UC regents to OK housing project despite evictions from apartments
The University of California Regents are expected to approve a new construction project in Berkeley on Wednesday, but the dorm proposed on Walnut Street for UC Berkeley transfer students is anything but a vanilla plan.
The 14story building envisioned for 772 incoming juniors — including terraced patios, courtyards, a meditation room, fitness center and retail space — is possible because of a $300 million gift to the school from the Helen Diller Foundation, the largest donation in campus history.
The 244 furnished apartments directed at lowincome, firstgeneration college students are also possible because the university is evicting residents of the eightunit, rentcontrolled building on the site, at 1921 Walnut St. UC Berkeley bought the building last year.
The university says it needs the new dorm because UC Berkeley has the worst housing shortage in the 10campus system, with about 40% of students unable to live in Berkeley.
“The shortage of available and affordable housing for UC Berkeley’s students is a matter of urgent concern for the campus,” university officials said in their approval recommendation to the regents.
The regents’ formal acceptance of the foundation’s gift will come a week after the campus and the city of Berkeley settled a 2019 lawsuit over the growing student body’s impact on the community. As part of the settlement, in which UC Berkeley will pay the city $82.64 million over 16 years, the city won’t challenge the new dorm.
Residents of 1921 Walnut St. haven’t sued to stop the project, but that doesn’t mean they’re happy. Four of the eight units are still occupied, more than a year after the university told residents that they would, at some point, need to leave.
“It was terrible! Very unsettling,” said Kim Romero, 45, an editor who has lived for 14 years in the building. Her husband has lived there for 27 years.
The notice arrived in April 2020 as the pandemic was heating up. California imposed an eviction moratorium, which lawmakers recently extended through September. Residents have spoken out against their pending displacement, marched against the project and written an open letter opposing the project and UC Berkeley’s handling of it.
“UC is demolishing longterm, affordable housing in Berkeley, driving hardworking people out of the city in order to build shortterm, luxury, marketrate student housing,” Romero testified at the regents meeting in May. “While the UC regents claim to have offered ‘generous’ relocation plans, it’s not so generous if you’re trying to stay in Berkeley.”
Romero said she and her husband quickly realized home prices were unaffordable. Bay Area rents, she said, were also out of their range.
UC Berkeley is offering tenants the difference between their current rent and that for a comparable twobedroom apartment, for 42 months. If the tenants buy a home, the university would pay a lump sum comparable to the rent subsidy.
“What happens after that money runs out?” Romero asked. “This is a rentcontrolled building, and we’ve made life decisions because of that.”
UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof defended the displacement packages, noting that they “can easily reach six figures.” He said tenants will be given at least 90 days’ notice before they will need to move out.
“We see this as a significant step towards balancing the needs of thousands of students with urgent housing needs, and the interests of the tenants living in the four, remaining units that are occupied,” he said.
Born Helen Samuels, Diller died in 2015 at 85. She grew up in San Francisco and met Sanford Diller while they were students at UC Berkeley. He became a real estate developer, and they went on to donate millions of dollars to hospitals, education, Jewish studies and the arts.
“It’s never too late, too early, or too often to give back and make the world a better place,” she was quoted as saying in a UCSF tribute.