A drone view of People’s Park in Berkeley, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. UC Berkeley has surrounded the park with shipping containers and hired full-time security to keep people out while waiting for court approval to build student housing there. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
BERKELEY — The legal fight over the 2.8-acre parcel of land known as People’s Park may be over, with the California Supreme Court ruling in favor of the University of California Regents, who plan to develop the site into student housing for UC Berkeley.
The decision in the case between plaintiffs Make UC A Good Neighbor and the UC Regents, authored by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, found that none of the plaintiff’s claims have merit.
Good Neighbors argued that an environmental review of the university’s purposed project failed to adequately analyze noise impacts from future residents and alternative sites for the proposal. Last year, First District Appellate Court Justices agreed.
Since then, state lawmakers approved Assembly Bill 1307, a law stating that noise generated by future occupants of a project cannot be considered a significant impact on the environment under the California Environmental Quality Act. The change in law voided Good Neighbor’s argument, the court ruled Thursday.
“We are pleased and relieved that the Supreme Court’s decision enables the campus to resume construction at People’s Park. 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,” UC Berkeley wrote in a statement regarding the decision.
The university approved plans to build housing for 1,100 university students and 125 homeless residents within two 12- and six-story dorm buildings on the site off of Telegraph Avenue in 2021, pushing forward a vision it has been pursuing since seizing the land by eminent domain and bulldozing single-family homes on the property in 1968.
That vision has been met with protests ever since. Members of the public took over the muddy lot, planting plants, sod and trees and unofficially dubbing it the People’s Park in 1969.
This is a breaking story. Check back for updates.
Originally published at Sierra Lopez