UC Berkeley ordered: Halt project, freeze enrollment
UC Berkeley must freeze next year's enrollment at last year's level and must immediately halt a $126 million project to build classrooms and housing for professors beside the campus, an Alameda Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday.
The ruling hands a victory — temporarily, anyway — to campus neighbors, who sued the university in 2019 on grounds that the expansions would make their surroundings noisier and more crowded.
“The judge has vindicated our efforts to hold UC Berkeley accountable for the severe impacts on our community from its massive enrollment increases, which they made without public notice or comments,” said Phil Bokovoy, president of Save Berkeley's Neighborhoods, the group that sued.
The judge's order requires UC Berkeley to limit its 2022-23 enrollment to no more than last year's level — 42,237 undergraduates and graduate students — on grounds that the university gave a flawed analysis of the environmental impact of its rising enrollment.
Judge Brad Seligman said the university failed to consider the impact of expanded enrollment on housing and homelessness in Berkeley's
poorest neighborhoods. He cited a 2017 report from the campus chancellor's office that found 10% of UC Berkeley students and 20% of doctoral candidates had been homeless at some time during their enrollment.
Besides boosting noise levels connected to latenight parties, rising enrollment also crowds city parks and streets, increases traffic, and adds to the cost of police, fire and health services, the judge added.
Seligman's order also requires the university to fix deficiencies in the environmental impact report it prepared for a plan to replace a parking structure at 2698 Hearst Ave. with faculty housing and expanded classrooms benefiting the Goldman School of Public Policy.
Campus Chancellor Carol Christ has called the housing essential for faculty, and Goldman officials said in 2019 that the school was “in dire need” of more space.
On Tuesday, UC Berkeley said the campus expects to satisfy the judge's requirements for its Upper Hearst project in six to eight months.
“We are confident that the court will ultimately permit us to proceed with the Upper Hearst project,” said spokesperson Dan Mogulof.
UC Berkeley had expected to have the project built by now. But no work has yet begun, Mogulof said.
He said the campus can more quickly address the judge's enrollment concerns because “we are not anticipating that enrollment growth will exceed 1% on an annual basis.”
Mogulof said he wasn't even certain this early in the semester whether this fall's enrollment is more or less than last year's.
The Save Berkeley Neighborhood lawsuit is one of several “town vs. gown” legal challenges levied against UC Berkeley in recent years over its impact on the city.
In July, UC Berkeley agreed to pay the city $82.64 million over the next 16 years to cover the city's added costs in police and fire safety and other services. In exchange, the city agreed to withdraw lawsuits over campus plans to build a 750-bed luxury dorm for transfer students at 1921 Walnut St., and over plans to build housing on People's Park, which the university owns.
In 2018, the Save Berkeley's Neighborhood group also sued the campus and the University of California regents over UC Berkeley's plans to build student housing on People's Park.
And in 2019, irate neighbors from four groups sued UC to try to stop UC Berkeley's planned beach volleyball complex at the university's Clark Kerr campus.
They claimed that plans for four courts, locker rooms, 40-foot field lights and a public address system illegally skirted a required environmental impact review.
It's an argument that has so far worked for Save Berkeley's Neighborhoods in the current case over enrollment and the Upper Hearst project.
“It's unfortunate that UC Berkeley has wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs to fight against the efforts of citizens to have them comply with the environmental laws, money that could have been used to educate and build housing for our young people,” Bokovoy said.