UC Irvine Evicts Horses From Building Site

IRVINE —  UC Irvine has formally evicted a herd of horses and other animals kept by two groups on campus, because they stand in the way of a student recreation center planned for the site.

Representatives of the Wilderness Horse Owners Assn., which tends 26 free-range horses, and the 4-H club, which cares for pigs, ducks, goats and other animals, must vacate the campus’ last vestige of rural grounds by the end of February and August of next year, respectively.

Executive Vice Chancellor Sidney H. Golub, in letters to the groups dated Thursday, said the university needs the land for the $15.3-million student center, which undergraduates overwhelmingly approved in a referendum last spring. The building will be part of a student residential area planned to cope with a projected 25% growth in enrollment in the next decade.

The university has made no decision on the fate of an alternative elementary school across the street from the horse stables. The Farm School, known for its innovative teaching in cottage-like farmhouses, is not included in the university’s long-range plans for the area.

Officials of WHOA and 4-H had asked the university to set aside a patch of land somewhere to preserve a taste of what the area was before the university’s construction 30 years ago.

But Golub, who has maintained that the needs of students come first, said in the letter, “We have decided that the construction of stables for the boarding of privately owned horses on UCI land is not compatible with the campus’ open-space needs nor with UCI’s core academic mission.”

Leigh Richards, an academic counselor and treasurer of WHOA, whose 30 members are university students or staff, was bitter.

“I am angry and ashamed,” Richards said. Although the horses, many of them elderly and accustomed to the UCI site, are privately owned by students, faculty and staff, Richards contends they nevertheless contribute to the university experience.