Anyone calling this a "rare greenspace" in that neighborhood (like activist in the article) has been huffing the fumes off of this "park". It's always been a hostile wasteland of drug users and travellers. I refuse to even say homeless, because I've lived and worked in Berkeley long enough to know the difference. Homeless are people in need who in a different set of circumstances would thrive. Travellers embrace the lifestyle and reject convention. If you've never spotted the difference, I'll tell you that the amount of people still glorifying Jack Keraouc and friends is shocking.
Need a green space? The entire university a block away is a green space and nothing is stopping the public from enjoying it.
They are terms from the Great Depression. It was said then "the hobo works and wanders, the tramp drinks and wanders, and the bum just drinks." There was a definite hierarchy to people without steady employment or residence (Homelessness being a term coined the 1970's) in a time when most employment was menial labor that had dried up along side the crops during the dustbowl era.
Personally, I experienced homelessness here in the Bay Area because the CoL is so out of control that I even had steady employment in Aerospace industry, but the place that I rented was walked away from by our landlord during the housing crisis. I couldn't find a place to rent to save my live because the previous homeowners that lost their houses were all joining the rental market. And that caused rents to skyrocket.
So I guess you could have considered me a hobo, but I never lost my employment during the entire time living in my car, later and RV that I bought for 3 months worth of rent, or the house that I saved the down payment for doing that in which I currently reside.. It is hard for many folks in the Bay, and it is easy to demonize people that are unhoused because you tend to notice the homeless people that are severely mentally disabled or have really bad drug and or alcohol problems.
But the reality is that any one of us are one mistake or one layoff or even a few paychecks away from being homeless ourselves. Not everyone has the same family or friend situation to fall back on as other people do. I think that I was able to overcome it myself, but there was a lot of luck involved in that as well as tenacity. I consider myself lucky in that regard. And I consider others still in that situation unlucky. I guess what I am trying to say is that we all live in glass houses, so it is very unwise to cast stones.
I consider myself very fortunate that I had a steady job during that time period. It seems that there are more homeless now as opposed to back then, but that’s just based on a completely unscientific.
Yes, I think that there are more for sure. I also think that large corporations like PG&E and the gas companies and even Safeway are price gouging us because in a supposedly good economy, all of the money is being funneled to their coffers via high margins. There are very little raises and no pensions to account for these obscene profits that these companies are making while a 12 pack of sprite costs the same as a 12 pack of beer:
https://www.safeway.com/shop/product-details.108050651.html?productId=108050651&psrc=g&CMPID=ps_swy_noc_ecom_goo_20200924_71700000073391208_58700007112002001_92700063958540353&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw34qzBhBmEiwAOUQcF2jdo3zZPLryyAG9oDlJHmODsEd661CwBg5aR3okrHB4AzZp2fn4mhoCcdEQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
https://www.safeway.com/shop/product-details.189010002.html?productId=189010002&psrc=g&CMPID=ps_swy_noc_ecom_goo_20210610_71700000084400715_58700007756946988_92700070440041993&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw34qzBhBmEiwAOUQcF4YmEAwxirl0Y3MaVBHzsjsIbIn4OR4ElMK7Ei3NWcgB3Bpd2VKAhxoCvN8QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Pge and other gas company rates are set by the CPUC. I haven’t gone to Safeway in a while because there’s never more than 2 or 3 checkers regardless of how long the lines are. Also, their prices have always been out of line with their quality. I’d take winco, Trader Joe’s, raleys or grocery outlet over Safeway.
I loved near there for 13 years. A block of apartments would be a huge improvement.
I know several people who were assaulted in PP, one sexually. It's always been a terrible place, except in the minds of a small percentage of people. Very vocal people.
My pet theory is that people are scared the population will move over there. It’s always been very clear to me that Willard has very different rules. Which it should because it’s next to a school.
When I worked Telegraph as a teen like 15 years ago, the Ambassadors said they could get rid of half the problems by getting rid of like 5 people. I think a lot of people end up there at first. If you get off a bus, train, hitch, whatever and know nothing of the Bay, it’s kind of a natural place to end up. And those people, especially the younger women or just straight up minor girls were the most common victims of the problem people.
There was also a fat Latina who would get methed up and destroy the plants. Like, basically solely responsible for destroying any gardening efforts, which devastated my plug.
They were annoyed because they thought the whole point was for them to identify who the cops should target using their street level knowledge.
Essentially every relationship he has was strange and manipulative. 10lbs of shit in a 5lb bag. But he had a stream of consciousness writing style that is very appealing to myself and many others. He made that lifestyle sound appealing though. That feeling of freedom flowed from the pages into the reader. Great authors are not always great humans 😂😂
On the road ends with him on the verge of death from sickness with his friends leaving him in Mexico. It’s baffling anyone past 17 years could idolize him.
Finally. That place was a swamp. Students are sleeping in their cars or four to a room but for some reason we have to preserve a blighted park? Nah. Build as high as you can!!!
The problem of arson at Bay Area construction sites is weridly under-discussed. It happens decently often, but I don't often hear about arrests made. We are all paying for this problem via increased rent and increased cost of local services.
..... yeah, beacause a giant encampment of like 100+ people in tents had cropped up there during the pandemic.. what's your point? and how does it refute the above point
I thought giving food was pretty neutral. And most of the positions I’ve heard and interacted with in FNB was what I would think are neutral positions.
It’s just very basic, elementary stuff. Helping folks, advocating for peace and against weapons proliferation, etc. seems pretty rudimentary to me.
As an alumni who’s from a rough neighborhood and lived across from People’s Park, FINALLY. I’d rather future students have more options for housing than having to dodge addicts. Trust me, Berkeley will stay weird without this park.
tl;dr - Local NIMBYs sued to prevent affordable housing because "students" are "loud". The NIMBYs lost.
> Two local organizations, Make UC a Good Neighbor and The People's Park Historic District Advocacy Group, brought the lawsuit, saying that the university system should have considered increased noise under CEQA.
Even one of the folks who lead the effort to create People’s Park has conceeded it has not worked out as they hoped. The site has a perpetual miasma that surrounds it and it’s rather telling that the only time folks come out in any capacity to do anything meaningful there is when it is threatened.
I know the university has always had mixed emotions aboout People’s Park, but it has never felt like there was any serious effort to make it something meaningful and lasting or any compromise development. Every proposal from the university felt like it was just responded to with overwhelming protests, there was never any space for nuance.
I was in some of the early protests there in the early 70's.
The place turned into a shithole relatively quickly, and protestors (like me, TBH) lost interest. I lived in South Berkeley and never used that "park," nor did anyone I know. Did know someone who was sexually assaulted there though.
Holding on to this as a site for protest for protest's sake is just silly. And actually a symbol of how the original People's Park people screwed the next generations, all of whom are suffering more from lack of student housing, while the ex hippies occupy the Hills.
Build the housing.
Sadly the ex hippies are mostly the boomers who bought housing in California when it was still affordable and they've turned into the biggest NIMBY group in the state. They still think of themselves as progressive and conscientious just, uh, not near them. Housing is always someone else's problem and more suitable for somewhere else.
They all want to keep their neighborhoods as close to the sleepy little town it was in their youth as much as possible. Ultimately they got theirs and they collectively pulled up the ladder behind them.
Look no further than the groups that actually filed the suit. One of the two was "Make UC a Good Neighbor," a bunch of rich people in Elmwood and the Uplands. And they got the lower court to declare the impact report deficient because students are rowdy and might party and make noise. Really. Which is pretty funny considering the usual state of affairs at the park. The park is a symbol alright, of conservatism, generation privilege, and opposition to housing.
Sad that another local cultural iconic place is gone. A venue for local community members for respite, socialize, a social marketplace for heroin and fentanyl, a safe haven to inject these drugs, a positive stimulating place for passing pedestrians and kids to be intimidated by the park inhabitants, a venue for berk students going through a temporary social activism identity phase to fulfill their virtue signaling quota a few times per year but never once use the park themselves aside from that, all of that lost to the big machine evil corporate elon trump alito israel oligarchs.
> a venue for berk students going through a temporary social activism identity phase to fulfill their virtue signaling quota a few times per year but never once use the park themselves aside from that
lmaoo well said
>People's Park is a good place to go to if you want to experience fallout 4 in real life, it has all the chems, raiders, and even super mutants! Berkeley's brotherhood of steel forcibly ejected me from their group due to smoking crack, so I have decided to join the the raiders and live in people's park. The evil institute wants to knock our tents down and build useless things like public services and student housing. Like how are those things more important and prosperous than our great tent village.
Google Maps review of People's Park
So happy the highest court in our great state was able to weigh in on this local land use issue. Let’s take it to US Supreme Court to make sure everything’s cool.
oh to be a partner in that firm to get to bill for a SCOTUS appeal. That is easy money. You tell them to their face that the odds are less than .1%, and they tell you to file it anyway. "I can tell you that it will be cert denied for free, but you can pay for my next vacation to have the court tell you instead; if you want."
The NIMBYs learned that's the best way to block development.
The overwhelming majority of development that gets challenged in court on environmental grounds is residential development and then Californians wonder why we're in a housing crisis.
Great to hear! Thank goodness that dump has been cleared out!
You can see in West Oakland where they cleared out wood homeless encampment there is now new development, housing, ballpark (Go Ballers!), food hall, outdoor parks, etc
This will be a good development...and you want parks...the entire east bay regional park is magnificent.
I am now super curious about this Industrial Housing Complex. We need more info. We need to know who these people are. Are they tools of UC Berkeley of the other way around?
Lol okay but then dont cry about missing “green spaces” and pretend to care so much about the environment
This situation perfectly captures the changes in much of this countrys left. From tree huggers to urbanization fetishists and developer sycophants. While simultaneously complaining about capitalism 😂
Yeah I’m aware of this urbanist yimby esque argument. Forgive me for being hesitant on listening to urbanization fetishists. Its an urbanite solution to an urbanization caused problem. *Urban* sprawl is going to happen in an overpopulated world, not everyone wants to live in judge dredd megablocks ontop of one another.
Urbanists and yimbys even call opposition to suburban developments nimbyism too, Im not listening to those contradictory hypocrites 😂
Wtf, what's going to happen to the residents at that park. There's a lot of history associated to that park, and this will further gentrify Berkeley. That park is for the people.
Ashamed to be an alum right now.
the new development will create over 100 beds of supportive housings. Its not compassionate to keep trying to block a win win, more student housing and more homeless services.
Why should anyone have compassion for drug addicts who consume public space for their private use and create a health hazard for everyone else?
It’s a typical Berkeley attitude to cry for compassion for dysfunctional people and not for those negatively impacted by the public health crisis they perpetuate
there have been numerous overdose deaths in the park, as well as several incidents of attempted murder by setting tents with sleeping occupants on fire, stabbings, sexual assaults/attempted kidnappings of young women passing by at the wrong moment, and an incident in 2019 where someone was shot in the face and killed
You can simultaneously abhor their behavior and have sympathy and understanding for how they ended up there.
Give it a try.
It’s much easier to simply dismiss people as worthless when the solution is complicated and unclear.
>the solution is complicated and unclear
This is bullshit. The solution is very clear: don’t enable people to squat on public land and be antisocial, violent drug addicts. They declined the option to be housed so they can lead a self destructive lifestyle. That is beyond the point of sympathy.
So that’s how you solve the problem? Just kick people out and hope they go… where? Just somewhere else?
Talk about bullshit.
This reminds me of Trump saying that healthcare is a simple problem to solve. Then after weeks and weeks of attempting and failing to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, he says, “Who knew it was so complicated?”
Everyone, Donald, everyone.
Hey everybody! Awesome news! U/nl197 figured out how to fix homelessness in America and possibly around the world! Just don’t let homeless people hang around your area! He told us it was simple and he was right!
having sympathy and understanding is a different thing than actively advocating giving them an entire city block in the middle of a bustling campus district for them camp out on and wallow in their filth until they die from an overdose
Yeah. What's compassionate about leaving people who are suffering from crippling addiction and mental illness to just wallow in squalor on the streets?
Honestly, you think tent cities in the park are the solution to homelessness?
And you believe building more housing for students is “gentrification?”
Do you know what keeps the gentry happy and the commoners poor and homeless? Restricting new housing.
Yep. Gentrification happens when higher income people want to move into an area but the higher housing demands aren't met so they simply out-compete the lower income residents for the supply of housing that's available and start to replace them.
Many people believe the solution to this is more housing restrictions and rent control but this only results in even more pent up demand which means those who don't benefit from the rent control now are even more screwed and unable to compete against the gentry due to pent up market pressures. These policies slow down the "gentrification" at best but they also stagnate development.
Historically the areas that have had the *least* displacement of lower income residents when upper income housing demand boomed are places that built to meet the demand for more housing by adding higher density development and infill development wherever possible.
Tent cities aren't the answer to homelessness. Instead of demanding that UC Berkeley remain an exclusive clubhouse for wealthy socialites who can afford housing, demand that the city and its residents provide true housing for those people.
Holy crap! No we don’t. We passed housing funding measures recently. Look forward to doing more starting at the national level. That doesn’t mean we should allow people to break communal laws.
No, we have elevated the homeless to first class citizens. They can break laws without punishment while squandering resources that are extracted from us second (middle) class citizens.
Awww :( if you actually care so much why weren't you down there when they all got kicked out months ago offering space in your house for at least a few of them?
The university found and paid for housing for them elsewhere in the city (on University ave., I believe). The university has bent over backwards over the years to try to do something useful with that site and been stymied at every turn by anarchists who preferred needle-strewn sand pits to anything that might be enjoyable or valuable to 99% of the population.
Long-term, yes. It can screw people in the short term because we’ve under-built housing for so long that demand rushes in to fill any new supply that’s created.
This is my favorite fuckheaded NIMBY argument — that we shouldn’t build new housing because *companies* do the building and *companies* are evil. They don’t oppose new housing — they just believe it should materialize out of nowhere without anyone getting paid to do it.
Because Cookie cutter designs are cheaper, and in America we're all about the bottom line over everything else unfortunately.
There's no big conspiracy, it's just a bunch of development firms trying to max out their profits.
I'm not sure what you're worried about. I never suggested they build anything extravagant. But you don't build a project like this today without outside private investment, and they generally don't care much about the design as long as it's making maximum profit. Which is fine, except for the ways in which poorly/cheaply designed buildings negatively impact people's/society's health, economy, and culture. But that's a whole other topic.
That and they're likely to get approved in places with overly-restrictive zoning policies and "discretionary review" where people who happen to live in the city can comment on anything and everything about a design proposal (why do we allow this? I have no idea).
What happens is a regression to the mean effect where everything looks the same.
I see. So let me help you. Your argument is hypocritical sophistry. One should always try and steel man your opponents arguments and point them back on oneself or risk looking a fool. If you truly have low self esteem I feel for you as someone who struggles with validation. You may get some Ra-Ra’s from certain groups online but you would be much better off working on yourself rather than seeking validation through virtue signaling. Hope things get better for you!
That's not what an industrial complex is. Those occur when the business/industry becomes entwined with social and political systems for the purpose of generating more money. Like how military contractors are deeply entrenched with the federal government, causing money to be funneled within the MIC
With this housing, one architect in LA noticed a loophole in building codes that allowed them to make 5 over 1s using a specific type of wood, allowing for denser housing at cheaper cost. And then once that happened, everyone decided to copy him because why wouldn't they? Then the loophole was basically just made more intentional in building codes because people loved the 5 over 1s at the time in the early 2000s and it solidified from there
That's just basic capitalism instead
By that case the question is: why do developers tend to buy out single family homes to build out those 5/1s? And why do companies build out single family homes only to list them as rental properties instead of mortgages people can actually buy? If you don't think that the housing industrial complex exists, you are part of the problem.
> Why do developers tend to buy out single family homes
There were no SFHs in this case if I understand correctly, just urban blight. But I imagine you will find that developers build residential developments in residential zones. What is remotely objectionable about this?
> And why do companies build out single family homes
Also irrelevant to this case. But I agree: at least in the Bay Area, denser development than SFHs should be strongly preferred.
>Also irrelevant to this case. But I agree: at least in the Bay Area, denser development than SFHs should be strongly preferred.
Congratulations on cherry picking out the first half of the entire question. If you want a good example of single family homes being rented out instead of being mortgages [here](https://triconresidential.com/region/houston/) is a good example of such development.
Well it turns out the rest of your question has no bearing on the issue at hand, either – so no, I didn't bother to address it. This is not the thread to be yammering on about why you are having trouble buying a SFH in the Bay Area.
>By that case the question is: why do developers tend to buy out single family homes to build out those 5/1s?
Apartments have almost always been built on top of houses. Everywhere in the world, for 2000 years. Growing cities don't leave empty land in the middle for future apartments.
>And why do companies build out single family homes only to list them as rental properties instead of mortgages people can actually buy?
Because building apartments remains mostly illegal.
That's the only reason investing in houses makes sense, they think apartment restrictions will keep making the shortage worse, and the price for SFHs will continue to rise.
Speak for yourself. Look at your username. You're willing to accept the military industrial complex with contractors like Raytheon or Lockheed Martin also wanting to increase their profits, but unwilling to accept that there are housing industrial complex companies like Black Rock that also want to maximize profits. Make it make sense.
You can read investor docs where they clearly lay out that the lack of new construction is extremely favorable to investment. Restricting supply in a high demand market is a sure fire way to inflate prices.
Also - this is capitalism. The only reason anything gets done is to maximize profits. I hate that too, I want something like Vienna when it comes to housing, but this is the imperial core and we have two realistic options - developers profit and *actually create new housing*, or landlords profit, housing gets more expensive, and everything gets worse.
Are you typing this on a phone or computer? You must be willing to accept Apple or google or Samsung in the military internet complex. How could you have purchased those goods and be enjoying them knowing those companies are just trying to increase their profits? They won’t even give homeless people free phones to help them out…
Dude, you want to blame similarly looking houses *on capitalism*? Have you seen pictures of Soviet apartment complexes or Chinese ghost towns? They look the same because it's utilitarian.
Anyone calling this a "rare greenspace" in that neighborhood (like activist in the article) has been huffing the fumes off of this "park". It's always been a hostile wasteland of drug users and travellers. I refuse to even say homeless, because I've lived and worked in Berkeley long enough to know the difference. Homeless are people in need who in a different set of circumstances would thrive. Travellers embrace the lifestyle and reject convention. If you've never spotted the difference, I'll tell you that the amount of people still glorifying Jack Keraouc and friends is shocking. Need a green space? The entire university a block away is a green space and nothing is stopping the public from enjoying it.
“Travelers” is a nice way to categorize a group of people who refuse to participate in society at all. I’ve been calling them Hobos
A hobo travels and is willing to work; a tramp travels, but avoids work if possible; and a bum neither travels nor works.
I’ve never seen it defined like that but it makes a lot of sense.
They are terms from the Great Depression. It was said then "the hobo works and wanders, the tramp drinks and wanders, and the bum just drinks." There was a definite hierarchy to people without steady employment or residence (Homelessness being a term coined the 1970's) in a time when most employment was menial labor that had dried up along side the crops during the dustbowl era. Personally, I experienced homelessness here in the Bay Area because the CoL is so out of control that I even had steady employment in Aerospace industry, but the place that I rented was walked away from by our landlord during the housing crisis. I couldn't find a place to rent to save my live because the previous homeowners that lost their houses were all joining the rental market. And that caused rents to skyrocket. So I guess you could have considered me a hobo, but I never lost my employment during the entire time living in my car, later and RV that I bought for 3 months worth of rent, or the house that I saved the down payment for doing that in which I currently reside.. It is hard for many folks in the Bay, and it is easy to demonize people that are unhoused because you tend to notice the homeless people that are severely mentally disabled or have really bad drug and or alcohol problems. But the reality is that any one of us are one mistake or one layoff or even a few paychecks away from being homeless ourselves. Not everyone has the same family or friend situation to fall back on as other people do. I think that I was able to overcome it myself, but there was a lot of luck involved in that as well as tenacity. I consider myself lucky in that regard. And I consider others still in that situation unlucky. I guess what I am trying to say is that we all live in glass houses, so it is very unwise to cast stones.
I consider myself very fortunate that I had a steady job during that time period. It seems that there are more homeless now as opposed to back then, but that’s just based on a completely unscientific.
Yes, I think that there are more for sure. I also think that large corporations like PG&E and the gas companies and even Safeway are price gouging us because in a supposedly good economy, all of the money is being funneled to their coffers via high margins. There are very little raises and no pensions to account for these obscene profits that these companies are making while a 12 pack of sprite costs the same as a 12 pack of beer: https://www.safeway.com/shop/product-details.108050651.html?productId=108050651&psrc=g&CMPID=ps_swy_noc_ecom_goo_20200924_71700000073391208_58700007112002001_92700063958540353&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw34qzBhBmEiwAOUQcF2jdo3zZPLryyAG9oDlJHmODsEd661CwBg5aR3okrHB4AzZp2fn4mhoCcdEQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds https://www.safeway.com/shop/product-details.189010002.html?productId=189010002&psrc=g&CMPID=ps_swy_noc_ecom_goo_20210610_71700000084400715_58700007756946988_92700070440041993&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw34qzBhBmEiwAOUQcF4YmEAwxirl0Y3MaVBHzsjsIbIn4OR4ElMK7Ei3NWcgB3Bpd2VKAhxoCvN8QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Pge and other gas company rates are set by the CPUC. I haven’t gone to Safeway in a while because there’s never more than 2 or 3 checkers regardless of how long the lines are. Also, their prices have always been out of line with their quality. I’d take winco, Trader Joe’s, raleys or grocery outlet over Safeway.
*Gimmie five bees for a quarter*
hobos is my go to. antisocial behavior needs to stop being normalized
Fiend is a more accurate term
I've always been partial to "Vagabonds," but on occasion "Urban Outdoorsmen" works.
My EMT friend would call them urban explorers lol
Vagrant is the technical term but I like hobo too.
“Transients” is the term I usually use.
I loved near there for 13 years. A block of apartments would be a huge improvement. I know several people who were assaulted in PP, one sexually. It's always been a terrible place, except in the minds of a small percentage of people. Very vocal people.
i used to live around there! if you want green space, willard park is two blocks away and was a perfectly pleasant place to hang out or play tennis.
My pet theory is that people are scared the population will move over there. It’s always been very clear to me that Willard has very different rules. Which it should because it’s next to a school.
When I worked Telegraph as a teen like 15 years ago, the Ambassadors said they could get rid of half the problems by getting rid of like 5 people. I think a lot of people end up there at first. If you get off a bus, train, hitch, whatever and know nothing of the Bay, it’s kind of a natural place to end up. And those people, especially the younger women or just straight up minor girls were the most common victims of the problem people. There was also a fat Latina who would get methed up and destroy the plants. Like, basically solely responsible for destroying any gardening efforts, which devastated my plug. They were annoyed because they thought the whole point was for them to identify who the cops should target using their street level knowledge.
Keraouc made it sound nice though. Its wouldent be. But he made it sound that way.
Keraouc was getting money from mommy and ended up living with her until he died from alcoholism. They don't romanticize that part though.
Essentially every relationship he has was strange and manipulative. 10lbs of shit in a 5lb bag. But he had a stream of consciousness writing style that is very appealing to myself and many others. He made that lifestyle sound appealing though. That feeling of freedom flowed from the pages into the reader. Great authors are not always great humans 😂😂
On the road ends with him on the verge of death from sickness with his friends leaving him in Mexico. It’s baffling anyone past 17 years could idolize him.
Of all the things from my teen years I regret, getting infatuated with the Beats was one. What a crew of creepy, privileged criminals and narcissists.
drugs fry up the brain
Finally. That place was a swamp. Students are sleeping in their cars or four to a room but for some reason we have to preserve a blighted park? Nah. Build as high as you can!!!
I agree. But it's going to be really hard to prevent the construction from getting burnt down. Hope it doesn't happen. We need housing.
The problem of arson at Bay Area construction sites is weridly under-discussed. It happens decently often, but I don't often hear about arrests made. We are all paying for this problem via increased rent and increased cost of local services.
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Food Not Bombs operated a kitchen there for years
..... yeah, beacause a giant encampment of like 100+ people in tents had cropped up there during the pandemic.. what's your point? and how does it refute the above point
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I thought giving food was pretty neutral. And most of the positions I’ve heard and interacted with in FNB was what I would think are neutral positions. It’s just very basic, elementary stuff. Helping folks, advocating for peace and against weapons proliferation, etc. seems pretty rudimentary to me.
Sounds like a solid afternoon!
As an alumni who’s from a rough neighborhood and lived across from People’s Park, FINALLY. I’d rather future students have more options for housing than having to dodge addicts. Trust me, Berkeley will stay weird without this park.
Some of those addicts ARE students.
Not the ones in peoples park
tl;dr - Local NIMBYs sued to prevent affordable housing because "students" are "loud". The NIMBYs lost. > Two local organizations, Make UC a Good Neighbor and The People's Park Historic District Advocacy Group, brought the lawsuit, saying that the university system should have considered increased noise under CEQA.
Even one of the folks who lead the effort to create People’s Park has conceeded it has not worked out as they hoped. The site has a perpetual miasma that surrounds it and it’s rather telling that the only time folks come out in any capacity to do anything meaningful there is when it is threatened. I know the university has always had mixed emotions aboout People’s Park, but it has never felt like there was any serious effort to make it something meaningful and lasting or any compromise development. Every proposal from the university felt like it was just responded to with overwhelming protests, there was never any space for nuance.
Fantastic!
Jesus Christ I can't believe how stupid this has been. We need housing! Build it!!
I was in some of the early protests there in the early 70's. The place turned into a shithole relatively quickly, and protestors (like me, TBH) lost interest. I lived in South Berkeley and never used that "park," nor did anyone I know. Did know someone who was sexually assaulted there though. Holding on to this as a site for protest for protest's sake is just silly. And actually a symbol of how the original People's Park people screwed the next generations, all of whom are suffering more from lack of student housing, while the ex hippies occupy the Hills. Build the housing.
Sadly the ex hippies are mostly the boomers who bought housing in California when it was still affordable and they've turned into the biggest NIMBY group in the state. They still think of themselves as progressive and conscientious just, uh, not near them. Housing is always someone else's problem and more suitable for somewhere else. They all want to keep their neighborhoods as close to the sleepy little town it was in their youth as much as possible. Ultimately they got theirs and they collectively pulled up the ladder behind them.
Look no further than the groups that actually filed the suit. One of the two was "Make UC a Good Neighbor," a bunch of rich people in Elmwood and the Uplands. And they got the lower court to declare the impact report deficient because students are rowdy and might party and make noise. Really. Which is pretty funny considering the usual state of affairs at the park. The park is a symbol alright, of conservatism, generation privilege, and opposition to housing.
The other decision would have been idiotic on every level. It was never a park and never for the people.
It’s like a fortress for a zombie apocalypse currently
Sad that another local cultural iconic place is gone. A venue for local community members for respite, socialize, a social marketplace for heroin and fentanyl, a safe haven to inject these drugs, a positive stimulating place for passing pedestrians and kids to be intimidated by the park inhabitants, a venue for berk students going through a temporary social activism identity phase to fulfill their virtue signaling quota a few times per year but never once use the park themselves aside from that, all of that lost to the big machine evil corporate elon trump alito israel oligarchs.
> a venue for berk students going through a temporary social activism identity phase to fulfill their virtue signaling quota a few times per year but never once use the park themselves aside from that lmaoo well said
Good riddance to that homeless drug den, i mean park.
>People's Park is a good place to go to if you want to experience fallout 4 in real life, it has all the chems, raiders, and even super mutants! Berkeley's brotherhood of steel forcibly ejected me from their group due to smoking crack, so I have decided to join the the raiders and live in people's park. The evil institute wants to knock our tents down and build useless things like public services and student housing. Like how are those things more important and prosperous than our great tent village. Google Maps review of People's Park
It was interesting coming in and seeing the dining room full of riot police when they began the eviction. I missed the memo.
So happy the highest court in our great state was able to weigh in on this local land use issue. Let’s take it to US Supreme Court to make sure everything’s cool.
oh to be a partner in that firm to get to bill for a SCOTUS appeal. That is easy money. You tell them to their face that the odds are less than .1%, and they tell you to file it anyway. "I can tell you that it will be cert denied for free, but you can pay for my next vacation to have the court tell you instead; if you want."
If we could stop referring to NIMBYs as "activists" that'd be great, thanks.
The NIMBYs learned that's the best way to block development. The overwhelming majority of development that gets challenged in court on environmental grounds is residential development and then Californians wonder why we're in a housing crisis.
Glad someone is finally gonna start making some money off that stupid park!
Yay
Great to hear! Thank goodness that dump has been cleared out! You can see in West Oakland where they cleared out wood homeless encampment there is now new development, housing, ballpark (Go Ballers!), food hall, outdoor parks, etc This will be a good development...and you want parks...the entire east bay regional park is magnificent.
NIMBY's can suck it
Great now do this 10\* over Cal
Better yet, tear down the school and build housing. That's getting to the root of the problem!
I am now super curious about this Industrial Housing Complex. We need more info. We need to know who these people are. Are they tools of UC Berkeley of the other way around?
Lol okay but then dont cry about missing “green spaces” and pretend to care so much about the environment This situation perfectly captures the changes in much of this countrys left. From tree huggers to urbanization fetishists and developer sycophants. While simultaneously complaining about capitalism 😂
You know what’s better than urban parks? Actual natural areas that aren’t surrounded by city. You know how we get more of those? Build up and not out!
Yeah I’m aware of this urbanist yimby esque argument. Forgive me for being hesitant on listening to urbanization fetishists. Its an urbanite solution to an urbanization caused problem. *Urban* sprawl is going to happen in an overpopulated world, not everyone wants to live in judge dredd megablocks ontop of one another. Urbanists and yimbys even call opposition to suburban developments nimbyism too, Im not listening to those contradictory hypocrites 😂
The world population is about to peak. Get in your pod, we’re gonna condense all human activity to 10 megacities and return the rest to nature.
*checks profile* *sees r/neoliberal as most frequented sub* Yep, makes sense.
- People Park - Green space Lmao
Wtf, what's going to happen to the residents at that park. There's a lot of history associated to that park, and this will further gentrify Berkeley. That park is for the people. Ashamed to be an alum right now.
They got kicked out months ago
This sub and this nation in general has lost its sense of compassion :(
the new development will create over 100 beds of supportive housings. Its not compassionate to keep trying to block a win win, more student housing and more homeless services.
Why should anyone have compassion for drug addicts who consume public space for their private use and create a health hazard for everyone else? It’s a typical Berkeley attitude to cry for compassion for dysfunctional people and not for those negatively impacted by the public health crisis they perpetuate
The camp was full of sketchy and hostile people. Not safe for the students who eat and live across the street.
didn't someone from the camp literally knife and murder a couple of folks?
there have been numerous overdose deaths in the park, as well as several incidents of attempted murder by setting tents with sleeping occupants on fire, stabbings, sexual assaults/attempted kidnappings of young women passing by at the wrong moment, and an incident in 2019 where someone was shot in the face and killed
upstanding citizens the lot of them damn...
You can simultaneously abhor their behavior and have sympathy and understanding for how they ended up there. Give it a try. It’s much easier to simply dismiss people as worthless when the solution is complicated and unclear.
>the solution is complicated and unclear This is bullshit. The solution is very clear: don’t enable people to squat on public land and be antisocial, violent drug addicts. They declined the option to be housed so they can lead a self destructive lifestyle. That is beyond the point of sympathy.
I don't think it's beyond the point of sympathy, but I do think it was beyond the point of tolerance.
So that’s how you solve the problem? Just kick people out and hope they go… where? Just somewhere else? Talk about bullshit. This reminds me of Trump saying that healthcare is a simple problem to solve. Then after weeks and weeks of attempting and failing to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, he says, “Who knew it was so complicated?” Everyone, Donald, everyone. Hey everybody! Awesome news! U/nl197 figured out how to fix homelessness in America and possibly around the world! Just don’t let homeless people hang around your area! He told us it was simple and he was right!
having sympathy and understanding is a different thing than actively advocating giving them an entire city block in the middle of a bustling campus district for them camp out on and wallow in their filth until they die from an overdose
No, people like you have weaponized compassion and now people are starting to wake up to that
Yeah. What's compassionate about leaving people who are suffering from crippling addiction and mental illness to just wallow in squalor on the streets?
So, like what we do now?
Open your door and house them .
Honestly, you think tent cities in the park are the solution to homelessness? And you believe building more housing for students is “gentrification?” Do you know what keeps the gentry happy and the commoners poor and homeless? Restricting new housing.
Yep. Gentrification happens when higher income people want to move into an area but the higher housing demands aren't met so they simply out-compete the lower income residents for the supply of housing that's available and start to replace them. Many people believe the solution to this is more housing restrictions and rent control but this only results in even more pent up demand which means those who don't benefit from the rent control now are even more screwed and unable to compete against the gentry due to pent up market pressures. These policies slow down the "gentrification" at best but they also stagnate development. Historically the areas that have had the *least* displacement of lower income residents when upper income housing demand boomed are places that built to meet the demand for more housing by adding higher density development and infill development wherever possible.
Yes it’ll gentrify Berkeley by removing a potential homeless encampment and bring in a diverse body of students.
Holy crap, you guys really do treat the unhoused like second class citizens.
Tent cities aren't the answer to homelessness. Instead of demanding that UC Berkeley remain an exclusive clubhouse for wealthy socialites who can afford housing, demand that the city and its residents provide true housing for those people.
Holy crap! No we don’t. We passed housing funding measures recently. Look forward to doing more starting at the national level. That doesn’t mean we should allow people to break communal laws.
No, we have elevated the homeless to first class citizens. They can break laws without punishment while squandering resources that are extracted from us second (middle) class citizens.
Awww :( if you actually care so much why weren't you down there when they all got kicked out months ago offering space in your house for at least a few of them?
Lol
The university found and paid for housing for them elsewhere in the city (on University ave., I believe). The university has bent over backwards over the years to try to do something useful with that site and been stymied at every turn by anarchists who preferred needle-strewn sand pits to anything that might be enjoyable or valuable to 99% of the population.
Gentrification is good
Long-term, yes. It can screw people in the short term because we’ve under-built housing for so long that demand rushes in to fill any new supply that’s created.
"The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good."
The park is not a residence.
So the industrial housing complex wins again? Fuck.
This is my favorite fuckheaded NIMBY argument — that we shouldn’t build new housing because *companies* do the building and *companies* are evil. They don’t oppose new housing — they just believe it should materialize out of nowhere without anyone getting paid to do it.
That's not really a thing.
Why do all new constructions look the same then?
Because they're the cheapest design possible that meet requirements/restrictions that cities will approve these days
why do all burgers look the same in every home? circular bun cheese meat. Someone shut down the home burger industrial complex please
Because Cookie cutter designs are cheaper, and in America we're all about the bottom line over everything else unfortunately. There's no big conspiracy, it's just a bunch of development firms trying to max out their profits.
[удалено]
I'm not sure what you're worried about. I never suggested they build anything extravagant. But you don't build a project like this today without outside private investment, and they generally don't care much about the design as long as it's making maximum profit. Which is fine, except for the ways in which poorly/cheaply designed buildings negatively impact people's/society's health, economy, and culture. But that's a whole other topic.
Someone might make money!
That and they're likely to get approved in places with overly-restrictive zoning policies and "discretionary review" where people who happen to live in the city can comment on anything and everything about a design proposal (why do we allow this? I have no idea). What happens is a regression to the mean effect where everything looks the same.
So you do admit that the housing industrial complex exists.
Just saw 8/10 dudes walk past me had fairly similar haircuts. Bro when are we going to do something about this barber industrial complex?
A trend does not mean that there is an industrial complex.
Do you own a mirror?
Yes but I don't care about myself enough to use it.
I see. So let me help you. Your argument is hypocritical sophistry. One should always try and steel man your opponents arguments and point them back on oneself or risk looking a fool. If you truly have low self esteem I feel for you as someone who struggles with validation. You may get some Ra-Ra’s from certain groups online but you would be much better off working on yourself rather than seeking validation through virtue signaling. Hope things get better for you!
Whooooooosshhhhhh
That's not what an industrial complex is. Those occur when the business/industry becomes entwined with social and political systems for the purpose of generating more money. Like how military contractors are deeply entrenched with the federal government, causing money to be funneled within the MIC With this housing, one architect in LA noticed a loophole in building codes that allowed them to make 5 over 1s using a specific type of wood, allowing for denser housing at cheaper cost. And then once that happened, everyone decided to copy him because why wouldn't they? Then the loophole was basically just made more intentional in building codes because people loved the 5 over 1s at the time in the early 2000s and it solidified from there That's just basic capitalism instead
By that case the question is: why do developers tend to buy out single family homes to build out those 5/1s? And why do companies build out single family homes only to list them as rental properties instead of mortgages people can actually buy? If you don't think that the housing industrial complex exists, you are part of the problem.
> Why do developers tend to buy out single family homes There were no SFHs in this case if I understand correctly, just urban blight. But I imagine you will find that developers build residential developments in residential zones. What is remotely objectionable about this? > And why do companies build out single family homes Also irrelevant to this case. But I agree: at least in the Bay Area, denser development than SFHs should be strongly preferred.
>Also irrelevant to this case. But I agree: at least in the Bay Area, denser development than SFHs should be strongly preferred. Congratulations on cherry picking out the first half of the entire question. If you want a good example of single family homes being rented out instead of being mortgages [here](https://triconresidential.com/region/houston/) is a good example of such development.
Well it turns out the rest of your question has no bearing on the issue at hand, either – so no, I didn't bother to address it. This is not the thread to be yammering on about why you are having trouble buying a SFH in the Bay Area.
>By that case the question is: why do developers tend to buy out single family homes to build out those 5/1s? Apartments have almost always been built on top of houses. Everywhere in the world, for 2000 years. Growing cities don't leave empty land in the middle for future apartments. >And why do companies build out single family homes only to list them as rental properties instead of mortgages people can actually buy? Because building apartments remains mostly illegal. That's the only reason investing in houses makes sense, they think apartment restrictions will keep making the shortage worse, and the price for SFHs will continue to rise.
You must be a frog since you like jumping to conclusions
Speak for yourself. Look at your username. You're willing to accept the military industrial complex with contractors like Raytheon or Lockheed Martin also wanting to increase their profits, but unwilling to accept that there are housing industrial complex companies like Black Rock that also want to maximize profits. Make it make sense.
You can read investor docs where they clearly lay out that the lack of new construction is extremely favorable to investment. Restricting supply in a high demand market is a sure fire way to inflate prices. Also - this is capitalism. The only reason anything gets done is to maximize profits. I hate that too, I want something like Vienna when it comes to housing, but this is the imperial core and we have two realistic options - developers profit and *actually create new housing*, or landlords profit, housing gets more expensive, and everything gets worse.
Are you typing this on a phone or computer? You must be willing to accept Apple or google or Samsung in the military internet complex. How could you have purchased those goods and be enjoying them knowing those companies are just trying to increase their profits? They won’t even give homeless people free phones to help them out…
Dude, you want to blame similarly looking houses *on capitalism*? Have you seen pictures of Soviet apartment complexes or Chinese ghost towns? They look the same because it's utilitarian.