UC Berkeley Begins Environmental Impact Review Process for People’s Park Development

Between April 17 and April 27, UC Berkeley hosted its third and final open house on the People’s Park Housing Project. While the first two open houses were held in person, the third was online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The open house showcased an early-stage rendering of the proposed housing development to be erected on People’s Park. The plan includes 950 to 1,200 student beds and 75 to 125 apartments for people currently experiencing homelessness or very low-income residents, open space, and a food market. 

The proposed student housing consists of two buildings. The first is a sixteen-story tower  running parallel to Haste Street, which descends to eleven stories as it moves east. The second is a six-story tower parallel to Bowditch Street, which will sit atop an open ground floor. 

The proposed supportive housing is five stories atop a mixed-use ground level, which will have campus facilities and support services for residents. It is also said to have more than 50% open space, including a half-acre multi-use field, a commemorative walkway recounting the history of People’s Park, a grove of trees, and a small garden space. The plan aims for fossil fuel-free buildings, sustainable stormwater and landscaping design, low-carbon building design, and LEED gold certification for the student housing. 

This is the first open house to show a specific layout for the housing complex. Previous open houses only developed thematic concepts about how housing and open spaces might be organized, without officially proposing building heights or locations.

After the virtual open house last week, the University of California Planning Office hosted an online public hearing to receive input about the scope of its upcoming Environmental Impact Review for the campus’s Long Range Development Plan. This plan encompasses all of the University’s forthcoming construction projects, including the People’s Park housing development.

Of the fifty-plus comments read aloud at the hearing, most were critical of the People’s Park development, citing histories of colonialism, redlining, gentrification, urban sprawl, and loss of green spaces. Many are concerned that the Environmental Impact Review will not adequately account for the loss of environmental services to Berkeley’s Southside community, as People’s Park is one of its last remaining green spaces. Its gardens also provide food to locals, including many who are experiencing homelessness. 

While the new development will have some outdoor areas for residents and the community to enjoy, concerns have arisen about who will be excluded from these spaces. Max Ventura, a longtime park advocate, estimates that 50-60 people currently reside in the park, and she worries that they may not qualify for the planned supplemental housing. UC Berkeley has not released comments about how they plan to select residents, but restrictions such as sobriety tests and overly-broad criminal background checks could bar vulnerable residents from receiving shelter in the new development. 

Further, the People’s Park Committee released a statement arguing that people experiencing homelessness were not adequately included in conversations about the proposed development. Many current residents of the park have said they would rather live in the park, surrounded by grass and trees, than in a housing block, as I learned when I visited the park myself during its 50th anniversary celebration. Other community members and activists see People’s Park as a critical symbol of collective environmental resistance against urban sprawl. 

The plan to build on People’s Park is part of UC Berkeley’s wider Long Range Development Plan, which includes other green spaces slated for development, notably the Oxford Tract, the Smyth-Fernwald lot, and an extension of the Clark Kerr Campus into the Berkeley hills. The upcoming Environmental Impact Review (EIR) will cover the Long Range Development Plan as a single unit. The only site-specific environmental impact reviews will concern the People’s Park development and a smaller development across from the western edge of campus on Oxford Street. The People’s Park Committee has voiced concerns that the planning department could use this Program EIR to green-light all future projects of the Long Range Development Plan, which would bypass the need to develop additional site-specific reviews. 

The UC Berkeley Capital Strategies department will be accepting comments regarding the scope of this Environmental Impact Review until May 15th.