Community Corner

Occupiers Leave UC Lot in Albany

After camping overnight and holding workshops Sunday, Occupy the Farm activists voluntarily departed from the UC Berkeley lot in Albany that they have occupied for the past three weekends.

The latest weekend occupation of a UC Berkeley lot in Albany by Occupy the Farm activists ended Sunday when the group left voluntarily.

UC police keeping watch at the university-owned site said they left about 6:30 p.m.

They had gathered around 5 p.m. Saturday, played music and camped in the evening, and held workshops Sunday. A visit by Patch about 3:40 p.m. saw about 20 members of the group on the field at the northwest corner of San Pablo Avenue and Monroe Street next to the University Village graduate student family housing complex.

A campus spokesman said Saturday that the university's patience is running out and that UC will secure the property if the occupations continue. UC police told group via periodic warnings through a bullhorn that they are trespassing and face potential arrest. 

Occupy spokeswoman Lesley Haddock said the group held two open-air workshops Sunday, on non-violent tactics and on the urban-farming movement, and then added compost to the field where they had earlier planted crops that UC plowed under. She said the group intends to return to the field every couple of weeks for more workshops.

It was the third weekend in a row the group moved in on a Saturday and set up camp. On the previous weekend, they left voluntarily, and on their first weekend, police evicted them with four arrests on Monday morning after the group camped for two nights.

UC has proposed using the lot for commercial development, to be anchored by a Sprouts Farmers Market. The plan also calls for senior housing and more retail in another vacant lot on the other side of Monroe from the occupied lot. The Albany City Council in July approved UC-sponsored commercial and senior housing development on the two plots. 

Occupy the Farm staged a three-week occupation and crop-planting a year ago on the Gill Tract agricultural research field, which is near the site occupied the past three weekends. They were evicted by campus authorities.


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