People's Park

Meanwhile, back at the park...

From the San Francisco Standard: Over the decades, People’s Park at UC Berkeley has been different things to different people: a physical manifestation of the Free Speech movement, a place for teens to light a joint and throw DIY concerts, a neglected magnet for criminal behavior. Since January 2024, however, the main symbol for the park’s future has been a 17-foot wall of 160 stacked shipping containers erected around its rectangular perimeter. At the site, a red crane now extends into the sky and tall towers of glass have emerged from behind the barrier.

The city’s most controversial housing project is set to be completed by the time students arrive for next year’s fall semester. The $312 million Judith E. Heumann House, named for the disability rights pioneer, will offer apartment-style housing for more than 1,100 undergraduates. However, a long-promised project meant to house the people the development displaced has yet to begin...

No Berkeley housing fight has been this bitter... Protesters tore down a fence the university erected for preliminary soil testing in January 2021, months before the UC Board of Regents approved the project. What followed was years of sustained protest and escalating legal challenges from a coalition of NIMBY and activist groups, including Make UC a Good Neighbor and the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group.

On Jan. 4, 2024, the university moved to clear the park overnight during winter break, cutting down trees and erecting the shipping-container barrier. Seven protesters were arrested, some of whom had chained themselves to trees and equipment. State lawmakers rushed to pass laws to allow for the development, and a June 2024 California Supreme Court ruling put a nail in the coffin of the legal avenues to pushback. The law, Assembly Bill 1307 — the Make UC a Good Neighbor Act — negated one of the primary arguments against the project. The case, Make UC a Good Neighbor v. Regents of the University of California, was decided unanimously...

Full story at https://sfstandard.com/2026/08/06/peoples-park-berkeley-dorm-unhoused/.