The Los Angeles Community College District has canceled its bidding process for a student housing project at Los Angeles City College and Pierce College, scrapping a plan that would have brought between 800 and 1,600 beds to the two campuses. The move comes after a losing developer accused the district of tilting the competition toward a rival firm whose executives had donated to two sitting board members.
According to the Los Angeles Times, LACCD had asked developers in March 2026 to apply to build housing at the two campuses, with an evaluation panel initially set to rank applicants using metrics including company history, financial footing and overall project proposal. Developers submitted their proposals on August 20, but that same day the district notified them the evaluation process was changing — Chancellor Alberto J. Román would now rank the developers himself and would also consider finalists' board presentations in his decision, even though the district had previously told developers those presentations were information only and not part of scoring.
Six days later, on August 26, the district notified developers that Román had selected CTI Housing, whose executives include Dan Weinstein and Stuart Liner, as the highest-ranking proposal and had recommended the board of trustees open negotiations with the firm for a pre-development agreement. Román determined CTI's proposal was the most advantageous to the district, ranking the firm above four other developers.
A Rival Developer Cries Foul
Michaels Student Living, one of the losing bidders, challenged the integrity of the process and sent a formal protest to the district, alleging what it called unprecedented procedural irregularities in the district's handling of the competition. The firm alleged that changing the bidding process midstream was inconsistent with the legal requirement that public bids be fair and equitable. Benjamin Hanelin, who represented Michaels, told the Times that the company had deep concerns about the district's process, and Michaels said it plans to participate in a fair process going forward.
At the center of the protest were campaign donations. Weinstein and Liner had donated at least $11,000 combined to the campaigns of at least two district board members, Sara Hernandez and Andra Hoffman, according to the Times review of contribution records. Liner gave $2,500 to Hernandez's 2022 Board of Trustees election committee and $5,000 to her state Senate campaign in June 2025. Weinstein contributed $2,500 to Hoffman's 2024 campaign committee and $1,000 to her statewide superintendent campaign in March 2025.
The Levine Act Question
Under California's Levine Act, as expanded by SB 1439 in 2023 and updated by SB 1243 effective January 2025, public officials are barred from participating in contract proceedings if they received more than $500 from a participating party within the preceding 12 months. The California Fair Political Practices Commission has laid out that same 12-month threshold as the trigger for recusal. But the Times reported that the donations from Weinstein and Liner to Hoffman and Hernandez fell outside the law's 12-month window relative to the vote, and a Times review found no donations from Michaels executives to current district board members going back to 2022.
Hernandez, who serves as board president, said Liner's donations were in full compliance with ethics and campaign finance laws. Hoffman similarly said campaign contributions do not influence her votes, while Weinstein said he supported Hoffman because of her efforts on behalf of students. LACCD spokesperson Juliet Hidalgo said district officials believe they acted appropriately.
District Hits the Reset Button
Despite defending its board members, the district ultimately canceled the process out of an abundance of caution, according to the Times, rejecting all bids and scrapping its request for qualifications and proposals — known as an RFQ/P — entirely. The board of trustees had a vote on the housing proposal scheduled, but that meeting was canceled along with the process itself. Raoul Amescua applauded the cancellation, per the Times account.
Hidalgo said the district has not set a date to restart bidding, though LACCD says it will start a new competition to build student housing and will move forward deliberately while seeking high-quality affordable housing for students. The district has also retained the right to change evaluation criteria at any time, a policy that will likely draw renewed scrutiny whenever a new round of bidding begins. Developers competing for the project have been asked to raise the remaining housing funds themselves, through private equity, tax-exempt bonds or other mechanisms, beyond what the district contributes.
A Bigger Bet on Student Housing
The stalled project is part of a much larger financial commitment. LACCD anticipated spending up to $150 million in Measure LA bond money on the two-campus project alone, drawn from the $500 million the district earmarked for student housing out of the $5.3 billion facility bond voters approved in November 2022, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. Hidalgo has said student housing is a new undertaking for LACCD, a district that has operated primarily as a commuter system across its nine campuses and never previously offered full-time residential housing.
The stakes behind the push are stark. A districtwide survey found more than half of responding LACCD students experienced housing insecurity, while earlier district-commissioned research found roughly 19% faced homelessness, according to LAist. LACCD's construction management program, BuildLACCD, has structured its response around three tracks — purchasing existing residential properties, entering master-lease agreements, and constructing ground-up dormitories — meaning the canceled bid represents only one piece of a broader strategy rather than the district's entire housing plan.
That multi-pronged approach is already producing results elsewhere. In May 2026, LACCD launched the LA NEXT College Housing Partnership with California State University, Los Angeles, placing 56 East Los Angeles College students into surplus university housing this fall, with plans to expand to 120 students by year three, LAist reported. The partnership offers a working alternative while ground-up construction at L.A. City College and Pierce College remains delayed.
LACCD's difficulties come as at least one neighboring district has moved further ahead on its own dormitories. Hoodline previously reported that Long Beach City College approved plans early in 2026 for a $127 million, 431-bed student housing complex at its Liberal Arts Campus, with construction slated to begin this fall — a contrast to LACCD's reset process. Chancellor Román, appointed to the role in May 2025 after serving as interim chancellor since November 2024, now leads a system of more than 190,000 students across nine campuses as it tries to figure out how to get its own residential ambitions back on track.
