California high court enters fray over UC Berkeley housing project

LOS ANGELES (CN) — The California Supreme Court on Wednesday took up a challenge by two community organizations to the University of California's plan to build student housing at the site of the recently demolished People's Park in Berkeley.

Last year, a state appellate court agreed with Make UC A Good Neighbor and The People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group that the university's environmental impact study for the project failed to consider alternative sites or the impact of "social noise" from the students on the neighborhood.

That decision prompted the California Legislature to pass a law in September to make it clear that residential noise cannot be considered a significant environmental effect under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The new law also removed a requirement that, when certain specifications are met, public universities must examine alternative sites for housing projects.

"As to the People's Park student and supportive housing project, the legislation resolves the issues pending with respect to both social noise and alternative locations," Nicole Gordon, a lawyer representing the UC Regents, told the high court at Wednesday's hearing in downtown Los Angeles.

The opponents of the project, however, claim the new law doesn't moot their case because their arguments also apply to the university's so-called Long Range Development Plan, of which the planned housing at the People's Park site is just one component and which also includes nonresidential facilities.

UC Berkeley anticipates enrollment to increase at its campus even though there isn't enough housing available to accommodate the current student population, the organizations argue. This, they claim, requires an environmental impact evaluation of the social noise created by more than 10,000 additional students across Berkeley's streets and neighborhoods, the organizations claim.

In this context, Associate Justice Leondra Kruger asked Gordon whether the new law meant that court should no longer consider social noise impacts resulting from the nonresidential aspects of UC's long range development plan or any other projects that might include both residential and nonresidential components in the future.

"CEQA was never intended to be used to police the individual people that a project will serve, when they are going about their private, daily lives, and not doing anything that is associated with the use of the project itself," Gordon answered.

Tom Lippe, the lawyer representing Make UC a Good Neighbor, stressed to the court that the university's long-term development plan is not a residential project that falls under the newly enacted law.

"The LRDP, the long-range plan, is not a plan in that sense, it doesn't authorize the construction of a single residence," Lippe argued. "It provides a framework to guide future decisions to authorize that activity."

The law passed last year removed a barrier to the production of housing, according to the lawyer, but it didn't remove any kind of burden that might apply to a long-range plan under CEQA. A long-range plan for UC is similar to a general plan for the county, he said.

Associate Justice Joshua Groban, however, didn't appear convinced that this line of argument could be grounds to block the People's Park project given the Legislature's reaction to the appellate decision.

"You are saying, no, we can still block the project, we are not complaining about the project itself, but because issues related to the project get raised as part of a larger development plan, we can still block the project," Groban said. "It just doesn't seem consistent with the entire nature of the urgency legislation, as a reaction to a specific court of appeal opinion that they seem to be rejecting."

Lippe conceded that the case before the court no longer presented an obstacle to the housing project at the park's site.

The university has been seeking to clear People's Park, a landmark for local antiwar and free speech movements since the 1960s, for years to construct two buildings to house about 1,100 students on the site. 

In January, the park was finally cleared in anticipation of construction once the final legal hurdles are cleared.

The park in recent years became a haven for people in dire straits, as the university began warning that the park would be razed. The organization Defend People’s Park helped homeless people maintain a community kitchen and distribute basic necessities. 

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