Newsom Signs Bill Clearing Path for UC Berkeley Housing

California’s environmental impact regulations, among the toughest in the nation, have long been cited by developers as a primary impediment to the construction of new housing in the Golden State.

In particular, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), often is cited when legal challenges are mounted against housing projects. But a new law may signal a tipping point: in at least one case, the urgent need for new housing has trumped an environmental concern.

A bill passed by the state Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom this month appears to have nullified legal challenges to UC Berkeley’s controversial plan to build student housing on a site that includes the counter-culture landmark known as the People’s Park since 1968.

In February, a state appeals court ruled that the project, which plans to build housing with 1,100 student beds, could not move forward because the increase in residential noise could be considered a form of pollution under the CEQA.

In a unanimous vote, the Legislature specified in its bill that residential noise is not considered a significant environmental effect under CEQA.

The bill, signed into law by Newsom last week, also specifies that public universities will not have to weigh alternative locations for housing projects as long as the candidate site is five acres or less and has already been included in the university’s most recent environmental impact report.

Newsom has backed the Berkeley project, earmarking $100M for it in the state’s 2022-2023 budget and filing an amicus brief in the lawsuit against it, declaring that the legal argument put forward in the residents’ complaint exceeded the original intent of the CEQA law.

In February, a state appeals court in San Francisco overturned a lower court ruling last year that gave UC Berkeley the green light to clear the 2.8-acre park and erect a student housing campus with 1,100 student beds and 125 units set aside for homeless people who live in the park in makeshift shacks, including some Vietnam War veterans who say they’ve been there since the 1970s.

The university, which owns the property—and had already started clearing trees from the park in anticipation of construction this year—vowed to take the case to California’s Supreme Court.

“A few wealthy Berkeley homeowners should not be able to block desperately needed student housing for years and even decades,” Newsom said, in a statement after the appeals court ruling was announced.

Last year, the University of California said it would have to deny enrollment to 5,000 first-year and transfer students because it could not meet a set of court-ordered student housing requirements.

Community backlash began after UC Berkeley announced plans in 2021 to build two apartment buildings, one 12 stories and the other six stories, on the People’s Park site, one of the last undeveloped parcels near the campus.

Three court challenges to UC Berkeley’s project were jointly filed last year by Local 3299, a union that represents UC service workers, and two community groups, Make UC A Good Neighbor and Berkeley Citizens for a better plan.