Extra

Opponents of the University of California at Berkeley's plan to build housing at People's Park have filed an appeal to a judge's ruling this week that gave the university permission and led to arguably violent protests Wednesday, arrests and injured law enforcement officers.

Opponents of the plans for the park are also seeking to keep the university from continuing work as the appeal moves through the courts. Meanwhile, the university is assessing its next move.

Wednesday's protests were unexpected and unanticipated, UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said Thursday. He said that it is going to take more than a few hours to assess the right move for the university.

"We need to get it right," he said. 

The protests Wednesday led to seven arrests and two injured law enforcement officers, UC officials said. 

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said Thursday he is not considering asking for the state National Guard, which was called following a protest soon after the park was established in 1969.  

Arreguin was concerned that protests could threaten the safety of city residents and property. Only police from the University of California and California State University systems as well as the California Highway Patrol were at the park Wednesday, Mogulof said. 

UC Berkeley acquired the land known as People's Park in 1968, but abandoned plans for it due to a lack of money.  

Students and residents established a park there in April 1969. The following month, after the university's decision to build a sports field there, then-Berkeley Mayor Wallace Johnson and then-Gov. Ronald Reagan sent police to destroy the park and put up a fence.  

Three thousand people protested on May 15 that year before police shot protesters, killing bystander James Rector. Wednesday's protest is typical of the history behind the 2.8-acre park, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.  

It was the site of 1960s and 70s-era protests as UC Berkeley tried to build a sports field then a soccer field and parking lot and again a parking lot on the land.  

Wednesday's work was to prepare the site for a $312 million project to bring housing to the storied land. The plan includes more than 1,100 below-market apartments for undergraduate students, and perhaps some housing for extremely low-income and formerly homeless people.  

Fencing went up early Wednesday morning and by late morning protesters were clashing with law enforcement.  

By early afternoon, university officials halted the work, saying it was for the safety of workers.  

"Due to the destruction of construction materials, unlawful protest activity, and violence on the part of some protesters," the university halted work at People's Park, UC Berkeley officials said Wednesday.  

Wednesday's UC activity felling most of the park's trees, including two of the three recognized as "heritage trees". On Wednesday protesters, many of them students, collected fallen trees and segments of temporary fencing and arranged them as a barrier on the perimeter of the park area. 

City of Berkeley officials who asked not to be named reported rumors of Molotov Cocktails but said they didn't believe them. This afternoon, a Berkeley Fire Department engine was observed circling Park borders. 

The judge's ruling earlier in the week follows a legal challenge by the People's Park Historic District Advocacy Group and Make UC A Good Neighbor, two citizen groups. 

The groups hoped to hear Thursday whether the court grants them a stay.  

The legal challenge by the groups seek to force the university to preserve People's Park and build housing elsewhere. The park's official historic status in no way prevents the university from building housing at the park, Mogulof said. 

Harvey Smith, president of the People's Park Historic District Advocacy Group, has argued that an alternative site exists about a block away at a seismically unsafe parking structure at Channing Way and Ellsworth Street.  

But Mogulof said while that is true, the university has designated that site for housing, too, because of the severe and urgent need for student housing at UC Berkeley.