In summary
The California Supreme Court gave UC Berkeley the green light to build student and homeless housing in People’s Park, ending a years-long legal debate over whether student noise is an environmental pollutant.
The three-year legal battle over the fate of a 1,200-unit housing project and the question of whether noise from college students should be treated as an environmental pollutant under California law ended this morning when the state Supreme Court ruled that “the lawsuit does not represent any obstacle to the development of the People’s Park housing project.”
The unanimous ruling, written by Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, ends a debate that in many ways has been resolved for months. Last year, state lawmakers rushed to exempt UC Berkeley’s controversial housing project from legal challenge, resolving many of the thorniest legal issues before the state’s highest court arrived.
Although the case concerned a single group of proposed housing developments in Berkeley’s famed People’s Park, south of campus, it drew the attention of housing and environmental advocates across the state, national media and state legislators.
The saga began in 2021, when UC Berkeley, as part of a broader development plan, proposed a new student housing complex on the historic park site, along with a supportive housing project for homeless Berkeley residents. Local historic preservation activists, under the dual banner of People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group and Make UC a Good Neighbor, filed a lawsuit.
His argument before the court: the noise that will surely come from future student residents constitutes a pollutant.
The California Environmental Quality Act requires public agencies to study the environmental consequences of any project they undertake and report those findings to the public in a comprehensive study. The lawsuit argued that UC Berkeley had not evaluated the effect of student noise in that study.
After an appeals court judge ruled against UC Berkeley in 2023, lawmakers and Newsom came up with a law specifying that “noise generated by project occupants and their guests” has “no significant effect on the environment.” for residential projects” according to California Environmental Quality. Act. The new law also exempted universities from having to consider alternative development sites to comply with environmental law, shielding UC Berkeley from a related legal challenge.
All of that left California’s highest court with relatively little to decide in today’s ruling.
In his oral argument before the Supreme Court last April, even Thomas Lippe, the attorney representing the neighborhood groups, admitted that the case “provides no platform to stop” the People’s Park housing. But, he argued, the new law does not mention all the “social noise” that would result from the school’s overall development plan, which was to take into account projected increases in the student population and which included the People’s Park housing projects. .
“It makes a lot of sense for the Legislature to leave a broad requirement in CEQA to observe and investigate the social noise impacts of population growth,” attorney Thomas Lippe argued in court in April.
The court strongly disagreed, arguing that whatever ambiguity exists in the new law, the Legislature’s intent was very clear: the People’s Park project should not be delayed for noise reasons.
The idea of building housing in People’s Park has drawn condemnation from a wide range of Berkeley residents, including defenders of historic sites, opponents of dense housing, and left-wing activists who celebrate People’s Park’s history as a magnet for political protest and, most recently, a sanctuary for the homeless.
UC Berkeley’s proposed project would leave 60% of the site as public park.
But the lawsuit also became a flashpoint in the state’s debate over CEQA, California’s five-decade-old environmental law that is frequently used to delay or stop large housing projects for reasons that are not always obviously related to the environmental Protection.
The clanking noises of industrial machinery in a factory, the music from speakers at a wedding venue, and even the metallic squeaks of playground equipment have long been considered an environmental impact subject to state environmental law. But Berkeley neighborhood groups were the first to suggest that the sounds emanating from a project’s future residents in their daily activities should also be taken into account by state statute.
In defending her bill to overturn last year’s appeal ruling, Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks warned that such a legal argument would open the door to other forms of discrimination under the guise of noise concerns. “This could be used as a tool to keep communities of color out,” the Oakland Democrat told CalMatters last year.
With today’s ruling, UC Berkeley spokesperson Kyle Gibson said in a statement that it will “focus its attention on the timeline for resuming construction now that all legal challenges have been resolved.”
“We are grateful for the strong and continued support this project has received from the majority of Berkeley students, community members, homeless advocates, the city’s elected leaders, the state Legislature and the governor,” said.
“I am a sustaining member of CalMatters because I want unbiased journalism that allows me to make my own decisions.”
Susana, Palos Verdes.
CalMatters Featured Member
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