Public Comment

This week UCB lost big in Court over its plans to stick two buildings at the corner of Hearst and Gayley Road (the so-called Upper Hearst Project) and use that project to legalize its on-going violation of CEQA in connection with student enrollment. To understand this lawsuit, you have to understand that there are two layers to what UCB was trying to do with its building project on that corner.

First, UCB wants to demolish the ugly (yes, we all can agree it is ugly) parking structure on the corner of Hearst and Gayley and build a large residence in its place running up to Ridge Road (where there currently is a surface parking lot). Over time, who can rent there has changed – first it was general public rental units, then, faculty housing, and now student housing – but the plan has always been for some housing that would produce income for UC. It also wants to build, down-hill from that huge residence hall a new building for the Goldman School of Public Policy. If that was all this involved, we’d have the typical fight over degrading historic resources and building yet more ugly, undistinguished structures in the midst of paradise. Given that the ugly garage was already there, this is and was always going to be a losing battle.

The second layer here, however, was the proverbial ball game and really high stakes for UC. For the last 15 years UCB has exceeded projected student enrollment by, well a lot. UCB’s projected enrollment was previously evaluated in a 2005 final Environmental Impact Report and, consequently, was lawfully allowed only up to that level under CEQA. CEQA basically requires that before a big project is undertaken, the developer/public entity, evaluate the impact of that project on the environment, vet the project and its impact in public so there can be input, and plan to mitigate any material negative environmental impacts. Here, UCB skipped the CEQA step on its increased enrollment, and so it tried to sneak it into the Upper Hearst Project. All Hell broke loose and lawsuits ensued, including suits by the City and community groups (kudos to all of them)!

So what happened this past week is that the court ruled against UC, finding that it violated the law (CEQA) by increasing its population without following the steps CEQA requires. It also put to bed UC’s theory that increasing it population -- through increased student enrollment and faculty and staff hiring -- was not something that impacted the environment (!!) such that they had to follow CEQA and perform a full environmental impact report (EIR) and not just a little supplemental EIR tacked onto the project application. Put another way, the Court found UC violated the law by increasing its student enrollment significantly above previous projections. It also found that UC should have considered the alternative of not enrolling so many students. (This alternative falls in the “Duh” category but was beyond UC planners.) 

What impact will this ruling have on UC and particularly on UC’s proposed 2021 Long Range Development Plan (2021 LRDP), which is pending before the UC Regents and proposes an even greater population expansion? Well, if UC were run by sensible administrators and UC Regents who paid attention, UC would (a) revise its 2021 LRDP and (b) prepare a new EIR that actually outlined in real numbers the proposed population expansion, considered alternatives to that expansion (including not expanding the student population) and evaluated its environmental impact on Berkeley, not the entire San Francisco Bay Area.  

Instead, we expect that UC will continue on its present path, which is to try to ram through the 2021 LRDP in the midst of a pandemic with no support for its legal positions or evidence supporting its decisions. It will then continue to enroll more and more students, collect fees from them despite not having anywhere to house them or expectation that they can graduate in 4 years (given how oversubscribed required classes are), and sit back and wait for folks to sue them. It will then work hard to paint everyone who opposes UC expansion as NIMBY, racist, rich, or [insert latest fashionable insult here]. 

UC has taken quite a beating before now. After all, they were previously slammed in the press after the State Auditor found UC illegally concealed a huge slush fund from the Regents (https://www.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2016-130.pdf ), unlawfully mishandled Native Remains (https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2019-047/index.html), and (with certain Regents) engaged in corruption in student admissions (http://auditor.ca.gov/reports/2019-113/index.html.). All this and nary a blush from the UC Administration or reaction from the UC Regents. 

If only the UC Regents would pull up their socks now, do their job, and reign in the UC administrators and tell them to follow the law! We are keeping our fingers crossed for the UC Regents Meeting on July 20-22^nd, which will be the first under the new Chair-Person Cecilia V. Estolano. We are watching. 

Berkeley Citizens for a Better Plan (BC4BP) see bc4bp.com – and oh yes, sign the petition!