UCLA, and is literally a donut hole in the zoning that extends along Hilgard's entire length. There are only two places in Westwood that are planned for high-density housing, Hilgard Avenue and Westwood Boulevard. Plus, every project needs to go through a discretionary process and the City can approve or disapprove it based on the merits of the project, so each project is judged individually. The Agora will have no zoning impact on any other property in Westwood.

Seriously? Who would buy a multi-million dollar home only to demolish it? That makes absolutely no sense.

The numbers don't lie: too many students are living in their cars and in campus shelters. The housing prices in Westwood make it virtually impossible for low-income students to find off campus housing that is within their means. Those same housing prices are a result of a lack of supply in LA County overall and in Westwood more specifically. Housing costs for students are directly correlated to supply and demand, and right now there is much more demand than supply, which has driven up housing prices tremendously over the last 30 years. This applies to student housing as well. The Agora, by adding to our inadequate supply of student housing, will help relieve the pressure on prices and open up more units to those of lower incomes, and thus becomes part of the solution to driving down rents and hopefully reducing student homelessness.

We’re not sure who came up with this one, but it could not be further from the truth. The Agora will rent at around $1000-$1200 per student. And that doesn’t account for the 50+ beds set aside for low-income students, which will rent for less than $500/month.

The first thing The Agora’s team did when they officially filed their plans with the City on November 19, 2018, was knock on the doors of the surrounding neighbors closest to the project. Our goal was to let them know exactly what was going on, projected timelines for the project and get their input so that we could make a project that served the whole community. The Agora team also presented to the Neighborhood Council within weeks of filing the project’s application; usually developers wait months before going to the Neighborhood Council but The Agora team went right away because we want community input.

The Agora is the same height as the 16-story W Hotel right next door, just across the street from UCLA. There is also a 13-story condo building less than a block away. There are nearly a dozen buildings over 100 feet tall in Westwood and more than a dozen tall buildings on UCLA’s campus. The Agora is on Hilgard, one of the two streets in Westwood (along with Wilshire) that the City has designated for high-density housing.

UCLA has not taken a position on The Agora.

The last time a major private student housing project was unsuccessful in Westwood there was no internet and doctors were telling patients it was healthy to smoke. The W Hotel started as student housing in the 1970s and was later converted to its current hotel use. However, there are many differences between what happened back then and The Agora. The Agora’s design, architecture and amenities are all programmed around students and healthy student living. The world is a lot different now, and with current UCLA enrollment levels, The Agora will serve the student population at UCLA for many years to come.

The Agora pencils out, and the developers will be releasing the numbers to prove it. An opponent created their own ‘pro forma’, based on the economics of a single project, which is in Downtown L.A., where the economics are completely different than Westwood. How can anyone honestly say that a sample size of one is enough to legitimately estimate anything? Would you take a medication if it had only been tested on one person?

In 2017, nearly a quarter of UCLA students commuted from all over LA County. The Agora will allow students to live within walking distance of the UCLA campus and Westwood Village, making them less reliant on personal cars, thus REDUCING traffic overall.

Where do they come up with this stuff? The Agora will provide 462 beds of student housing. More than 50 of them will rent at less than $500 per month and the remainder are proposed to rent between $1,000-$1,200 per month. Even the highest cost beds will be less expensive than most of the private student housing available in Westwood, especially the buildings closest to campus. The Agora will even be less expensive than some of UCLA’s own student housing.

If across the street from campus isn’t the right place for student housing, where is? This is the ideal location for student housing at the intersection of UCLA’s campus and Westwood Village.

Every aspect of the design and programming in The Agora is for students. Shared community spaces, quiet study areas, a co-living environment, a learning kitchen and many health and wellness benefits are included for students so that they can grow holistically while away from the classroom.

We need more housing of all kinds but especially student housing in Westwood! Westwood rents are the highest in California, and one of the primary reasons rents are so high is that there is a shortage of housing. When there is higher demand and lower supply, landlords charge more. By increasing the amount of available housing, it will help lower demand, thus reducing prices. The California legislature recognized the problem when they passed SB1227, “Housing our Students” into law. The bill cited a 2017 study about food and housing insecurity amongst University of California students. UCLA recognizes the problem too – with 5,400 beds in the pipeline for on-campus student housing.