End of an era: Protesters decry UC Berkeley’s razing historic People’s Park

BERKELEY, Calif. (CN) — A treasured Berkeley landmark for local antiwar and free speech movements since the 1960s, the People’s Park and the remnants of a homeless encampment were demolished after hundreds of police arrived before dawn Thursday. 

Hundreds of California Highway Patrol, University of California police and private security guards entered the park forcibly and arrested several people in the park early Thursday, according to activists supporting the people living at the park. Local outlet Berkeleyside reported that seven people were arrested and several tree-huggers were escorted off the site last night.

After removing people in the area, the university’s crews began bulldozing the park, clearing debris and left-behind items and cutting down trees. As daylight broke, the work crews began bringing in shipping containers which will be stacked around the park’s perimeter to block it off. 

For days, local advocates and people living at the park have been wary UC Berkeley was about to begin sweeping the park, after threatening to do so for months.

The university has been seeking to clear the park for years, to construct two buildings to house about 1,100 students on the site instead. The university cannot begin construction of these buildings on the site until legal issues are fully resolved in a case currently pending in the California Supreme Court. But the appellate court has affirmed the university can declare the site a closed construction zone, the university said. 

“We are taking this necessary step now to minimize the possibilities of conflict and confrontation, and of disruption for the public and our students, when we are cleared to resume construction,” Berkeley chancellor Carol Chris said in a post to X, formerly Twitter. 

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. Some eventually moved on to several motels contracted by UC Berkeley to provide temporary rooms, but over the years some remained in the tent community to help their friends.

Many activists who knew these people rallied Thursday morning on Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue, decrying the university’s use of a large police presence and the removal of trees and people’s belongings. One man shouted at the work crews who were separated from him by a line of police, “If you destroy my home I’m going to ask for reimbursement!”

Berkeley resident Coco Rosos knelt in front of the fence separating her from police officers barricading the park from onlookers, using markers to make protest signs. She said she came to protest how unhoused people are treated in her city.

“They don’t treat people like humans,” Rosos said. “They don’t keep in mind that these are actual people. Within the last five years, it’s been really hard for a lot of people are on the edge of poverty and homelessness — and during Covid it pushed people over the edge, and then under.”

Rosos said she is not convinced the housing will be affordable for local students, and people who do not have homes will face citation if they shelter elsewhere in the city. 

“The people who are here, It’s not like they’re going to disappear into air — they have to go somewhere,” she said. 

UC Berkeley spokesperson Kyle Gibson said people whose belongings were removed from the park can retrieve them from the university. He could not provide an estimate of how much “debris” the university bulldozed.

Gibson said about 200 people in recent years have been moved into housing. He said four people contacted early Thursday morning were told to leave the park and find transitional shelter. The university says its plans for the park site will include 125 apartments and services for very low income and formerly unhoused people.

The Berkeley city manager and mayor did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

For years, the university's plan to redevelop the park has run into animated opposition by activists who want to preserve the historic site. Make UC A Good Neighbor and The People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group sued in 2021 to block the project and brought the appeal when a judge denied their petition.

In January 2023, an appellate panel tentatively ruled Berkeley's environmental impact report for the project failed to adequately consider alternative locations and the impact of noise, after previously indicating it would overturn a judge's refusal to temporary block the development.

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