Street barricades removed as controversial People's Park construction continues
Traffic barricades have been removed and the perimeter of People's Park in Berkeley has reopened as of Wednesday amid controversial plans to add housing there.
Cars, bikes and pedestrians can again use Haste Street, Dwight Way and Bowditch Street, but the view has substantially changed.
According to University of California, Berkeley, which owns the site, university police will be in place at the site 24 hours a day until construction on a 1,100-bed student housing complex is constructed.
The park, which began in 1967 as the spontaneous beautification of a vacant industrial lot by thousands of volunteer activists, is now unrecognizable.
About 160 double-stacked cargo containers rim the park, with openings sealed by steel plates. The giant wall will remain until construction is completed on the new housing project.
A developer will build units for very-low income and formerly unhoused people on a portion of the site, the university said. Plans include the preservation of more than 60% of the site for public green space and a historic memorial.
The decision to surround the park with containers brought protesters and led to several arrests at the site last week.
"We wanted an approach that prioritized public safety; the need to minimize the potential for confrontation and disruption; the need to safely and completely close the site so it would not revert to being a locus of crime and peril for the unhoused people there, and for the surrounding community; and the ability to start construction as quickly as possible after the legal issues are settled," said university spokesperson Dan Mogulof.
A lawsuit was filed by neighborhood groups concerned about the local impacts of the housing project. It is still pending in the state Supreme Court, but the university said it has the legal right to close off the construction zone while the case is litigated.