BERKELEY — UC Berkeley’s attempt to tear down the historic People’s Park and build a major student housing project descended into chaos on Wednesday as protesters faced off with police, destroyed a barricade erected around the park and ransacked pricey construction equipment, reigniting the park’s fiery history of activism.

A tense standoff erupted on Wednesday morning after university officials worked quickly in the pre-dawn hours to fence in the park and clear the way for demolition crews as part of their plan to redevelop the site, once a cradle of 1960’s political protest. The university plans to build housing for more than 1,000 students and up to 100 units for unhoused residents and people at risk of homelessness.

Bryce Smith, a biology and business major at UC Berkeley, was among dozens of demonstrators who bypassed the fence and barricades. They said they are trying to preserve what’s left of the park after construction crews had already cut down a majority of the towering trees.

“I’m going to stay here until whatever happens, happens,” Smith said Wednesday afternoon, sitting atop a ramshackle building at the center of the park. “I’m just not willing to let this go away.”

Hello, #Berkeley pic.twitter.com/MNyZRmaZNw

— George Kelly (@allaboutgeorge) August 3, 2022

At a demonstration Wednesday evening nearby at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza that led several hundred people back to the park, organizers exhorted people to remain vigilant.

“I want to emphasize we need people at the park, 24-7 from now on, right?” organizer June Nelson said. “We can’t let the UC get away with what they tried to get away with tonight. We have to have eyes on them at all times. […] It’s about bringing people together, building the movement, and using all of our individual strengths to come together and fight back against the UC.”

Maxina Ventura, a member of the People’s Park Council, called the university’s actions at the park Wednesday “pure evil.

“A lot of people are gonna camp out, try to hold down this space. If they come and try to fence again, you know, I think people will be following around and de-fencing as they did today,” Ventura said in part.

“People will do all kinds of different things. I mean, a lot of equipment was destroyed today. Some people would call that violent, but let me point out that it was done carefully so that nobody was harmed, and it was about stopping this horrible invasion into a public park.”

Misty Cross, a co-founder of the Moms 4 Housing activist group, drew a direct line between displacement at the park Wednesday and ongoing campaigns against the Wood Street encampment in West Oakland, where “they just got a temporary stay order from the judge, but it’s a continuous thing. If the city and people who are constituents want to really house folks, they have to have these conversations with the people. You can’t just tear down stuff and keep moving them like cattle.”

When the activity began in the wee hours Wednesday morning, about two dozen protesters and a handful of unhoused people were scattered around the park. They were quickly surrounded by more than 100 police officers standing shoulder to shoulder and decked out in full riot gear. But by early afternoon, law enforcement retreated amid growing pushback from protesters, leaving dozens of people free to pry apart the barricade, then cut gas lines and puncture the tires of heavy machinery left behind.

“Due to the destruction of construction materials, unlawful protest activity, and violence on the part of some protesters, the University has decided to pause construction work on the People’s Park housing site,” Dan Mogulof, a university spokesperson, said in a Wednesday afternoon statement.

“The campus will, in the days ahead, assess the situation in order to determine how best to proceed with construction of this urgently needed student housing project,” he added.

The clashes come after a court ruling last week, which became official Tuesday, that effectively greenlit UC Berkeley’s contentious plans to redevelop the park with two buildings, one six stories and the other 12.

The university has been under mounting legal pressure to build more student housing, although proponents of People’s Park say the location is a vital green space and cultural landmark that should not be removed. UC Berkeley has long eyed the 2.8-acre site, and Wednesday’s protests echoed student clashes in 1969 when thousands of people protested development plans resulting in a state of emergency and one death.

Protesters have destroyed the barricade and cops left pic.twitter.com/RNaayRuJ5C

— Eliyahu Kamisher (@eli_kamisher) August 3, 2022

Alecia Harger stayed at the park while construction crews fenced protesters inside and said there’s no mistaking why UC overtook the park “overnight and under the cover of darkness.”

“They knew that they could not bring out this all-out offensive in broad daylight when there were still numbers (of protesters) in the park,” said Harger. “This falls well into UC’s facade: clean, crisp and put together as an academic institution. They’ve orchestrated this quite well.”

By 3 a.m., a small handful of protesters and activists vying to preserve the park — bounded by Telegraph Avenue, Bowditch Street, Dwight Way and Haste Street — were arrested after lying limp in front of construction tractors trying to make their way inside under bright flood lights.

Mogulof, the UC Berkeley spokesperson, said the university wants to start construction as soon as possible in order to complete the project and welcome new residents within two years, attempting to address the university’s “urgent” student housing crisis. About 82% of the more than 45,000 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled last fall were left to find off-campus housing — the highest percentage among the entire University of California system.

“As soon as we got the green light, of course we were going to be ready,” Mogulof said Wednesday morning.

In addition to 1.7 acres that will be preserved as open space, the university has included tentative plans to honor the history of People’s Park with a memorial walkway, murals and photo displays.

NEW: Protesters have broken through a section of the fence around People’s Park in Berkeley, temporarily pausing crews with chainsaws that have been cutting down several trees @MercNews @EastBayTimes https://t.co/VFNyhWTlon pic.twitter.com/z4CRBqiU78

— Katie Lauer (@_katielauer) August 3, 2022

Construction was delayed until Alameda County Judge Frank Roesch submitted his final judgment, denying several lawsuits — filed jointly last year by the Local 3299 union for UC service workers and community groups Make UC A Good Neighbor and Berkeley Citizens for a Better Plan — that argued that the housing project violated the California Environmental Quality Act.

The groups unsuccessfully argued that environmental impact reports within UC’s long-range development plan, which, in part, lays out how the institution plans to accommodate its ever-growing student population over the next 15 years, were inadequate. They maintained the plans failed to account for how student enrollment growth will negatively impact the surrounding community, from increasing greenhouse gases to clogging already dangerous wildfire evacuation routes.

Additionally, their attorneys claimed that UC officials failed to consider more than a dozen other locations for the housing rather than the historic park, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in June.

Andrea Prichett, a member of the People’s Park Council who was one of the protesters arrested for blocking the construction action, said she’s now banned from UC property for “trespassing” Wednesday morning.

“I believe that when a community gives up its history, it gives up its lifeline,” Prichett said. “If they were proud of what they did, they would have done it in broad daylight. They came in the middle of the night, because that’s what thieves do.”

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