UC Berkeley is walling off People's Park as it awaits a court decision on the student housing project
BERKELEY, California — Police officers in riot gear cleared activists from Berkeley's People's Park and crews began installing double-stacked shipping containers Thursday night to cordon off the historic park as the University of California, Berkeley awaits a court ruling that it hopes will allow it to build the much-needed building student housing.
The project has been mired in a legal challenge that claims the university failed to study the potential noise problems caused by future residents and consider alternative locations. The park has also been the scene of clashes in recent years between activists opposing the project and police trying to clear it.
Authorities arrested seven people Thursday on charges of park trespassing, and two of them were additionally charged with failure to disperse after they refused to leave the park, which is owned by UC Berkeley, university officials said in a statement. Those arrested were arrested, cited and released, they said.
The university wants to use the park to build a housing complex that would house about 1,100 UC Berkeley students and 125 formerly homeless people. A portion of the park would be set aside to commemorate its significance to the civil rights movement, university officials said.
The park was founded in 1969 as part of the free speech and civil rights movement, when community organizers worked together to take back a place that the state and university had seized under eminent domain. Since then, the gathering space has served free meals, hosted community gardening and art projects, and been used by the homeless.
Last February, a court ruled in favor of the project's opponents, and the university appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court, which has yet to decide whether the university's environmental assessment of the project is sufficient and whether the university construction can resume.
“Given that the existing legal issues will inevitably be resolved, we have decided to take this necessary step now to minimize disruption to the public and our students when we are ultimately cleared to resume construction,” said UC Berkely Chancellor Carol Christ said in a statement. .
University officials said cordoning off the park with double-stacked shipping containers would take three to four days and would require closing nearby streets.
In 2022, a group of protesters broke through a 2-meter chain fence erected around the site and were confronted by police, who were on guard as a construction crew began clearing the tree park to make way for the $312. million student housing project .
Christ said the project has strong support from students, community members, advocates for the unhoused, the city of Berkeley's elected leadership, state legislators and Governor Gavin Newsom.
In September, Newsom signed a new law that changes a key state environmental law and requires developers not to consider noise from future residents as a form of environmental pollution. The new law aims to prevent lawsuits over noise pollution that could prevent universities from building new housing.
University officials said they would ask the Supreme Court to consider the new law in its ruling.
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Rodriguez reported from San Francisco.