Public Comment

The California Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear the case on People’s Park. This objective review by the judicial branch of the win by People’s Park supporters in the Court of Appeal calls into question the motivations of both the executive and legislative branches of state government to obscure the issues of the case. 

Harvey Smith, president of the People’s Park Historic Group Advocacy Group (PPHDAG), states, “The governor and key legislators are definitely showing a lapse in objectivity when it comes to the facts of our case. Rather than focus on the park, CEQA has become the central issue, and supporters of the park have been characterized as wealthy NIMBYs.” 

PPHDAG questions the attack on CEQA with its single focus on the “end of development due to noise.” PPHDAG was not surprised by UC Berkeley twisting the winning decision by the Court of Appeal. UC shifted the focus from their bad planning shown by not addressing adequately alternative sites, which was easily recognized by the judges, to the issue of noise created by residents. UC also added an Orwellian spin by describing the group as “privileged NIMBY neighbors.” 

However, when Governor Newsom, Senator Wiener, and Assemblyperson Buffy Wicks parrot the same misinformation, leads PPHDAG to probe why they are all marching in lockstep and listening to only one side. Most of PPHDAG supporters are constituents of Buffy Wicks, but she has never reached out to the organization. 

This all begs the question - are there bigger forces at work? Perhaps the influence and campaign contributions of the real estate and development industry, the financial investment industry, and the oil industry – all “CEQA-haters” – play the biggest role in the attack on CEQA while eclipsing the real issues in the struggle to preserve People’s Park, a much-needed park and open space and a National Register of Historic Places site. 

UC also ignores that for years it has worked with Berkeley residents to ameliorate the impact of noise in many neighborhoods with high concentrations of student residents. The City of Berkeley also has its own noise ordinance showing that noise is a community issue that should not just be brushed off by UC saying it’s a non-issue or one that could be discriminatory. 

Fact-based analysis of CEQA cases by studies of the Rose Foundation shows that CEQA cases have very little impact on development throughout California. Anyone in Berkeley can easily see that development is in no way hampered by just witnessing the sprouting of multi-story glass and steel boxes all over town, including two proposed 25 plus story buildings. 

The spin put on the CEQA case was also applied to the loss of HUD housing vouchers for the supportive housing portion of Housing Project #2 at People’s Park although the real reason for the loss of support was the refusal by UC to comply with a required federal environmental review. 

PPHDAG supporters all want UCB to build student housing, just not in a totally inappropriate location. Endorsers of PPHDAG are from all over Berkeley, California and the U.S. They include UCB professors, three former Berkeley mayors, three former Berkeley city councilmembers, many former Berkeley commissioners, Cal alumni and students, attorneys, architects, historians and many others who are concerned about the threatened destruction of People’s Park. 

The solution for all this would be for UC to build the People’s Park project on any of its multiple alternative sites while also making good on the promise to provide for supportive housing through a nonprofit developer. Of course, this would mean rejecting the false choice of choosing either a park or housing when it’s easily apparent that both are needed and both are possible. 

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