A tense battle to build long-sought student housing at historic People’s Park in Berkeley, California, took an extraordinary turn early Thursday when hundreds of law enforcement officers surrounded the site and expelled several dozen homeless activists and campers in preparation For the construction. of a wall of shipping containers around the perimeter of the park.
The midnight operation, conducted while most students at the nearby University of California, Berkeley, were still away for winter break, was the last-ditch effort to continue a $312 million construction project whose ground was broken was originally scheduled for 2022. It underscored growing tensions around California’s acute housing shortage, particularly in college towns.
Law enforcement officers far outnumbered activists at the scene who had been briefed on the operation and who greeted the show of force from trees and tents pitched in the dark.
“We are trying to let people leave, but if they refuse, they are arrested,” university spokesman Dan Mogulof said by phone from inside the police perimeter around 2 a.m. “Everyone was offered shelter. Some accepted us. But some of the activists are still on site. “I’m seeing a couple sitting on the roof of the park bathroom and a couple in a tree fort right now.”
About two hours later, authorities said the site had been cleared and construction crews prepared to double-stack about 160 empty shipping containers to mark out the park site.
By dawn, seven activists had been arrested on misdemeanor charges of trespassing and failure to disperse, and had been cited and released, the university said.
Of the eight homeless people who were in the park when authorities arrived, Mogulof said, three accepted offers of transitional housing and the rest left voluntarily.
The university provides housing to only 23 percent of its students, by far the lowest percentage in the 10-campus University of California system. A plan to build 1,100 new units of student housing and 125 units of supportive housing for homeless people in part of the park, which is owned by the university, has been repeatedly delayed since last summer.
A small contingent of Berkeley residents and activists has aggressively pushed to preserve the entire park, which was the center of bloody countercultural protests in the 1960s.
Harvey Smith, president of the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group, said the planned housing would create a “huge monolith” in the park that would violate state standards for urban green space and “further pack in an area that is already one of the most populated.” in Berkeley.”
Mr. Smith noted that in December, the National Trust for Historic Preservation endorsed “the full exploration of all potential alternatives that result in the preservation of People’s Park.”
“It’s a myth that people who oppose the destruction of the park are simply privileged residents of Nimby,” he said, noting that his own home is in a different area of town. “People come to Berkeley from all over the world asking to see People’s Park.”
In late February of last year, a state appeals court in San Francisco sided with opponents of the development plan, including Mr. Smith’s group, who claimed that the university had not conducted environmental reviews required by the state law. An appeal is pending before the California Supreme Court.
The university has struggled to cordon off the property, which is covered in trash and graffiti, and to discourage encampments. In August 2022, when the university attempted to fence the site, large protests broke out and crowds tore down the fence.
Since then, Mogulof said, the city and university have spent more than $6 million to rent motel space and move homeless people occupying the park into shelters and supportive housing, including an effort in November when most About two dozen people who were still camped at the site were taken to a local motel.
University officials acknowledged that construction could not begin until the courts resolved the environmental review issue, but said the site’s legal status as a closed construction zone had been “repeatedly affirmed” and that fencing the park was vital. to avoid a resurgence. crime and new encampments on the property.
“Given that existing legal issues will inevitably be resolved, we decided to take this necessary step now, in order to minimize disruption to the public and our students when we are eventually cleared to resume construction,” said UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ. she said in a prepared statement.
“Unfortunately, our planning and actions must take into account that some of the project’s opponents have previously resorted to violence and vandalism,” he said, “despite strong support for the project from students, community members, advocates of people experiencing homelessness, the elected leaders of the city of Berkeley, as well as the legislature and governor of the state of California.”
