UC Berkeley is feeling the brunt of California’s housing crisis.
An appellate court denied the university’s request to delay a judge’s order from August to freeze enrollment and upheld a suit from a local group challenging its expansion on environmental grounds, the Los Angeles Times reported. The University of California Board of Regents is appealing the decision, which could force the school to cut this year’s freshman class by a third and forgo $57 million of tuition.
The Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods group took to Facebook to oppose Berkeley’s appeal, saying that increasing the student body without more housing will create a “Santa Barbara-style housing crisis.”
“UC Berkeley has repeatedly rebuffed SBN’s offers to reach a reasonable settlement concerning UC’s failure to house its additional students,” said the group’s president, Phil Bokovoy. “UC Berkeley students themselves have repeatedly said that UC should stop increasing enrollment until it can provide housing for its students.”
Politicians, parents and students are pushing for more seats. While the University of California admitted 132,353 freshman applicants for fall 2021, an 11 percent increase over the previous year, admission rates had dropped at seven of the nine undergraduate campuses.
UC Berkeley was ordered to cap its enrollment at the 2020-21 level of 42,347. At that rate, it will have 3,050 fewer students than it had planned for for this upcoming school year. UC Berkeley has argued against using that number because it occurred during the pandemic.
A deal between UC Berkeley and the city has recently come under fire, with a coalition of neighborhood groups suing because of claims it violated state law by striking the deal in closed sessions.
The agreement consists of the school doubling what it pays for city services to $4.1 million, whereas the city would drop lawsuits claiming the university’s 2021 Long Range Development Plan could harm the environment. The plan consists of building 12- and six-story residential buildings that would house 1,100 students and 125 homeless people on a part of the historic People’s Park a few blocks from campus.
[Los Angeles Times] — Gabriel Poblete
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