People’s Park plans call for student housing
UC Berkeley announced Thursday that it will build student housing on the university’s crime-ridden but time-honored People’s Park, offer space to house the homeless in supportive apartments, maintain some open space, and create a memorial to the park’s history as a hub for violent student protests a half century ago.
The name People’s Park speaks to its fiercely guarded role as a haven for the homeless who gather during the day and eat free food served by groups such as Food Not Bombs.
But few are defending that purpose for the park anymore, especially since UC Berkeley has been overwhelmed by a housing crisis. The school says the campus is 6,900 beds short of its goal to house half of its undergraduates and a quarter of its graduate students. Overall, the campus has about 42,000 students.
A week ago, a neighborhood group sued the university, saying the unhoused students are soaking up the limited supply of affordable housing in Berkeley, said Phil Bokovoy, president of Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods.
“I think People’s Park is an ideal site for dense student housing and for supportive housing — and we fully support the university’s efforts to develop housing on the site,” Bokovoy said, referring to other neighborhood groups on the south side of the city.
Both the student housing and supportive apartments are expected to be no more than five stories tall, except along Haste Street, where an unspecified “taller building” could rise. The 2.8-acre People’s Park sits between Haste to the north and Dwight Way to the south. Bowditch Street lies along the park’s east end, and Telegraph Avenue is to the west.
Campus Chancellor Carol Christ said she is planning for up to 1,000 beds for sophomores, juniors, seniors and graduate students.
She said the benefit of building on People’s Park is that it not only will add more student housing, but it will also free up housing for residents of Berkeley, help the homeless, and “address crime and safety concerns.”
The university says it spends $369,400 a year to clean up the park and try to keep it safe, with $200,000 of that spent on police. The figure also includes a social worker paid $92,000 a year to work with the homeless in People’s Park.
“We own the land, but we’re essentially running a daytime homeless shelter in the park. It’s a safety problem,” Christ told The Chronicle last year when People’s Park first emerged as a student-housing option.
UC police have received calls for more than 10,000 crimes in the past five years, the university said, with 425 this year. Last year, a woman was arrested after allegedly feeding methamphetamine to a toddler playing in the park.
According to the university, since 2013 there have been five rapes in the park, 140 assaults — including 15 with a deadly weapon, 182 drug crimes, 42 thefts, and seven reports of indecent exposure among other crimes.
Christ said the university also will make land available to construct permanent housing with on-site services, such as “life-skills training” for people with a history of substance abuse or homelessness.
The regents first considered student housing for the property at 2556 Haste St. when President Dwight Eisenhower sat in the White House. But in the 1950s, the regents didn’t own the land dotted with the homes of professors and others who had no desire to sell.
In 1967, the regents used eminent domain to force them out, paying out $1.3 million. They bulldozed the homes — then ran out of money. What had been a block of cozy homes soon became a deserted junkyard. Questions over its fate have inspired student protests for decades and in 1969 led deputies to kill a man and blind another on infamous “Bloody Thursday.”
Dan Mogulof, a UC Berkeley spokesman, said student housing at People’s Park is expected to be completed in about four years.