http://www.insidebayarea.com/timesstar/localnews/ci_8138560
By Kristin Bender, STAFF WRITER
02/01/2008
BERKELEY A meeting to address ways to make People's Park safer and
more accessible to a wide range of people will be held Monday.
The University of California, which owns the 2.8-acre park off
Telegraph Avenue, is holding a community meeting to respond to the
35-page report by MKThink Inc., a San Francisco-based firm hired by
the university.
The consultants spent six months and held more than 40 community
meetings to come up with a draft plan to improve the historic park.
In recent years, the park between Haste Street and Dwight Way has
built a reputation as a haven for drug dealers and users and as a
crash pad for homeless people, city and UC Berkeley officials say.
What's more, UC police reported a fair share of petty and violent
crime near the park in recent months.
The draft plan recommends:
-Promoting and expanding special events and recreational activities
in the park.
-Encouraging smaller, community-based events such as theatrical
performances, poetry readings, art installations, farmers' markets
and outdoor workshops.
-Supporting university-sponsored campus programs in the park,
including recreational, educational and ongoing cultural activities.
-Landscaping, thinning and/or removing the vegetation along the
park's corners and in wooded areas and installing better signs.
Installing more trash and recycling receptacles and having more
maintenance resources for park management.
-Looking at ways to connect the park to Telegraph Avenue and its
adjacent merchants.
-Enforcing existing regulations pertaining to camping in the park and
laws pertaining to public behavior and drug and alcohol use.
-Formally recognizing the park's history and its significance to the
community and the city.
The report also recommends improving drainage and lighting and
providing clear, well-marked pathways through the park, with seating
in appropriate locations.
The park was initially built by students and community members who
gathered at the lot on a weekend in April 1969 and planted trees and
flowers. They laid sod and put up playground equipment, benches and
tables and named it People's Park.
A month later, UC Berkeley moved to take back the land for student
housing, calling in hundreds of police to help. What followed was a
battle between police and young people that spread into the streets
and on to the campus. UC backed off and the park has been open space
ever since.
The meeting is 7 p.m. Monday at Trinity Methodist Church, 2362
Bancroft Way, Berkeley.
The full draft report is available online at
http://www.communityrelations.berkeley.edu/.
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Contact Kristin Bender at kbender@bayareanewsgroup.com or 510-208-6453.
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