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San Francisco

Top court deals setback to UC Berkeley’s housing ambitions

University must forgo $57M in tuition in potential precedent for state’s public school systems

Carol Christ and the University of California, Berkeley (Kore Chan / Senior Staff for The Daily Californian, MIT, via Wikimedia Commons, iStock)
Carol Christ and the University of California, Berkeley (Kore Chan / Senior Staff for The Daily Californian, MIT, via Wikimedia Commons, iStock)

The University of California, Berkeley must cut the size of its incoming freshman class by about 7 percent after losing an appeal to the state’s Supreme Court, setting back its plans to build housing for more than 1,000 students.

The court ruled 4-2 on Thursday to reject a petition from the Board of Regents, meaning the state’s second-most selective public university has to freeze its enrollment at about 42,300, according to the San Francisco Business Times. The school and city also face a lawsuit from local groups opposing the housing plans on environmental grounds.

“This is devastating news for the thousands of students who have worked so hard for and earned a seat in our fall 2022 class,” UC Berkeley said in a statement after the court’s ruling. “Our fight on behalf of every one of these students continues.”

The decision means that the university must forgo $57 million in tuition. It will probably set a precedent for the rest of the UC system and other public school systems around the state, the Business Times said. And it may catalyze efforts to reform California Environmental Quality Act laws, which resident group Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods and others have used in recent years as the basis of lawsuits seeking to stop UC Berkeley from expanding.

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The school’s expansion plan included a contentious proposal to build 12- and six-story residential buildings that would house students and 125 homeless people on a part of the historic People’s Park a few blocks from campus. Activists say the area should remain a public park.

The city of Berkeley, Governor Gavin Newsom and state Attorney General Rob Bonta had filed amicus briefs opposing the enrollment freeze, the Business Times said.

“It’s tragic that California allows courts and environmental laws to determine how many students UC Berkeley and other public colleges can educate,” State Senator Scott Wiener wrote in a statement after the court’s decision. “We must never allow this to happen again. We must change the law. And we will.”

[San Francisco Business Times] — Matthew Niksa

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BerkeleyScott WienerUniversity Of California