BERKELEY — Following days of intense protest at Folks’s Park that led UC Berkeley to halt development on a brand new housing venture, the California First District Courtroom of Enchantment issued a brief keep on all development, demolition and tree-cutting on the controversial web site Thursday.
Make UC A Good Neighbor and the Folks’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group filed a petition in court docket Thursday difficult the college’s approval of housing on the park — lengthy a hotbed of political exercise relationship again to 1969 when police brutalized protesters who opposed the college’s long-term plans for the realm.
Whereas the keep implies that UC Berkeley can't start development on the web site till the keep is lifted, the college can nonetheless legally put up a safety fence across the perimeter of the park.
Nonetheless, the college is prone to face hassle placing up fences anytime quickly as protesters had by Friday afternoon barricaded the perimeter of the park with tree stumps, particles and the UC’s personal fences. The protesters have additionally erected a barricade on the heart of the park round a tall tree, one of many final which continues to be standing after the college started tree-cutting to clear the location this week.
“We're gratified that the Courtroom of Appeals acknowledged that UC mustn't go ahead till the court docket has the chance to overview our case extra totally,” Folks’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group President Harvey Smith stated. “UC took benefit of the authorized system with the intention to destroy as a lot of the park because it may. We're hopeful that the court docket will overturn the decrease court docket resolution and result in the restoration of the park. Why ought to the college maintain a car parking zone and destroy a park? Within the period of maximum local weather change, that is unconscionable.”
Over the previous week Folks’s Park has erupted with renewed political activism after UC Berkeley started clearing the park for development, a transfer that led protesters to face off towards police, destroy a barricade erected across the park and harm dear development tools. Police confirmed that seven protesters have been arrested on Wednesday.
The confrontations have been sparked after a court docket ruling final week, which turned official Tuesday, allowed UC Berkeley to maneuver ahead with its plans to redevelop a portion of the park with two buildings, one six tales and the opposite 12.
Together with housing for college students and homeless folks, the venture plans to protect nearly half of the location — 1.7 acres — as open area and honor the historical past of Folks’s Park with a memorial walkway, murals and photograph shows.
The college has been below mounting authorized stress to construct extra housing as its pupil inhabitants grows, though proponents of preserving Folks’s Park say the placement is a crucial inexperienced area and cultural landmark that shouldn't be eliminated.
The destruction of development supplies and protests compelled UC Berkeley to pause development on the location late Thursday afternoon, in line with an e mail in regards to the venture’s subsequent steps from college representatives Dan Mogulof and Kyle Gibson.
“As a result of destruction of development supplies, illegal protest exercise, and violence on the a part of some protesters (on Wednesday), the college determined to pause development work on the Folks’s Park housing web site,” the assertion stated.
The college representatives added that “the campus will, within the days forward, assess the scenario with the intention to decide how finest to proceed with development of this urgently wanted pupil housing venture.”
However the lawsuit filed by the 2 Folks’s Park advocacy teams contends that the college failed to think about available different areas for the proposed housing that may not require the destruction of a nationwide historic web site, which might be a violation of the California Environmental High quality Act.
Each group organizations say they're supportive of UC Berkeley constructing extra pupil housing, “however have identified that the college has supposed quite a few different websites which might be extra acceptable, notably the earthquake-unsafe Ellsworth Parking Construction simply over a block from Folks’s Park,” the press launch says.
“PPHGAG’s projected imaginative and prescient for Folks’s Park contains improved upkeep of the uncared for park making it the equal of any park within the metropolis or on the campus,” advocates say within the press launch. “Clearly bushes must be replanted, however the park can reside on to honor the cultural, political, environmental and architectural historical past of the park and the Telegraph Avenue hall.”