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Court orders UC Berkeley enrollment freeze over CEQA suit

By Madison Hirneisen, The Center Square, February 15, 2022

“The enrollment freeze stems from an Alameda County Superior Court ruling in August that ordered the university to cap student enrollment at 2020-21 levels, which the university said Monday was an ‘abnormally low’ enrollment year due to the pandemic.

“The university said [on February 14] that it had appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court of California.

“The lower court ruling that ordered an enrollment freeze stemmed from a lawsuit brought forth by a group known as ‘Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods,’ which challenged … the campus expansion under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

“Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods argued in August that UC Berkeley had exacerbated the city’s housing crisis because it did not build enough housing for its students.

“[Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the Senate Housing Committee chair, said,] ‘Let’s be clear: This was never the point of CEQA. This broken status quo must change. Stay tuned.’”

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