Police overnight Thursday ousted dozens of activists and homeless campers from the People's Park in Berkeley, California, the site of counterculture protests in the 1960s, to make way for a wall of shipping containers to block entry to the park, where the University of California, Berkeley, plans to build a $312 million project for its students and area homeless people.
The project was originally scheduled to break ground in 2022, but has been strongly contested by a small group of Berkeley residents and activists who want to preserve the full park, The New York Times reported.
Last year, a state appeals court in San Francisco sided with the opponents and their claims that the university did not conduct environmental reviews, as required by state law, and the school's appeal to the California Supreme Court is pending.
The university's officials acknowledged that construction can't begin on the park until the courts settle the environmental review question, but said the site's designation as a closed construction zone had been "repeatedly affirmed," justifying fencing off the property to prevent crime and new encampments there.
"Unfortunately, our planning and actions must take into account that some of the project's opponents have previously resorted to violence and vandalism, despite strong support for the project on the part of students, community members, advocates for unhoused people, the elected leadership of the City of Berkeley, as well as the legislature and governor of the state of California," university Chancellor Carol Christ said in a statement.
Thursday's operation took place while most of the school's students remained away for winter break. The activists at the park had been tipped about the police and remained in tents and trees to meet the show of force.
University spokesman Dan Mogulof said, from inside the police perimeter at about 2 a.m. PST, that "we're trying to let people leave, but if they refuse, they're being arrested."
Everyone there was offered shelter, and "a few took us up on it," Mogulof added. "But some of the activists are still on the site. I'm looking at a couple perched on the roof of the park bathroom and a couple in a tree fort right now."
Authorities said about two hours later that the site had been cleared, with construction crews then being prepared to stack about 160 empty shipping containers to block the park site.
The university said seven activists were arrested on misdemeanor charges of trespassing and failure to disperse, and were later released.
Mogulof said three of the eight homeless people in the park when authorities arrived accepted offers of housing while the rest left voluntarily.
The university currently provides housing for only 23% of its students but plans to build 1,100 new student housing units and 125 units of housing for homeless people on part of the People's Park site.
The university has been trying to cordon off the property and deter encampments, and in August 2022, when it tried to put fencing around the site, protests erupted and the fence was torn down.
Mogulof said the city and university have spent more than $6 million since then to lease motel space and move the homeless people occupying the park into housing. In November, two dozen people still camping there were moved to a local motel.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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