CEQA at heart of Supreme Court decision on UC Berkeley

California’s premier environmental protection law was at the core of a fierce dispute between UC Berkeley and its surrounding neighborhoods — and the neighborhoods won.

On Thursday, the state Supreme Court decided in their favor, saying that the university’s plan to build more student housing ran afoul of the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, which requires projects to undergo extensive environmental and legal review before proceeding.

“This is devastating news for the thousands of students who have worked so hard for and have earned a seat in our fall 2022 class.” — UC Berkeley

The court’s decision, upholding lower court rulings, requires the school to keep student admissions to 2020 levels.

That means an estimated 3,000 fall students who were accepted for admission at the prestigious school won’t be able to attend after all.

“This is devastating news for the thousands of students who have worked so hard for and have earned a seat in our fall 2022 class. Our fight on behalf of every one of these students continues,” the campus wrote in a statement following the Supreme Court decision.

The recent and consistent rise in Berkeley’s admissions has long caused upset in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Berkeley’s student population has climbed 33.7% since 2005, with the undergraduate class size growing to 31,814 students and graduate class size growing to 13,243 students in 2021. A community group, “Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods,”  filed a lawsuit in 2019 against the university’s construction plans that included layouts for new student housing to accommodate their growth.

“We have repeatedly offered to settle our case with UC Berkeley in exchange for a legally binding commitment to build housing before increasing enrollment.” — Phil Bokovoy

CEQA, the state’s complex, 52-year-old law signed by Gov. Ronald Reagan, has been used frequently to block or force modifications to developments, commercial and residential housing tracts, infrastructure and other projects.  CEQA does not directly regulate land use, but it requires projects to meet environmental laws before proceeding.

Neighborhood critics of the school’s plan argued that the increasing number of students on campus are contributing to pollution and are therefore harming the environment — in addition to straining the city’s services.

“We have repeatedly offered to settle our case with UC Berkeley in exchange for a legally binding commitment to build housing before increasing enrollment,” said Phil Bokovoy, President of Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods. “UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara have all made legally binding agreements with their communities to build housing before increasing enrollment. We don’t understand why UC Berkeley refuses to do the same.”

An Alameda County judge ruled in favor of the community group, requiring the university to freeze enrollment levels until the school provides an updated supplemental environmental impact report (SEIR).

UC Berkeley must now freeze total student enrollment, including graduate students, at 42,347 for 2022-23 – a stark contrast to the 45,057 total student enrollment of 2021.

The decision hit UC Berkeley like a bombshell, but worse was to come: On Feb. 10, the 1st District Court of Appeal, ruled in favor of the enrollment freeze.

Four days later, UC Berkeley appealed to the state Supreme Court, which also turned  the school down.

So, what happens next?

UC Berkeley must now freeze total student enrollment, including graduate students, at 42,347 for 2022-23 – a stark contrast to the 45,057 total student enrollment of 2021.

“This court mandated decrease in enrollment would be a tragic outcome for thousands of  students who have worked incredibly hard to gain admission to Berkeley,” the school said in an earlier  prepared statement. “A reduction of at least 5,100 in undergraduate admission offers would be needed in order to reduce by 3,050 students the overall enrollment level that had been planned for 2022-23.”

Daniel Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor in UC Berkeley’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs, referring to the appellate decision, said,  “The decision is not consistent with the law and is not consistent with the lives of the young people if the court order stands.”

Just days before the final decision, Gov. Gavin Newsom also weighed in.

“Our case is really clear in that we believe the lower court’s ruling goes well beyond what CEQA intended – and treating students as if they were a source of pollution – goes well beyond the letter extent of the law.” Driving in this notion, he concludes that “there is a reason Governor Newsom filed an amicus brief.”

Will this enrollment freeze affect other schools as well?

 “The ruling, if it stands, has the possibility to affect every single public school in California – and even beyond. This is an issue that goes way beyond UC Berkeley if the court order stands,”Mogulof said.

“Only by cloaking their actions as ‘environmentalism’ can Californians pretend to have progressive motives in protecting the CEQA status quo.” — Jennifer Hernandez

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) argues that the failure to build student housing is “pushing [students] into homelessness and even depriving them of a college education entirely.”

“Students – who are simply trying to go to school and learn – should not be forced to live in their cars because colleges can’t provide enough housing for them. It is unacceptable for NIMBY lawsuits to strip students of their right to a quality education by blocking housing and effectively forcing schools to reduce enrollment,” he said.

Are there greater implications at play?

Yes, says Attorney Jennifer Hernandez, a member of pro-economic development Bay Area Council.

“No one should be surprised” at the opposition to CEQA, because  “CEQA has long been used to block funding or expansions of infrastructure needs for California’s population.” For example, she added, the Bay Area population has nearly doubled since 1970, yet the number of lanes on the highway remain the same.

“The pattern of using CEQA to block housing in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods is red lighting and is racially discriminatory. Only by cloaking their actions as “environmentalism” can Californians pretend to have progressive motives in protecting the CEQA status quo,” she said.

Noting that CEQA had been used before to block infrastructure progress in California, former Gov. Jerry Brown was sharply critical of the law in his exit interview with CapRadio.

“So in the CEQA arena, you have two very powerful forces: building trades and environmentalists, “ remarking that “those two forces are going to block any particular change.”