BERKELEY, Calif. — The California Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that UC Berkeley can proceed with its controversial plan to build high-rise student housing on the site of storied People’s Park just south of the college campus.

In a unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, the court overturned an appellate court ruling and dismissed a lawsuit filed by opponents of the development, writing: “In short, as all parties have effectively acknowledged, this lawsuit poses no obstacle to the development of the People’s Park housing project.”

“We are pleased and relieved that the Supreme Court’s decision enables the campus to resume construction at People’s Park,” UC Berkeley officials said in a prepared statement. “The housing components of the project are desperately needed by our students and unhoused people, and the entire community will benefit from the fact that more than 60% of the 2.8-acre site will be revitalized as open park space.”

The statement said details on the construction timeline would be released in the weeks ahead.

A small group of park supporters — who had set up a morning vigil outside the blockaded green space to await the decision — reacted with dismay as one of their members read the decision from her phone.

“It’s not looking good for the home team, y’all,” the activist said as she scanned the decision. “Everyone take a deep breath.”

“Boo,” the group shouted as key points were read out. “Shame!”

The ruling marks what may — finally — be a decisive final chapter in a land-use saga that came into being when activists seized the parcel in a moment of 1960s protest and built a park with their own hands, hauling in sod and planting flowers. That launched a 55-year experiment in utopian ideals — and the harsh realities that sometimes trail after them.

The park just off Telegraph Avenue was born in 1969, after free speech radicals seized the property from the University of California, setting off weeks of tense confrontations between activists and law enforcement. The idea was that it would be a space of refuge, the embodiment of freedom and creativity, just blocks from the hurly-burly of undergraduate housing, restaurants, bars and bookstores that form the heart of Berkeley’s southside.

“It was a place where people who were countercultural or creative or unusual could manifest and exist in community,” Andrea Pritchett, a Berkeley resident who sits on the People’s Park Council advocacy group, said in an interview earlier this year. “The point was that if you wanted to organize a group, you sit under the shade of the trees and organize.”

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