For five years Berkeley argued about where to put shelters and RV parking. For five of those years a 1.26-acre public site with a paved yard, restrooms and a commercial kitchen sat empty. State law gave Berkeley the first opportunity to buy it. The City passed, and in October 2025 it sold to a private developer for $3 million.
This is an account of one property and one decision that never happened. Every date and figure below is from the school district’s own sale documents, the City’s own statements, or the Council’s meeting record.
The former Oxford Elementary School sits at 1130 Oxford Street, in north Berkeley at the base of the hills. The school moved out in August 2020 after a geotechnical study found the campus sits on an active landslide zone — ground that could shift up to 20 feet in a major earthquake. Children were relocated. The buildings stayed.
Here is how the school district described what it was selling, in its own Notice of Sale:
“approximately 1.26 acres of land (approximately 54,847 square feet)… A large portion of the Property is paved and fenced as a playground. The existing school building… is divided into 16 classrooms, a library, offices, restrooms and a multi-purpose room with an elevated stage and a commercial kitchen… The Property has existing utility service connections (water, electrical, sewage). The building is currently vacant and secured.”
Berkeley Unified School District, Notice of Sale and Bidding Instructions, August 5 2025
A paved, fenced acre with power, water, sewer, toilets and a kitchen. Whatever else that is, it is not a blank lot requiring construction.
Over the same period, Berkeley repeatedly sited homeless facilities and programs — motel conversions, transitional housing, a safe RV parking lot, tiny homes — in the Flats and West Berkeley. None of the sites identified in this review was in the hills.
The RV question in particular went unresolved for years. The City opened its first safe-parking site in 2021 on a Grayson Street lot, and when that arrangement lapsed the search for a replacement continued. City officials have said publicly they could not find a suitable location.
In our record of Council meetings from December 2024 through July 2026, members discussed homeless services and where to put them in 106 separate passages across 22 meetings.
When a California school district sells surplus property, state law requires it to offer the land to other public agencies first. The district did that.
The City’s own administration later confirmed what happened, in writing:
“From what I have been able to gather, the school district in adhering to state law did make the property available to public agencies for consideration. This occurred in summer 2024. It does not appear that the city or any public agency at that time showed any interest in the property… Given our financial constraints, we do not have the resources to bid on this property and the best time to have pursued this opportunity would have been in 2024.”
City of Berkeley administration, relayed to a constituent by Councilmember Igor Tregub, October 10 2025
Independent reporting confirms it: “BUSD gave priority notice, as required by law, to certain public agencies and nonprofits about the site’s availability in June 2024, but did not receive any letters of interest to purchase the land.”
A member of the public used the public comment period to raise it directly:
“Berkeley Unified School District potentially has the solution to the Civic Center Park encampment, because it is sitting on the old Oxford school site, which has been vacant for years… I think the city and Berkeley Unified School District need to partner together and turn it into a shelter… It wouldn’t take that much change in the structure… There’s a building sitting empty and Berkeley Unified School District would like the encampment cleared and they could also use some money. It seems like an easy solution.”
Public comment, Berkeley City Council, March 18 2025
Eight of the nine councilmembers were present. The response, in full, was: “Thank you, Aimee. Are there other?”
The auction was still seven months away.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Aug 5 2025 | Notice of Sale issued. Minimum bid $3,000,000. Ten weeks to respond. |
| Oct 10 2025 | Sealed bid deadline. Zero sealed bids received. |
| Oct 15 2025 | Public auction. One verbal bid, at the $3M minimum, from developer Patrick Kennedy of Panoramic Interests. The buyer plans to demolish the buildings and construct housing. |
The school superintendent’s reported comment after the auction: “That was not exciting.”
No competing bidder appeared at the auction; the sole bid was the $3 million minimum.
In the same period, Council committed money to housing and homeless-service facilities elsewhere. These dollars were not necessarily interchangeable; the comparison establishes scale, not that the total could simply have been redirected to Oxford.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Prop 47 grant acceptance for transitional housing (Sept 30 2025, consent calendar) | $8,000,000 |
| Operator contract including a 30-room hotel master lease (Nov 18 2025, consent calendar) | $7,920,000 |
| Total committed to siting in that window | $15,920,000 |
| Price of the Oxford site | $3,000,000 |
The City received the public-agency opportunity to pursue a large public parcel and did not express interest. Nine months later it was told again, in public session, by a resident proposing exactly the use the Council was struggling to site. Seven months after that the property sold to the only bidder who showed up.
The buildings are to be demolished. A public parcel, once sold, is not reacquired on comparable terms.
The failure was not that Berkeley declined to buy Oxford. It was that a potentially relevant public asset passed through two opportunities for consideration without the City ever determining whether it could solve a problem Council was simultaneously struggling to solve.