Occupiers Issue Call to 'Re-Occupy' UC Tract in Albany

Occupy the Farm urban-farming activists have called for another occupation this weekend of a UC lot in Albany that they took over last weekend before being ousted by UC Berkeley police with four arrests Monday.

A flyer on the group's website says, "Re-Occupy the Farm," and urges supporters to bring tools to the contested plot at San Pablo Avenue and Monroe Street next to the University Village graduate student family housing complex. The flyer says to meet at 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

The university issued a statement Wednesday criticizing the Occupy group for an "illegal and misguided occupation" of the plot last weekend.

The two sides have been in conflict over future use of undeveloped university property adjoining University Village. 

Occupy the Farm last year staged a three-week occupation of an adjoining UC field used by university-affiliated researchers for crop research. They were eventually evicted by UC authorities.

Nearly 100 members of the group and supporters returned to a different lot last Saturday and began planting crop seedlings. They were evicted early Monday morning.

Occupy sees the lot they took over last Saturday, located at the northwest corner of San Pablo and Monroe, as agricultural farmland that should be used for urban food cultivation. The university has designated it as the future home of a Sprouts Farmers Market, part of a UC plan for commercial development that has been approved by the Albany City Council.

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