Imagine Peoples Park filled with students on their laptops and community neighbors walking dogs, along with the homeless continuing to sleep and use illegal drugs throughout the area. While this vision for a park would seem odd anywhere outside of Berkeley, university officials perceive it to be a harmonious one for an improved Peoples Park.
A new plan proposed by San Francisco consulting firm MKThink hopes to renovate the 40-year-old park and attract a greater variety of people. Such changes include added seating, picnic tables, and a caf. The goal is that these changes will draw more students to study and socialize. In a dense area where open space is scarce, the renovation hopes to be beneficial to all people in the community.
Long a symbol of hippie counterculture, Peoples Park became a landmark in 1969 after students seized the land to protest Governor Ronald Reagans approach toward the protesters. It gave way to the Free Speech Movement, and came to symbolize progressive values. Sometimes used as a venue for concerts, the park is generally used infrequently by the public in favor of neighboring Willard Park.
More than 4,000 local undergraduates in need of an escape from high-rise living could benefit from the park. However, this conflicts with the parks current status as a habitation for displaced persons. Common folklore makes it a modern leper colony, one considered off-limits to most people, including the student body. It is filthy and smells of urine, and drug-dealing occurs within the park. Also, the gardens offer little vegetation, there are no fountains or sculptures, the only art is graffiti along the bathroom wall, and, with all of the marijuana smoke everywhere, nature-lovers are probably not bird-watching.
Plans by MKThink include adding a new garden and caf, developing a skate park, and upgrading the restrooms. However, it is not realistic to implement these changes because of the continued poor management of park behavior. Lax regulation regarding camping has made the park virtually off-limits to outsiders, especially at night, when the place becomes even more menacing because of poor lighting and the variety of street people engaging in questionable behavior. Also, the southside location is a high-crime area, which had several armed robberies last year. Peoples Park remains a place notorious for such criminal activity and is reducing the quality of life in the surrounding area.
Put simply, people avoid Peoples Park out of fear. For one of the worlds most prestigious universities to preside over such a dangerous plot of land has become a major source of shame for UC Berkeley.
The universitys long-term plan is to preserve this space. Yet who will the changes be made for? Are they on the students side? Much like the tree-sit protest by the stadium, there is an ideological battle as to what the land represents and how it should be used. In addition to those who want to preserve the park as a monument to radical activism, there are the homeless advocates who want to preserve it as a filthy campsite.
Across the bay, Mayor Gavin Newsom pursued a lockout on the homeless in San Francisco parks, encouraging compliance with the Care Not Cash program. The city of Berkeley is running the Public Commons for Everyone Initiative to mitigate the homeless issue, but the homeless remain.
The citys shortcomings aside, UC Berkeley is responsible for Peoples Park and should begin a park lockout like that in San Francisco. If the university takes this step, it should have much greater success than San Francisco, since the area in question is not all parks in a major city, but rather is contained in a city block. The UC Police Department would simply need to enforce laws against camping and deviant behavior so visitors feel more comfortable attending the park. To do so would require a larger police presence at all hours of the day and night.
This is a necessary first step. Upgrades to Peoples Park would be a waste of time and money if there is not a sense of security for community neighbors and students.
Successful parks offer a place for relaxation and natural beauty. They should be places where one can throw a Frisbee or walk the dog, rather than worry about stepping on used syringes. People deserve parks that offer amenities such as play areas and clean open spaces. The welfare of the community would benefit from an open space that was inviting and allowed a sense of safety.
Peoples Park, an infamous tourist attraction, is part of what makes Berkeley unique to some supporters. Yet for a real solution, some common sense is needed before people start rushing to put a Band-Aid on the open sore that is Peoples Park. The university needs to finally stand up to the homeless advocates who relish the way the park is now, remove the vagrants from the site, and police effectively to prevent other crime from occurring there. Only after this has been done should the university embark on other plans to improve the park.
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