UC Berkeley applicants can finally exhale. Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill on Monday that ends a dispute between the university and a Berkeley neighborhood group. The legislation overrides a court order that would have reduced the incoming freshman class by nearly 3,000 students. The university had been told to cap its enrollment after the group sued, saying the school did not study the environmental impacts of expanding student enrollment.
At the center of the issue was the California Environmental Quality Act, a 1970 law that was intended to protect the environment and wild animals from development. Today, it’s morphed into a tool used by some to kill all sorts of development, even in densely populated cities. Some even blame CEQA for the lack of housing that’s driving up prices and contributing to homelessness.