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. The California Supreme Court will hear an appeal next month of a case that blocked a UC Berkeley housing project proposed at People’s Park — weighing the legal merit of plans that have drawn decades of intense protest and controversy.
Attorneys for Cal asked the California Supreme Court in February 2023 to hear the case, after a state appellate courtin its California Environmental Quality Act documents or ask the state Supreme Court to intervene. The university’s appeal was backed by the city of Berkeley and state officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom.Last year, First District Appellate Court Justices found — in a unanimous 3-0 decision — that the EIR “inadequately analyzed potential alternatives to Housing Project No.
“Left in place, this decision will indefinitely delay all of UC Berkeley’s planned student housing, which is desperately needed by our students and fully supported by the City of Berkeley’s mayor and other elected representatives,” Mogulof said in. “This decision has the potential to prevent colleges and universities across the State of California from providing students with the housing they need and deserve.
UC Berkeley first eyed the site for development when it seized the land by eminent domain and bulldozed the property in 1968 — leaving behind a vacant, muddy lot that hundreds of residents eventually transformed into a park with sod, flowers and trees in 1969.
Later in the day, angry protesters could only stand and watch behind police barricades that blocked off the surrounding streets around the park that eventually will be walled off by 160 of the rusty metal cargo boxes. The historic open space located just off Telegraph Avenue, three blocks south of campus, unofficially serves as an outdoor home for a number of unhoused people in the area.