In 2024, Berkeley approved buying a 5,700-year-old Ohlone village site with funds largely raised by an Indigenous land trust, after a condo plan threatened the sacred land

In March 2024, Berkeley, California, agreed to purchase a parking lot atop an ancient Ohlone village and transfer the property to Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, an Indigenous-led organisation. The $27 million settlement concluded a legal dispute between the city and property developer Ruegg & Ellsworth LLC. Of the total purchase price, the land trust contributed $25.5 million, and Berkeley's general fund provided the remaining $1.5 million.The site, situated at 1900 Fourth Street in West Berkeley, is the last undeveloped portion of the West Berkeley Ohlone Shellmound area, which was designated a landmark in 2000 by the city. According to the Associated Press, the village dates back an estimated 5,700 years, when the shell mound served as a ceremonial and burial site, made from shells, human remains, and artefacts. Its return followed years of disagreement over whether the property should be developed for housing or preserved because of its cultural significance.How the shell mound became the centre of a legal disputeEfforts to develop the property, which was formerly the Spenger’s Fish Grotto parking lot, were met with opposition from some Ohlone people for whom the site was sacred. Berkeley had blocked a streamlined permit for the proposed housing development in 2018, which prompted Ruegg & Ellsworth to sue the city. The project’s outline included 260 apartments, of which 50% were designated as affordable housing, alongside retail space and parking.The dispute over the development application brought Bay Area housing needs into direct conflict with Indigenous heritage protection, which landed Berkeley in murky waters of legal consequences. The city was ordered by an Alameda County Superior Court judge, in February 2024, to pay $2.6 million, coupled with $1.4 million in legal fees, for violating the Housing Accountability Act. Subsequently, the $27 million purchase, separate from that $4 million, enabled the property to be transferred to the land trust.Preceding the planning dispute, the site’s history goes back to before the Spanish colonisation, when it was home to an Ohlone village, and a shell mound about six metres high stood there and spanned the size of a football field. The same report adds that Spanish colonisers had displaced Ohlone people from their villages and forced them into labour at local missions. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Anglo settlers took over the land, levelled the shell mound and used its shells in Berkeley roadbeds.Plans for an Ohlone cultural siteThe transfer gives opportunity to the Indigenous community members to determine how the property could recognise and preserve their heritage. Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, dedicated to returning Indigenous people their land, secured its purchase funds with a $20 million contribution from the Kataly Foundation, a family foundation funded by Regan Pritzker and her husband, Chris Olin. Corrina Gould, a co-founder and director of the trust, led the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Ohlone, a group that represented seven tribes across the Bay Area and, alongside Berkeley, had also participated in the lawsuit. Gould described the outcome as significant for the Lisjan people, whose cultural connection to the site continues.Plans discussed in March 2024 envision a commemorative park, a reconstructed shell mound, and a cultural centre intended to house Indigenous artefacts. The potential exhibits include jewellery, baskets, and other objects held at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Sophie Hahn, a Berkeley council member, has also identified green space for Ohlone ceremonies and a burial site for repatriated remains from the university. However, these proposals have not yet been confirmed as completed facilities.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.