BERKELEY — Construction on a controversial student housing project at UC Berkeley’s People’s Park has steadily progressed as a concrete tower now looms over walls of shipping containers, a hard new reality for those who fought to preserve the storied space.
For more than a year, crews have been building what will eventually be home to more than 1,100 students. The much-needed housing, which will be named in honor of disability rights activist Judith Heumann, is expected to be up and running by the start of the 2027-28 school year, university spokesperson Kyle Gibson said.
What was once a green 2.8-acre lot known for being a hub for political activism and gathering place for unsheltered residents now features an 11-story concrete structure currently being wrapped with a prefabricated facade. A section of the former park, bound by Dwight Way and Haste and Bowditch streets, will be developed into a supportive housing site with about 100 units for formerly unsheltered residents with financial support from city, state and federal dollars.
The steady advancement is a major change of pace for a project that spent years fending off student protests and legal challenges. Coming to terms with that change has been challenging for those who tirelessly fought for People’s Park to remain undeveloped.
“The neighborhood goes on. We’re still very much a hub for unhoused folks and the loss of the park is being felt every day,” said Lisa Teague with the People’s Park Council, a community group that advocates for protecting the park and its legacy. “We can try to remediate the loss of the park, but we can’t completely make up for it.”
Teague said she had been homeless for two years before moving into an apartment near People’s Park in 2011. Still learning how to get by with what few dollars she had, the park and its community helped to keep her fed, introduced her to some of her closest friends and inspired her to give back.
Much has changed since the park was blocked off by shipping containers in early 2024, but those in the community are still finding ways to care for each other, Teague said. Services that were previously available at the park, including harm reduction kits and meals, are now being offered at a micro park on Telegraph Avenue and Dwight Way every Saturday, Teague said.
Others, like Harvey Smith, a member of the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group, a nonprofit formed with the goal to preserve the park, avoid the area altogether.
“Time heals, but it’s never going to take care of that monolith that’s now in what used to be People’s Park,” said Smith, who graduated from the university in 1967 and used to take his children to the park to play.
The university first acquired the site in 1967 with plans to build student housing, but after structures on the lot were bulldozed, the property sat vacant. Soon after, activists took over, turning it into an unofficial park and sparking a decadeslong, sometimes violent, push and pull over what to do with the land.
Many of the activists who most recently fought to keep the park support housing development, but Smith said the project will ultimately do a disservice to students and other neighborhood residents who are losing an important open space in a crowded urban environment.
Smith blames that loss not only on the university, but also on former mayor and current state Sen. Jesse Arreguín and state Assemblymember Buffy Wicks. During Arreguín’s tenure as mayor, Berkeley entered into an agreement with the university that promised the city would not legally challenge the People’s Park project, among other things, in exchange for an $82 million payout over a period of 16 years.
Wicks also helped move the project forward by drafting legislation that clarified noise of future residents was not an issue that must be studied as part of a development’s environmental reviews. That was a key issue in the activist group’s legal challenge to the university’s housing proposal.
“I’m thrilled to see this long-overdue project moving forward on schedule,” Wicks said in an emailed statement. “By creating homes for more than 1,000 students, we’re not only easing the campus housing crunch, we’re also helping to stabilize rents and strengthen the surrounding community. That’s a win for everyone.”
Arreguín, who toured the construction site Wednesday, similarly shared pride in helping move forward a project he said will help further local and state goals to provide more housing to students and homeless residents while also preserving open space.
“I am proud of the role I played as Mayor of Berkeley and now Senator to support this transformative project and look forward to the day when we can welcome formerly homeless neighbors who long sheltered in the park back to a new home. It was time for a new vision for People’s Park that honors its storied past and embraces the future,” Arreguín said in a statement.
Teague is also looking toward the future, though her focus is on ensuring the university keeps its promise to honor the park’s legacy.
Cal has partnered with Hood Design Studio, a landscape architecture and social arts firm, to lead that effort. Community activists have been invited to provide their input.
Rather than protest the collaboration, Teague said she opted for collaboration.
“We have to live with it forever, so I felt like maybe we should give input on what we like and do not like,” Teague said. “Maybe the wolf will pull off her head and it will actually be grandma. That’s not going to happen, but I like to grab onto some optimism.”
