California Gov. Gavin Newsom assailed environmentalists and other activists opposing construction of new housing units in a public park in the city of Berkeley as “selfish” and “wealthy homeowners” after a state appeals court halted the project over concerns about a state environmental law.
Newsom’s comments came over the weekend in response to the First District Court of Appeal blocking construction of a proposed plan by the University of California, Berkeley to build housing for 1,100 students and more than 100 homeless people in People’s Park, which is technically owned by the school but has operated as a free public park since the 1970s.
The court ruled that UC Berkeley hadn’t adequately explored other sites for the project and “failed to assess potential noise impacts from loud student parties in residential neighborhoods near the campus” as required by the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.
“Our CEQA process is clearly broken when a few wealthy Berkeley homeowners can block desperately needed student housing for years and even decades,” Newsom’s office said in a statement. “California cannot afford to be held hostage by NIMBYs who weaponize CEQA to block student and affordable housing. This selfish mindset is driving up housing prices, and making our state less affordable.”
NIMBY is a pejorative term generally referring to wealthy property owners who oppose new housing or other undesired development projects from being built where they live.
However, while this may describe some opponents of the People’s Park construction, it doesn’t fit many of them, including student activists at UC Berkeley who have expressed environmental and other concerns.
Students who oppose the project want People’s Park “to be returned to indigenous stewardship, homeless residents who lived at the park to be connected to permanent housing, and to defund the UC Police Department and have those financial resources redirected to services for homeless residents, as well as Cal…
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