UC Berkeley plans to build a 1,100-bed student housing project, about 100 apartments for formerly homeless residents, a park and a monument on the 3-acre plot in Southside known for more than five decades as People’s Park.
The embattled, $400 million project has been in the works for about three years, when the UC Regents first approved a 12-story student building and a 6-story supportive housing building on the 2.8-acre park, with 1.7 acres for public park space. Protests and lawsuits against development on the historic site, a symbol of Berkeley’s counterculture, held up the plans for three years.
UC Berkeley plans to build 11,730 beds of student housing by 2036, and the university has moved aggressively to prioritize People’s Park for development as one of about eleven sites in the university’s pipeline. Currently, Cal only provides beds for 30% of undergraduates and 8% of graduate students, the lowest amount of student housing offered in the university system.
Other large projects in the works include the 772-bed Anchor House project on 1921 Walnut St. in downtown Berkeley, and the 761-bed graduate student housing in Albany, named xučyun ruwway, a Chochenyo Ohlone name meant to honor local Indigenous people
The city of Berkeley budgeted $14 million for the university’s People’s Park project in 2021, when the city reached a settlement with UC Berkeley over its expansion. Under the terms of the settlement, the city agreed not to pursue a legal challenge against the project, and pay for the supportive housing portion of the plan through various funding sources allotted for affordable projects.
In return, UC Berkeley agreed to pay the city $4 million a year for use of city services, including police, fire and oversight of the city’s health department.
Resources for Community Development (RCD), the original developer for the supportive housing element of the project, backed out in May 2023 citing delays from a yearslong lawsuit over the university’s plans. That lawsuit culminated in a victory for the university last week in the Supreme Court of California.
Kyle Gibson, the director of communications for UC Berkeley’s Capital Strategies, said the student housing portion of the project will move forward first, and the supportive housing will progress on its own timeline once a new developer has been selected and the required funding is secured. RCD formerly budgeted about $90 million of the $400 million estimated project cost to develop 125 units in a 6-story building.
Cal is developing the student housing portion of the project, as well as the park and commemorative elements for the history of People’s Park, so-named by 1960s anti-war activists after the lot was tilled by community members and used for protests and teach-ins.
The university’s plans to develop student housing on the property were stalled for decades, as activists fought to keep it as open space. During the pandemic, it also became a large homeless encampment. The university offered these residents temporary beds at hotels in Berkeley, and closed the encampment.
UC Berkeley has spent over $10 million on policing and security costs for the project alone, and has said the price tag will likely surpass $400 million due to construction costs and court delays. Cal has also spent about $5 million toward temporary housing and a drop-in center for homeless residents who used to live at People’s Park.
Here’s what the project will look like:
People’s Park will one day contain two buildings — a planned 12-story student housing building designed by LMS Architects forming a T-shape toward Haste and Bowditch streets, and a separate supportive housing building that abuts existing apartments parallel to Telegraph Avenue.
In the middle, there will be a circular green space and glade for public use.
The ground floor of the student housing building will have a grocery market that’s open to the public, with indoor and outdoor seating, according to the university. The market will be staffed by university employees, similar to university cafeterias like the nearby Crossroads dining hall on Bowditch Street.
Other parts of the student housing, including the front desk, lobby and bike storage, will have resident-only access. The university is also planning for a commemorative monument that shows key pieces of history from People’s Park, from its founding in 1969 onward.
The student housing is designed for sophom*ore, junior and senior students — unlike freshman-centered dormitories like Units 1, 2 and 3 in Southside. Studio, two-, three- and four-bedroom layouts will be available in the tower.
One floor plan from the project’s architects and designers shows a four-bedroom unit with two beds to a room, sleeping eight students, with a kitchen, living area and two bathrooms.
The university says the units will be “comparable in quality and pricing to existing campus housing.” Cal has not yet released a scale of rent per apartment type at the People’s Park complex.
At the Channing Bowditch apartments on 2535 Channing Way, students pay from $14,010 annually for a triple bedroom ($1,167 monthly), to $17,185 for a single bedroom ($1,432 monthly). The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Berkeley is about $2,200, according to real-estate sites, and rent prices for shared bedrooms can be considerably lower.
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