UC Berkeley Can Start Building on People's Park, California Supreme Court Rules

Updated 2:30 p.m. Friday, June 7.

Capping a decades-long battle over the fate of People’s Park, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that UC Berkeley can start constructing a student dormitory and supportive housing facility on the property.

The case stemmed from a 2021 lawsuit against UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan, which aims to add nearly 12,000 new student beds and 8 million square feet of new classrooms, research labs, libraries and other amenities.

“We are pleased and relieved that the Supreme Court’s decision enables the campus to resume construction at People’s Park,” Kyle Gibson, UC Berkeley’s director of communications, said in a statement. “The housing components of the project are desperately needed by our students and unhoused people.”

Two neighborhood groups, Make UC A Good Neighbor and the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group, brought the initial lawsuit, arguing that the park should be protected as a historic landmark.

“We’ll be losing a lot with People’s Park,” Harvey Smith, president of the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group, said on Thursday. “It’s a national historic site, so this goes beyond Berkeley; it goes beyond the state of California. All that is being ignored.”

Speaking to reporters from his Berkeley office Friday, Mayor Jesse Arreguín acknowledged the park’s more than half-century-long role as a center for political activism and community building. But, he said, “History should not stop us from progress.”

“We face these huge challenges as a city, as a region, as a state, of rampant homelessness and housing affordability,” he said. “And I think that the city of Berkeley and the university need to do something to address those those challenges, too.”

The neighborhood groups had sought to make a novel case under state environmental law, arguing that noise generated by the future student residents would be a form of pollution, requiring UC Berkeley to study the impacts on neighbors. Although noise is considered pollution under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), it had previously been used exclusively in arguments against concert venues or industrial sites.

In February 2023, an appellate court agreed with the groups and ruled that the university had to study the noise from future residents and its impact on neighbors, as well as consider alternative sites for the proposed development at People’s Park and housing built elsewhere on campus.

The Supreme Court ruled that none of Make UC A Good Neighbor’s claims about social noise had merit and reversed the Court of Appeal’s judgment.

“We decline to consider Good Neighbor’s alternative locations argument with respect to potential future housing projects,” the opinion read. “In short, as all parties have effectively acknowledged, this lawsuit poses no obstacle to the development of the People’s Park housing project.”

In the face of the state’s and UC Berkeley’s student housing crisis, many California legislators had sought alternative ways to protect the university’s campus expansion plan. Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Berkeley) penned AB 1307, a bill specifically tailored to this project. It amended CEQA so developers don’t have to consider noise generated by future residents as having a “significant effect on the environment” and allowed public universities not to have to consider alternative locations for projects.

That bill was quickly signed into law and effectively cleared the way for the People’s Park development, but it left the door open on whether UC Berkeley would have to study noise impacts and consider alternative sites for other housing projects in its Long Range Development Plan.

Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling closed that door, stating that “the new law applies to both the People’s Park housing project and the development plan.”

Arreguín, who is running for a state Senate seat, lauded the ruling, calling the lower court’s decision “misguided” and “not based in fact or law.”

“Imagine how that could be weaponized by NIMBYs throughout California to stop affordable housing, to stop permanent supportive housing and stop student housing?” he said. “Thankfully, that will no longer be a barrier for this project or any project in California.”

Historically, courts have taken a more expansive view of CEQA seeking to protect the environment, according to UC Davis land-use law professor Chris Elmendorf. This ruling suggests a shift in perspective.

“The California Supreme Court is interpreting CEQA in light of current legislative sentiments rather than in light of judicial sentiments from the 1970s,” Elmendorf said. “The court is sort of trying to make CEQA responsive to present-day needs, as expressed by the political branches of government, rather than carrying forward a vision of CEQA that was first advanced in the courts in the 1970s.”

The university currently provides the lowest amount of student housing within the UC system: about 22% of its more than 45,000 undergraduate and graduate students have access to university-provided housing. The People’s Park project and other housing included in the long-range plan would effectively double the number of beds the university provides.

“The campus is turning its attention to the timeline for resuming construction now that all legal challenges have been resolved by the California Supreme Court,” Gibson said.

KQED’s Erin Baldassari contributed to this story.