zlacker

This article doesn't speak to me. What I read is, "Won't someone think of the poor UC system?" But the UC system is _massive_

> But Casa Joaquin’s neighboring, overwhelmingly white homeowners could have used CEQA to demand costly studies and multiple hearings before Berkeley officials.

Important to note that white people are well-represented at UC Berkley too. https://opa.berkeley.edu/campus-data/uc-berkeley-quick-facts

> More recently, a series of court rulings that culminated last year nearly forced Berkeley to withhold admission of thousands of high school seniors...

Graduating high-school seniors are also known as incoming freshman or legal adults.

> ... because the state’s judges agreed with NIMBY neighborhood groups that population growth is an inherent environmental impact under CEQA.

Ok, let's see how big the UC school system is...

> The University maintains approximately 6,000 buildings enclosing 137 million gross square feet on approximately 30,000 acres across its ten campuses, five medical centers, nine agricultural research and extension centers, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

https://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/2017/chapt...

I'm not seeing evidence that protestors were primarily NIMBYs and pesky white homeowners. I can find several articles citing _student_ protests.

> “It’s students who set up People’s Park in the first place, so it’s our place to defend it,” said Athena Davis, a first-year student at UC Berkeley who spoke at the rally. “It’s up to students to reject the idea that our housing needs to come at the price of destroying green space and homes for the marginalized.”

https://www.berkeleyside.org/2021/01/30/protesters-tear-down...

>>bevr13+(OP)
They're talking about using environmental rules to block homes for people to live in, inside cities.

Using land efficiently in walkable places is one of the most environmentally friendly things we can be doing, and supposed "environmentalists" sought to block it using "environmental" rules!

If that's not NIMBYism to you, you have blinders on.

>>davidw+O5
I didn't say there was NO NIMBYs, but that this article suggests NIMBYs were the primary protestors. That doesn't seem truthful. Additionally, the UC system does have a large impact on the environment.

I'm sure there are better examples to illustrate your point

> homes for people to live in

Student housing. Which likely means partially-furnished studios with shared bathrooms and a kitchenette at best. This isn't the useful housing folks are asking for.

>>davidw+O5
I would just say that NIMBYS that weaponize environmental regulation for purposes it wasn't written for aren't environmentalists.

>>breaky+Sg
That's a great hypothetical, but it's not supported by the article. There are claims that NIMBYs are doing this or that, but follow the links to the supplementary articles and it's baseless. I only find evidence that students and homeless protested. Those aren't NIMBY homeowners.

To me, it seems UC wants to bulldoze a park famous for homeless camps and replace it with student housing. Pro-development is trying to cast the UC expansion in the same light as folks asking for affordable housing. But, UC is not providing useful housing for residents of Berkley.

>>bevr13+9i
Fortunately, this egregious nonsense lead to the CEQA rules being modified so that NIMBYs like these can't weaponize them so easily in situations like this.

https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/06/ceqa-urban-developmen...

>>bevr13+le
It's pretty useful to the students!

That kind of "wait, no, not THAT kind of housing, not HERE" is textbook NIMBYism.

There may have been some student protestors, but the money behind the legal challenges were all wealthy local NIMBYs.