Public Comment

UC Berkeley student representatives have published an open letter decrying UC’s plans to demolish 1921 Walnut St. and build student housing on the parcel. While students desperately want more student housing, they reject the idea that housing should be built at all costs to the community. UC purchased 1921 Walnut St. in July 2020 and since April 2020, UC has openly stated their intentions to demolish the rent-controlled building. 

The students criticize both the project itself and the strong-arm tactics of UC administrators to push through their plans without substantive community engagement. The project as currently planned will displace long-term tenants and destroy affordable housing stock in Berkeley. Despite those detrimental outcomes, UC has refused to meet with the tenants of the building and has continued their planning process without meaningfully engaging the communities who will be most affected by the project. The tenants themselves, Berkeley City Council, Berkeley Rent Board, Berkeley Mayor Arreguin and Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association have all denounced UC’s plans for 1921 Walnut St. in formal letters. 

Now, the students themselves are directly taking on UC administrators in an escalating effort to steer UC towards more socially conscious housing and development policies. While UC as an institution espouses ideals of integrity, inclusivity and progressive values, in reality UC’s dismissive actions towards 1921 Walnut St. has left the students disillusioned and embittered. In an effort to shape the public education institution they are enrolled in, UC Berkeley students reject the stance that student housing should be built at the expense of the Berkeley community, by evicting long-term tenants from their homes and potentially eliminating rent-controlled housing stock from the Berkeley housing market. In their open letter, the students methodically lay out community concerns for the project, the history of the project itself and reasonable alternatives. Most saliently, the students point out that UC does not need to displace the tenants at 1921 Walnut St. nor does UC have to demolish this building in order to create more student housing. UC is choosing to pursue the displacement of these tenants and not only is that choice heartless, it is also the opposite of being a community partner. 

While the UCB students are showing that they embody the values that UC as an institution espouses and represents, why isn’t the UC administration being a better steward of its own legacy? UC is failing to provide moral leadership or accountability to the students, the Berkeley community and the stakeholders of the UC system. In that vacuum, the student themselves are taking on the responsibility to guide the UC administration on ethical housing policies by demanding UC live up to its ethos of inclusion, integrity, accountability, public service and transparency. 

The complete open letter can be found below.