The Project Area Committee and General Plan Advisory Committee (PAC/GPAC) will hold their first meeting of the year tonight to review aspects of the Isla Vista Master Plan and the possible installation of roundabouts on El Colegio Road.

The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the University Religious Center, located at 777 Camino Pescadero. Third District Supervisor Brooks Firestone will give a briefing on I.V. redevelopment, followed by an opportunity for questions from both the PAC/GPAC and the public.

Representatives from the county planning agency will present an update on plans for El Colegio, which tentatively includes up to six roundabouts and an additional lane. PAC/GPAC member and Santa Barbara Student Housing Co-op Representative Bryan Brown said the county presented several possible scenarios for El Colegio for evaluation at the last meeting. This meeting’s presentation will be an update on where the county is in its decision-making process.

“Both the county and the university should let us know where we are in the plan,” Brown said. “There were a number of different scenarios concerning safety issues and how to accommodate the increase in traffic from the San Clemente Housing Project.”

The UCSB San Clemente Housing Project, which will be constructed on what is now Storke Field, between Harder Stadium and El Colegio, will provide living space for over 900 university graduate students.

Some issues under consideration for El Colegio are how wide the street should be, whether or not there will be a bike lane and how wide it would be and how fire engines would navigate the planned roundabouts, Brown said.

Another item on the agenda is a discussion of low-income housing, an issue Brown said he and several other PAC/GPAC members have been focusing on.

“There’s just not enough incentive to have low-income housing in I.V. because it’s not profitable,” he said.