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By Michelle Hopey 

Special to the Daily Planet 

A parking crunch at Berkeley High School that forced the school to turn several tennis courts into a parking lot, has left some of the players crying foul. 

Three of the six courts on the corner of Milvia Street and Bancroft Way have been turned over to the faculty for parking. School construction, scheduled to begin this week, will be on the site of former parking, said Berkeley High Principal Frank Lynch.  

“In order for us to provide parking for the staff, we needed to pave three of the tennis courts,” Lynch said. “We didn’t want to risk the chance of teachers not coming to school because they have no place to park.” 

With tennis season set to begin Monday, members of the team say they are upset with the way the school handled the situation. 

“It would have been nice to have some prior notice,” said team captain 18-year old Gabe Zeldin. “I wish they had found us other arrangements before they went ahead and paved it. Now we’re scrambling to find a place to play with less than a week until the season (starts).” 

“It would have been nice to have a say in this decision - since we are the ones who are affected,” said team member Jonah Schrogin, who found out about the plan when he walked by the courts two weeks ago and saw crews pouring asphalt. 

Lynch said the school was not required to hold a public hearing or post notices since the tennis courts are owned by the Berkeley Unified School District and it’s not mandatory for school districts to hold such hearings. He said the students don’t need to worry because the school has already put calls in to UC Berkeley to ask to use their courts and has looked at other facilities. 

The push to add more parking comes with the construction of several new academic buildings at the school. A new physical education building, new administrative building and student center, removes 150 faculty parking spaces, said Board of Education President Terry Doran.  

“The tennis courts were one of our worst alternatives, but one that we were forced to use,” said Doran on Tuesday.  

The paving is only temporary say officials and will continue only until the construction is completed, which is expected to be in about three years. 

Originally, BHS had planned to provide parking on the school’s blacktop during the construction. However, that plan changed after a fire destroyed the B Building last year, forcing the school to install portable classrooms on the blacktop.  

In December, the board approved an interim parking plan which called for a request to the city for up to 110 residential parking permits for faculty members to allow them to park full days on residential streets where non-residents are restricted to two-hour parking. However, according to Doran, the city has yet to respond to the board’s request. 

Three weeks ago, with the start date for construction looming and unsure if the application for parking permits would be accepted, Lynch said the school parking committee, along with the board, made the decision to go ahead and begin paving the lot.  

“ We didn’t know what the outcome would be and the construction was starting,” said Lynch, noting that the new lot gives the school 50 parking spaces.  

“It’s extremely unlikely that they’ll get the permits,” said City Councilmember Dona Spring. “There is just not enough parking in this city.” 

Spring said she is concerned with the impact of turning open-space into a parking lot. She said an environmental assessment should have been done to determine the impact. She worries about the Bancroft Way residents being inundated with car fumes since most of the block is surrounded with parking garages.  

“ The situation is only temporary” said Spring. “I am empathetic to their crunch. It is a crisis - they’re really between a rock and a hard place.”  

Regardless, the tennis team, which ranked number two in the East Bay Athletic League last year, is in limbo. 

“ We’re just not sure what we’re going to do,” said Dan Seguin, the BHS tennis coach. “It’s going be hard to run matches on three courts. I mean we can run varsity on three courts, but not junior varsity.  

Seguin fears the JV team will suffer the most, since the JV will probably no longer be able to practice with the varsity team. That will affect the program negatively in the next few years, he said. 

He anticipates that next week will be difficult with try-outs on only three courts.  

“ They say it’s temporary, but I don’t believe them,” said Gabe Zeldin. “ I just hope they find us good facilities to use.”