Extra

SB 118, passed today by California State Legislature, is poorly drafted and confusing, hurts students rather than helping them, allows admission of a small number of additional students to the UC Berkeley campus in 2022, and does nothing to solve the dire situation that UC has created for students in California. 

“We hope that Governor Newsom recognizes that SB118 will hurt students more than help and not sign this bill. UC Berkeley does not have the capacity to handle more students, and more than 10% of current Berkeley students suffer homelessness during their education. In addition, more than 15% suffer from food insecurity” said Phil Bokovoy, President of Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods. “We don’t want new students to have to live in cars, campers and hotel rooms like they are in Santa Barbara” 

Despite overwhelming evidence that UC has failed to house and support students, increasing rates of student homelessness, and increased campus crowding to the point that many students can’t graduate in four years, the bill allows UC to continue its rapid enrollment growth with no mitigation even where a court finds that UC has failed to analyze or mitigate population growth impacts. 

“We anticipate that this poorly drafted bill will result in more litigation, and without the legislature imposing a legally binding requirement for UC to build housing before increasing enrollment, the housing crisis will get worse,” he continued. 

“While politicians have been saying that CEQA views students as “pollutants” the real issue is that population growth, students or otherwise, causes environmental impacts that need to be analyzed and mitigated. Increased population density – for any development – results in environmental impacts that must be analyzed. This misguided bill gives the UC a unique free pass to avoid analyzing impacts associated with its own enrollment decisions directly impacting population density on campus and in the surrounding communities.”