Protesters seeking to preserve People’s Park confront a line of police officers on Regent Street in Berkeley on Thursday.
Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle
Nearly 100 protesters gathered for a rally Thursday morning near the historic People’s Park in Berkeley, hours after police swarmed the space overnight, removing people and barricading the park, anticipating its transformation into a housing site.
Protesters chanted, “Hey, hey, what do you say, People’s Park is here to stay,” at the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Haste Street as about 50 police officers in riot gear stood by and watched. The protest comes as crews placed dozens of double-stacked shipping containers around the perimeter of the park, closing it off at the corner of Channing Way and Bowditch Street, and just halfway down the block on Dwight Way and Haste Street — to the dismay of activists and some residents near the park. Several large trees had also been chopped down; the scent of eucalyptus drifted through the air. About a dozen workers in white hazmat suits sorted through debris at the park early in the morning.
“I’m trying really hard not to cry,” said Lisa Teague, a 64-year-old resident who has lived across from the park for nearly 13 years. “It makes me mad and sad.”
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Just after midnight, UC Berkeley began efforts to close off the park to the public in preparation for the construction of a controversial student housing project. The university sent out a release before 1 a.m. confirming plans to block off the park as a “closed construction zone,” and hundreds of police and California Highway Patrol officers, some in riot gear, barricaded the streets within two blocks of the park.
Workers stack shipping containers around the perimeter of People’s Park behind a line of police officers on Dwight Way on Thursday.
Lea Suzuki/The ChronicleOvernight, about 60 protesters held a vigil at the park before police forced them to leave and arrested seven for trespassing and failing to disperse. The seven people were cited and released at the park, according to a university spokesperson. UC Berkeley students are on winter break until next week.
The university intends to build a student housing project at the 2.8-acre site for 1,100 students and a separate building for permanent supportive housing for very-low income and formerly unhoused people. The move to close the park comes nearly a year after a state appeals court ruled that UC Berkeley failed to adequately analyze environmental concerns of its proposed student housing project. The case is now with the state Supreme Court and remains unresolved. A court hearing has not yet been scheduled.
UC Berkeley said in a statement that the courts “have repeatedly affirmed the university’s ability to enforce the site’s legal status as a closed construction zone.” UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said in a statement that the university decided to take “this necessary step” to secure the site with minimal disruption in preparation for “when we are cleared to resume construction.”
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UC Berkeley previously attempted to close off the park in August 2022 for housing construction, but protesters successfully blocked their efforts. Dan Mogulof, a university spokesperson, said Thursday that the use of shipping containers was a sturdy solution after the incident in August where the fence “was not sufficient to withstand attacks on it by people who were ready and willing to engage in vandalism.”
The shipping containers will remain at the site until at least construction begins, if the courts permit the university to move forward with its plans. No decisions have been made yet on whether the shipping containers will stay at the park through construction, Mogulof said.
Some residents who live near the park expressed concern about having to see stacks of large, yellow and red shipping containers outside their front door. Teague, who was formerly homeless in Oakland before landing an apartment by People’s Park with the help of a Section 8 housing voucher, said she is accustomed to looking out her window every day and seeing the park.
A crowd gathers at Telegraph Avenue and Haste Street in Berkeley as protesters rally to preserve People’s Park.
Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle“They have taken our attractive green space,” Teague said.
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The university intends to use 60% of the site as revitalized green space open to all and plans to include a memorial of the site’s past and historical significance. But Teague said she would likely feel uncomfortable visiting the space once it’s turned into a dormitory.
Michael Lang has lived on Dwight Way directly across from the park for 34 years. Standing in the shadows of the double-stacked containers now lining his block, Lang said the overnight work in the park was intrusive, with “garish, Kafkaesque, prison-yard light” flooding his apartment. And he wasn’t looking forward to facing a wall of containers every day when he walked outside. Lang said he understands the need for more housing but believes there were ways to go about building homes on the park land and preserving some open space.
“This is very unneighborly,” Lang said.
UC Berkeley graduate Arin Kim Wise of Berkeley rallies at Telegraph Avenue and Haste Street on Thursday as protesters seek to preserve People’s Park.
Lea Suzuki/The ChronicleOpponents of the project argue that People’s Park, which has long been the site of free speech and civil rights movements, should be preserved as a historic space and that the university should look at other sites for housing. The park has also long been a haven for the homeless.
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The university, which provides housing for only 23% of its students, the lowest rate in the University of California system, says it needs to address the student housing crisis, as well as fires and crime in the park.
“We were compelled to act in support of unhoused people in the park who are being targeted by criminals, and in support of our commitment to provide our students, and members of the community, with the safety and security they need and deserve,” said UCPD Chief Yogananda Pittman, who was the interim chief for the U.S. Capitol Police in Washington, D.C., during the Jan. 6, 2021, riots. “It became clear we needed to close the site and that it would take extraordinary preemptive measures to do so given that some of the project’s opponents have little regard for the law.”
A demonstrator rallies at Telegraph Avenue and Haste Street on Thursday in support of preserving People’s Park.
Lea Suzuki/The ChronicleThe university is unable to move forward with construction until the court cases are resolved.
During Thursday’s protest, demonstrators expressed concern about what could be lost if People’s Park is transformed into housing. Coco Rosos, 21, born and raised in Berkeley, said she’s long appreciated the community centered around People’s Park. She said she worried that people who called the park home will lose not only a place to sleep, but the community they relied on.
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“I wouldn’t have met the people there and had that community without People’s Park,” Rosos said. “What if it was just full of students and rich people?”
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