UC to Lease, Not Build on, ‘People’s Park’ : Berkeley: A pact with the city is meant to settle 20 years of controversy over the site. One person was killed and dozens hurt in a 1969 riot there.

UC Berkeley has dropped its controversial plan to build a dormitory on “People’s Park” and will lease much of the property

a symbol of student radicalism and haven for the homeless--to the city of Berkeley as open space, according to an agreement signed this week.

A still undetermined portion of the 2.8-acre plot behind Telegraph Avenue will be kept under University of California control for recreation and informal sports. But the rest will be rented to the city for one dollar a year for at least the next five years, with the likelihood of lease extensions, officials said. The campus has taken the proposed 200-bed dormitory out of its long-term plans through the year 2005.

“I think it is exceedingly necessary for the city and the university to cooperate when it comes to that parcel of land,” said UC Berkeley Chancellor Ira Michael Heyman, noting that the issue has been vexing officials for 20 years.

In May, 1969, one person was killed and dozens injured in a student confrontation with sheriff’s deputies and National Guardsmen over a UC plan to build a soccer field on the site.

Heyman wanted to resolve the future of the park before he retires at the end of this school year, according to aides. Berkeley Mayor Loni Hancock said the agreement signed on Monday will prove to be “a great legacy” from Heyman.

“I think it’s a great step forward both for the city, which needs the open space, and for the university,” Hancock said. “We want it to return to being a park the entire community can enjoy.”

However, both Heyman and Hancock cautioned that details remain to be negotiated and that a final settlement will require approval from the Berkeley City Council and the UC Board of Regents.

The park today is a troubled resting spot for the homeless, who frighten off some student passers-by. The university had hoped the dormitory would help reclaim the park from the homeless and drug dealers. Instead, the new plan calls for the university and city to work together on building a multiservice facility for the homeless on other UC-owned land in southwest Berkeley and to encourage the construction of low-cost housing in the city.

Hancock stressed that even such measures will not mean all the homeless will leave the park. More federal and state funding for mental health centers, job training and housing is needed to help the homeless, she said.

Lisa Stephens, a UC Berkeley graduate who helped lead a campaign against the dormitory, said she too welcomes the settlement. “It’s positive in that the chancellor finally has seen that the only possible option is keep it as open space,” she said. But Stephens added that she is worried about how the details of the agreement will be handled. For example, UC has foiled attempts by activists to build permanent toilets in the park.

Last spring, during celebrations for the park’s 20th anniversary, Mayor Hancock suggested that the only appropriate building on the land would be a museum about Berkeley’s role in the history of the 1960s. “You wouldn’t build a dormitory on the battlefield of Gettysburg,” she said at the time. On Tuesday, Hancock said it was too early to make any plans for such a museum.

To the chagrin of UC administrators and then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, the park was created in the spring of 1969 by students, hippies and political activists on a lot that was supposed to be made into a university soccer field. The bloody riot erupted after the university fenced in the land that had become a shrine for the 1960s counter-culture.

Students boycotted the playing field for several years and the fence finally came down in 1972 after other protests. The western side then became a free-for-all parking lot until 1979 when the university tried to start charging fees and protesters ripped up the pavement with pickaxes. UC then dropped the idea of a paid lot and has since warily negotiated park use with activists. Community gardens, a small stage and an open playing field now dot the park.

Passions were aroused again last spring by activities marking the park’s 20th anniversary and the university’s announcement of a plan to build the dormitory, a dining hall and an underground garage on about a third of the park. The City Council urged UC to transfer the park to city ownership. A protest rally against the dormitory last May ended in a violent looting rampage on Berkeley streets by area teen-agers, many of whom had little sense of the political history of the park.

The agreement on People’s Park is part of a wider settlement that is supposed to mark a new era of cooperation between the often feuding city and campus. Other items include payments by UC for sewer services, city review of other proposed off-campus dormitories and a plan to help ease traffic.