cawacko
Well-known member
Since this board is dominated by Boomers how many you remember People's Park from your youth? They've been fighting over this site for years. The few remaining old hippies want it to stay a park/monument and UC Berkley has wanted to convert it to much needed student housing.
With a nod to state lawmakers, the California Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for UC Berkeley to build housing for students and unhoused people in historic People’s Park.
Some neighborhood groups have opposed the $312 million plan, saying the university should leave the park alone and choose less-disruptive alternative sites that are available elsewhere in Berkeley. A state appeals court ruled last year that UC had failed to consider those locations or to submit any plans to shield neighbors from noise generated by “loud student parties” in People’s Park dormitories.
But the Legislature then unanimously passed, and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed, AB1307 by Assembly Member Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, that said the university need not consider other housing sites. The bill also specified that noise from the project would not have a “significant effect on the environment” – removing any remaining legal obstacles.
Or, as UC’s lawyer, Nicole Gordon, put it at the court’s hearing in April, “People cause pollution, yet never before has a court said that people themselves are the pollution.”
In light of AB1307, “this lawsuit poses no obstacle to the development of the People’s Park housing project,” Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote in Thursday’s 7-0 ruling.
Even Thomas Lippe, lawyer for neighborhood opponents of the project, acknowledged at the hearing that AB1307 had eliminated the last legal barriers to the project. But Lippe urged the justices to keep the case alive and require UC to consider the local impact of its long-range plans to add thousands of students, saying the university has failed to include the public in its decision-making.
The court said, however, that the new law “applies to both the People’s Park housing project and the development plan.”
The Legislature concluded that “the effects of noise generated by project occupants and their guests on human beings is not a significant effect on the environment for residential projects for purposes of CEQA,” the California Environmental Quality Act, Guerrero wrote. That law requires public agencies to describe the potential environmental effects of projects they are approving and consider ways to reduce those impacts.
Because of the new law, UC’s environmental report “is not inadequate for having failed to study the potential noisiness of future students at UC Berkeley in connection with this project,” Guerrero said.
After the new state law led to more protests, police swept protesters from the park in January and then set up a wall of metal shipping containers to keep them out.
In Berkeley on Thursday, a group of about 20 gathered under a California Golden Bears canopy and in front of a purple Free People’s Park banner at the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Haste Street to read the decision. It was greeted with both sighs and groans.
But UC Berkeley spokesperson Kyle Gibson said the university was “grateful for the strong and ongoing support this project has received from the majority of Berkeley students, community members, advocates for the unhoused, the city’s elected leaders, the state Legislature, and the governor.”
“The housing components of the project are desperately needed by our students and unhoused people, and the entire community will benefit from the fact that more than 60% of the 2.8-acre site will be revitalized as open park space,” Gibson said in a statement that indicated construction will now proceed quickly.
UC Berkeley now provides housing for only 23% of its 45,000 students, the lowest rate in the 10-campus UC system. It plans to build housing in the park for 1,111 students in a 158-unit complex.
A separate building would contain 125 beds, with either half or all going to homeless people, depending on available financing. During construction, the university says, it will provide shelter for about four dozen unhoused people. More than half of the 2.8 acres would remain open space, with a new grove of trees.
Gibson said plans for the project will be finalized within weeks, and that construction updates will be shared on the project’s website.
The land south of campus was acquired in 1967 by the university, which bought out the owners of homes on the property and tore down their buildings to make room for dormitories.
But students opposed to the plan planted a garden and named the land People’s Park. Gov. Ronald Reagan then sent in police to remove the plants and build a fence. During a violent protest in May 1969, officers fatally shot one man and wounded others.
The protesters ultimately prevailed, and the property is still a park. But as the shortage of on-campus housing increased, the university revived its dormitory plan in 2017, and the city of Berkeley approved funding for it in 2021.
UC Berkeley’s People’s Park development can move forward, state Supreme Court rules
With a nod to state lawmakers, the California Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for UC Berkeley to build housing for students and unhoused people in historic People’s Park.
Some neighborhood groups have opposed the $312 million plan, saying the university should leave the park alone and choose less-disruptive alternative sites that are available elsewhere in Berkeley. A state appeals court ruled last year that UC had failed to consider those locations or to submit any plans to shield neighbors from noise generated by “loud student parties” in People’s Park dormitories.
But the Legislature then unanimously passed, and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed, AB1307 by Assembly Member Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, that said the university need not consider other housing sites. The bill also specified that noise from the project would not have a “significant effect on the environment” – removing any remaining legal obstacles.
Or, as UC’s lawyer, Nicole Gordon, put it at the court’s hearing in April, “People cause pollution, yet never before has a court said that people themselves are the pollution.”
In light of AB1307, “this lawsuit poses no obstacle to the development of the People’s Park housing project,” Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote in Thursday’s 7-0 ruling.
Even Thomas Lippe, lawyer for neighborhood opponents of the project, acknowledged at the hearing that AB1307 had eliminated the last legal barriers to the project. But Lippe urged the justices to keep the case alive and require UC to consider the local impact of its long-range plans to add thousands of students, saying the university has failed to include the public in its decision-making.
The court said, however, that the new law “applies to both the People’s Park housing project and the development plan.”
The Legislature concluded that “the effects of noise generated by project occupants and their guests on human beings is not a significant effect on the environment for residential projects for purposes of CEQA,” the California Environmental Quality Act, Guerrero wrote. That law requires public agencies to describe the potential environmental effects of projects they are approving and consider ways to reduce those impacts.
Because of the new law, UC’s environmental report “is not inadequate for having failed to study the potential noisiness of future students at UC Berkeley in connection with this project,” Guerrero said.
After the new state law led to more protests, police swept protesters from the park in January and then set up a wall of metal shipping containers to keep them out.
In Berkeley on Thursday, a group of about 20 gathered under a California Golden Bears canopy and in front of a purple Free People’s Park banner at the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Haste Street to read the decision. It was greeted with both sighs and groans.
But UC Berkeley spokesperson Kyle Gibson said the university was “grateful for the strong and ongoing support this project has received from the majority of Berkeley students, community members, advocates for the unhoused, the city’s elected leaders, the state Legislature, and the governor.”
“The housing components of the project are desperately needed by our students and unhoused people, and the entire community will benefit from the fact that more than 60% of the 2.8-acre site will be revitalized as open park space,” Gibson said in a statement that indicated construction will now proceed quickly.
UC Berkeley now provides housing for only 23% of its 45,000 students, the lowest rate in the 10-campus UC system. It plans to build housing in the park for 1,111 students in a 158-unit complex.
A separate building would contain 125 beds, with either half or all going to homeless people, depending on available financing. During construction, the university says, it will provide shelter for about four dozen unhoused people. More than half of the 2.8 acres would remain open space, with a new grove of trees.
Gibson said plans for the project will be finalized within weeks, and that construction updates will be shared on the project’s website.
The land south of campus was acquired in 1967 by the university, which bought out the owners of homes on the property and tore down their buildings to make room for dormitories.
But students opposed to the plan planted a garden and named the land People’s Park. Gov. Ronald Reagan then sent in police to remove the plants and build a fence. During a violent protest in May 1969, officers fatally shot one man and wounded others.
The protesters ultimately prevailed, and the property is still a park. But as the shortage of on-campus housing increased, the university revived its dormitory plan in 2017, and the city of Berkeley approved funding for it in 2021.