Hilltop tenant and plaintiff Janice Bartholomew, 72, said on Monday she felt relieved the lawsuit was filed. Despite the problems, she said she doesn’t want to leave her home of four years but rather that the maintenance problems are fixed promptly. 

“I still don’t have good water to drink out of and do the dishes. I still don’t have good air quality coming through the building,” she said, describing mold in her apartment and a raw sewage smell that emanates from the tap water. 

“What’s been happening at the Hilltop is a complete disregard of the human beings living in the premises as to the condition in which they live in and the way they’ve been treated,” said Jonathan Bornstein, an attorney with Oakland-based Bornstein and Bornstein Law Group, which is representing the tenants. 

He believes there are more people who lived at Hilltop who suffered the same conditions and may not know their rights were violated or that legal action is an option.

‘A return on investment’

The UC Office of Investments purchased the 168-unit apartment complex in late 2021 and raised rents on dozens of units in early 2022, some by more than $1,200, according to the purchase agreement and tenants.

While rent hikes are limited by state law, tenants were told their units were being renovated and once they moved out of their units the rent hike cap didn’t apply.

Several tenants contacted Santa Cruz-based Tenant Sanctuary for help. Zav Hershfield worked as the program coordinator at the time and said many of the tenants were “within their rights to say, ‘no, thank you,’” to the renovations, but they didn’t know that. 

The nonprofit was swamped with requests, Hershfield said, and he was unable to assist all the Hilltop tenants that reached out. Many longtime residents were displaced. 

Reached by text message Tuesday, Hershfield said of the lawsuit, “this situation makes clear the need for robust tenants rights education and enforcement systems in our county. These tenants would be on their own and out of luck without an attorney to demand accountability from their powerful landlords.”

University of California Chief Investment Officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher attends a UC Regents meeting in San Francisco in May. (Nik Altenberg — Santa Cruz Local file)

Housing advocates and several Hilltop tenants have accused UC leaders of purchasing the apartment complex to market the units to UC Santa Cruz students and cash in on a housing crunch exacerbated by the university’s growth.

“UC Investments takes any legal complaints pertaining to properties it owns seriously, but cannot comment on this pending legal matter,” Stett Holbrook, a spokesman for the UC Office of the President, wrote in an email.

Representatives of Greystar did not return requests for comment.

When approached at a UC Regents meeting in May, UC Chief Investment Officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher said he would be “happy to answer any questions” about the Hilltop, but later did not respond to emails asking about the property. 

Bachher told UC Regents in 2023 that his office purchased the Hilltop to “make a return on investment” and that “if you own real estate around a university, there’s kind of only one thing that happens to its price over time — it just goes up.”

The purchase agreement, obtained by Santa Cruz Local, included a ledger of the actual rents in October 2021 and potential rents for each apartment. The ledger calculated the potential rents for the 168 units at about $160,000 more per month than what was being charged.

The Hilltop apartments were purchased by the University of California in 2021. Maintenance problems have mounted in the years since. (Nik Altenberg — Santa Cruz Local)

While UCSC leaders distanced themselves from the property because the UC is the owner, campus leaders also said they advised the university how best to market the apartments to its students. 

“We talked to them about how to structure leases and do things that might make it attractive to students, what our pricing is so that they would be comparable. But all decision making is theirs in terms of how it operates,” Ed Reiskin, UCSC vice chancellor and chief financial officer, said in an interview last year.

“One thing that we wanted to be cautious of, and we warned them about, was the reality or even the perception that UC was coming in buying an apartment complex, kicking Santa Cruzans out to move in UCSC students,” Reiskin said.

‘Money hungry’

Today, some apartments for rent on the Hilltop’s website are explicitly advertised as “UCSC Housing.” A “triple” goes for $1,443 per student, or $4,329 for a one-bedroom apartment, according to the website, and a “double-double” goes for $1,899 per student or $7,596 for a two-bedroom apartment.

“They’ve taken a lot of money, and they haven’t fulfilled any of their responsibilities or duties,” said Bornstein, the attorney for the plaintiffs. 

Izabella Stevens and Sahara Thacker, UCSC students and plaintiffs in the lawsuit, described in a February interview living with sewage leaks, mold, unfinished construction, illegal rent charges and “dehumanizing” treatment by Greystar staff.

Izabella Stevens, right, and Sahara Thacker describe problems at their Hilltop apartment in a February interview. (Nik Altenberg — Santa Cruz Local file)

“Absolutely ridiculous,” Stevens said of the rental prices at Hilltop. “They’re just so money hungry.” Hilltop was charging them $4,595 for a two-bedroom apartment.

“So many students here struggle with housing,” Thacker said. “Hearing the university bought this, raised the rents for their own students — to be dealing with this is insane. My university should be supportive.”

The problems began for Thacker and Stevens the day they moved into a unit in September 2024 — the stove was not hooked up, the shower head was not properly installed and maintenance requests went unanswered for a week. Then, in December, the bathtub filled with sewage water, overflowed into the hallway and flooded Stevens’ bedroom.

Workers came to clean and disinfect the apartment, they said, but it was clear the residual moisture was causing mold to grow. Then the UCSC quarter ended and they went home for winter break while major repairs began on the apartment. 

In January, Stevens said she came home after a nine-hour drive to an apartment torn apart, sheetrock missing and the toilet sitting in the front yard. She had to relocate to another apartment that night due to the unit’s condition. 

The students were charged rent for the month of January despite the apartment being uninhabitable, and they dealt with ongoing maintenance problems at the new unit at Hilltop as well. 

“I feel like I’m being robbed in broad daylight, paying every month for this,” Stevens said. 

The lawsuit defendants have until Nov. 24 to file a reply with the courts.

Are you a current or former resident of Hilltop? Reporter Nik Altenberg wants to speak with you. Email her at [email protected].

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