In an era of unrest and protests in People’s Park and across the country, UC Berkeley admitted the first significant wave of Chicano students in 1969 in response to student pressure. Even then, the university was facing housing shortages, and a successful effort led to a home near campus for the Chicano student community in the early 1970s. Half a century later, Casa Joaquin Murrieta still provides affordable student housing to approximately 40 Berkeley students.
California’s Environmental Quality Act, which took effect shortly after the home’s creation, would have destroyed the project before it began, depriving thousands of students of affordable, stable housing near campus. We know because he is doing this today, most recently in the form of a court order blocking the university’s attempt to build much-needed housing in People’s Park.
The ‘environmental impact’ of more student housing was positive then, just as it is now: more students live close to the campus, so less traffic. There was no harm done to the environment to increase occupancy and improve the interior of an existing building.
But Casa Joaquin’s neighboring mostly white homeowners could have used CEQA to demand expensive studies and multiple hearings for Berkeley officials. City officials probably would have sided with their homeowners and used CEQA to reject our building permit applications, just as the Berkeley Police Department enthusiastically marched to stop our peaceful anti-Vietnam War demonstrations.
More recently, a series of court rulings, culminating last year, nearly forced Berkeley to deny admission to thousands of high school students because the state’s judges agreed with NIMBY neighborhood groups that population growth is an inherent environmental impact under CEQA. Only a quick solution by the legislator led to a registration freeze.
Now a state court has given the Berkeley NIMBYs another gift. More than 50 years after CEQA’s approval, and despite a 1993 amendment directing courts not to expand the law beyond what is expressly required, the Court of Appeals invented an entirely new CEQA “impact”: student party noise. It grew out of the NIMBYs’ demand to be protected from the “social noise” caused by welcoming students into their neighborhood. Finally, students could shout, sing, or make music at a volume audible to their feeble neighbors (who were already surrounded by students).
These newfound effects are dangerously attributable to future occupants of vacant homes. NIMBYs can now state that the noise that may be caused by additional students or the general population must be adequately analyzed and mitigated before housing can be built.
Of course, excessive noise is annoying and also illegal if it occurs outside office hours or with amplified equipment. City and campus police enforce harassing ordinances, and earlier in this lawsuit, the university agreed to a demand from the city that it pay for increased enforcement against sometimes rowdy students — most of whom worked hard to get to Berkeley , but are still young people who live far away for the first time in their lives at home.
The concept of “social noise” is perfectly designed to block living space in existing neighborhoods. If this judgment holds, other demographic and individual behaviors may become adverse “environmental” effects under CEQA. Because apartment dwellers are likely to be younger than their single neighbors, their “social noise” could come from a baby with colic, bickering siblings, or outbursts of rebellious teen music.
Homeless students, especially those who are the first in their families to attend a four-year university, are dropping out at an alarming rate, leaving the country in debt and shattered dreams instead of a college education from one of the best public universities in the world . In other words, housing is important. No wonder CEQA is called the “law that swept California.”
Jennifer Hernandez is a partner at Holland & Knight, a law firm specializing in land use and environmental law. Robert Apodaca is the CEO of the Two Hundred for Home Ownership, a coalition dedicated to alleviating poverty through home ownership and co-founder of Casa Joaquin Murrieta.
Source: LA Times