BERKELEY’S PEOPLE’S PARK, long a flash point of political and community activism, has been barricaded by stacked shipping containers for more than a year — but construction on UC Berkeley’s student housing project on the site is moving ahead.
The project, which aims to ease the student housing crunch, will provide more than 1,100 beds for undergraduates. A separate building with supportive housing for 100 unhoused people will eventually be built adjacent to the student housing.
The development comes at a time when UC Berkeley continues to increase admissions. The university admitted 787 more first-year students this fall compared to last year. Freshmen and incoming transfer students are guaranteed campus housing.
Most of the floors on the 11-story building have been completed, spokesperson Kyle Gibson said in an email. Crews are now pouring concrete for the upper levels, and prefabricated facades for the exterior sides are due to be installed by December.
Construction began last summer after years of lawsuits and protests to preserve the park as a landmark of the 1960s resistance movement. The nearly 3-acre plot of land just off Telegraph Avenue between Haste Street and Dwight Way was barricaded in January 2024 with shipping containers to keep out protesters in anticipation of the state’s high court ruling. While the UC Board of Regents approved the student housing project in 2021, the California Supreme Court ruled last year that UC Berkeley could build its development.
In addition to housing for students, the project includes supportive housing for “more than 100 unhoused and extremely low-income persons,” according to the university. It will be “coupled with case management that connects residents to needed services,” Gibson said.
“The goal is to bring a developer on board later this summer, two years ahead of the anticipated start of construction,” he said. Construction would start after the student housing is completed.
Last year, park advocates filed an inquiry with the California Historical Resources Information System about potential Native American remains at the park. The project’s Environmental Impact Report, or EIR, requires on-site tribal and archeological monitors during any excavation activity. “During any ground-disturbing activities, archaeological and tribal monitors are present at the construction site. Their presence ensures that any discovered Indigenous cultural resources or human remains are appropriately managed according to the EIR for this project,” according to Gibson. So far, none have been found, according to a July 24 project update.
The development is on track to open for the 2027-28 academic year.
Megan Lam is a junior at UC Berkeley, majoring in integrative biology and rhetoric with a minor in journalism, and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.
This story originally appeared in EdSource.
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