Photo: Occupy The Farm
ALBANY — The activists organized as “Occupy the Farm” are not giving up their fight against a mixed use development by the University of California at a portion of its property along San Pablo Avenue, despite the loss in court of an appeal under the California Environmental Quality Act.
Occupy the Farm has announced it will be holding a protest event at the property at San Pablo Avenue and Monroe Street on July 16. “Love the Land? Take a Stand!” is the name of the event, scheduled for 4 p.m.
The event is timed to mark one month since the June 16 ruling by the state Court of Appeals, which voted 3-0 to deny the appeal. The group asks protesters to join them “one month after the court’s misruling to take a stand and demonstrate refusal to accept the misuse of public land in utter disregard of environmental and public health.”
The project, on a portion of the university property known as the Gill Tract, has been in the works for many years. Development is slated to include a Sprouts Farmers Market and senior housing. Building permits are expected to be issued during the summer.
Occupy the Farm entered the fray in April of 2012, when a group of urban activist farmers broke into land near the proposed development to plant crops and “occupy” the site.
University police forcibly removed the protesters three weeks later, but protesters subsequently broke into the property multiple times.
Eventually, the university allowed a joint community farm to be planted on the property that was occupied.
Stefanie Rawlings, a member of Occupy the Farm, had sued in 2012 to stop the project, joined in the action by Albany resident Eric Larsen. Former City Council candidate Ulan McKnight also joined the lawsuit after the initial ruling went against Rawlings and Larsen.
Occupy the Farm created a Facebook event page for the latest protest that reads, “For three years, the commercial development project that is slated to pave the southern seven acres of the historic Gill Tract has been held off by a lawsuit. On June 16, the courts ruled in favor of the UC, citing that their polluting, privatizing, pavement project breaks no state laws.”
The statement goes on to claim that “the neighborhood surrounding the Gill Tract already ranks in the top 2 percent nationwide for traffic congestion” without the added traffic of a new development and “ranks in the top 22 percent nationwide for asthma rates.”