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We write to express our strong opposition to AB 1307. This legislation effectively rewards the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) for its blatant failure to comply at the most basic level with the heart of the California Environmental Quality Act: the evaluation of alternatives for a project. 

UCB has identified and studied 13 locations for student housing that would avoid the negative impacts of its proposed project on People’s Park, several of which would provide more units than are proposed for the park site. There is no need for this legislation since there is a path forward for UCB to build the much-needed student and supportive housing on a site other than People's Park, thus preserving a nationally recognized historical resource and a valuable public open space. 

People’s Park is a National Register of Historic Places site and deserves individual and special attention, and therefore this should be required in an analysis of alternative sites, which would not in any conceivable way obstruct California’s housing needs -- needs that we acknowledge to be real. 

AB1307’s emergency declaration does not meet the test of “immediate action to avoid serious harm to the public peace, health, safety, or general welfare.” UCB can avoid harm by developing student housing on any of its identified alternative sites. The housing crisis cited in AB1307 has existed for over four decades and it goes without saying that this issue is not new. It should be noted that UCB has failed to build student housing over many decades during which enrollment grew significantly, all during an acute ongoing housing crisis. 

This bill represents the epitome of special interest legislation and is designed to circumvent pending litigation - Make UC a Good Neighbor v. Regents of University of California (California Supreme Court Case No. S279242). The author, Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, has never communicated with the plaintiffs in the case, most of whom are her constituents. This certainly is an aberration of the democratic process where normally opposing sides of an issue get a hearing and consideration of their concerns. 

As stated in our answer brief, “UC’s rhetoric generates much heat and little light. Its arguments regarding social noise are at odds with basic principles of CEQA. And UC is singularly myopic in its mistaken belief that its pre-commitment to People’s Park as the site for Housing Project’s #2 trumps CEQA’s requirements for public participation.” 

Despite the disinformation claiming our group is a “privileged NIMBY neighbor,” 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. 

We urge you to oppose and vote no on this unneeded legislation.