UCLA Faculty Association: People's Park is Back

Remember the People's Park affair last summer when UC-Berkeley attempted to convert part of the park to student housing? After confrontations - see the video below - the project was stopped and later halted by a court order. The latest developments are reported by the San Francisco Chronicle:

The University of California has committed $312 million to turn Berkeley’s historic People’s Park into housing for about 1,100 students and more than 100 of the homeless people who regularly camp on the 2.8-acre site. The project has won approval from officials in Berkeley, after UC agreed to cover the city’s added costs for police and fire services, and from an Alameda County judge, who said it complies with environmental laws. But while UC Berkeley now provides housing for only 23% of its students, by far the lowest rate in the state system, the project has drawn protests, including from neighborhood groups who want the park preserved as an open space and argue that the university has less-disruptive options to build housing elsewhere. And now a state appeals court, in a preliminary review, says UC Berkeley may have to consider other plans.

The university’s environmental impact report, which concluded that the housing and other planned construction would not cause needless damage, failed to analyze other potential housing sites “that would spare the park from demolition,” the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco said in a tentative ruling on the neighborhood groups’ appeal, which is scheduled for oral arguments on Jan. 12. “There is plenty of evidence that alternative sites exist — the development plan identifies several other university-owned properties as potential student housing sites,” the court wrote.

The court also said the environmental report did not consider some of the impacts of adding 1,100 students to a crowded neighborhood over the next 15 years, including “displacement of existing residents on an area that already suffers from a severe housing shortage,” and more late-night parties and other gatherings on city blocks that have reported a “persistent problem with student-generated noise.” The ruling, if endorsed by the court after the hearing, would halt the project and require the university to conduct a new environmental study.

The tentative ruling, an unusual action by an appellate panel in advance of a hearing, was signed by Presiding Justice Teri Jackson in the name of the court, whose other regular members are Justices Mark Simons and Gordon Burns. Jackson noted that the ruling was “subject to revision” in the court’s final decision, which is due within 90 days of the hearing and could be appealed to the state Supreme Court...

Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/UC-Berkeley-housing-at-People-s-Park-could-be-17681790.php.

Note that the legislature could step in - as it did with regard to a Berkeley enrollment increase that was blocked by environmental litigation - and override whatever the court eventually says. Whether that scenario would play out in this case is iffy. Enrollment and student housing are related, but not the same thing.

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People's Park Video: