UC Berkeley will be able to continue construction of student and low-income housing at People’s Park after the state Supreme Court culminated a yearslong legal battle in the university’s favor this week.
The Thursday ruling considered two provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act at issue in the lawsuit against the university brought by The People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group and Make UC A Good Neighbor. They argued that UC Berkeley should have considered the potential for student noise as an environmental impact in their analysis of the housing project, and that alternative sites should have been more fully explored.
An appellate court upheld those arguments last year, potentially sending the university back to the drawing board for another environmental review before it could begin construction. However, UC Berkeley appealed the case to the state Supreme Court, and since then, legislation to close gaps in CEQA paved the way for Thursday’s ruling.
The ruling was made possible in large part because of legislation last year from East Bay state Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, which essentially closed the holes in CEQA that park activists used to sue the university.
“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,” said UC Berkeley spokesperson Kyle Gibson in an email.