Bayer has evicted the residents of a homeless encampment on a stretch of a West Berkeley street that the city turned over to the pharmaceutical giant earlier this year.
The sweep before dawn on Tuesday was the moment camp residents had feared since the Berkeley City Council approved a plan this summer to give up a roughly 380-foot stretch of public roadway at the west end of Carleton Street, an industrial block that dead-ends at the 46-acre Bayer campus. The company, which is Berkeley’s largest private-sector employer, already owns properties on both sides of the street, and has acquired portions of several other nearby streets from the city; it took ownership of the portion of Carleton Street this month.
Roughly a dozen people lived in cars, recreational vehicles, tents and other shelters at the encampment, which Bayer officials said was a source of problems, such as fires that sent smoke into the company’s nearby facilities…