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The owners of the Berkeley Motel, who wish to replace their small building with a three-story hotel, received rough treatment at the hands of the Zoning Adjustments Board Thursday night. 

Sudha Patel, who has owned the little motel at 2001 Bancroft Way for over 20 years, has submitted plans to demolish the motel, which was built in 1925, and construct a 30-unit hotel with retail space on the side of the building that fronts Milvia Street. 

The city’s Design Review Committee had approved architect Kava Massih’s drawings for the proposed new building on Sept. 20. Nevertheless, the ZAB, on which two interim members sat Thursday evening, called several aspects of the design “inadequate,” and sent the plan back to the DRC for the third time. 

The motel is located across the street from Berkeley High School, and is at the southwest corner of the giant “Library Gardens” project, which appears to be headed for easy approval at the ZAB’s next meeting on Oct. 11. 

Paul Schwartz, a Berkeley attorney whom Mayor Shirley Dean has appointed to the ZAB on a temporary basis, while board member Rosemarie Pietras is on leave, called the proposed motel “ugly.” 

“Berkeley deserves better,” he said. 

Patel and Massih had asked the ZAB for a permit to place the new building right up against the sidewalk, with no “setback” from pedestrian traffic as is often required in residential areas. Many ZAB members voiced their concern about the effect on pedestrians of a building not set back on that corner. 

Schwartz said that his principal concern was that the building was too “massive.” He said he would have preferred to see fewer than 30 units in the new building, which he and other members said should be set back from the sidewalk. 

The board said that if it were forced to vote on the project during that night’s meeting, it would most likely be denied and Patel would have to appeal the decision to the City Council. However, the board gave her the option of waiving her rights under the Permit Streamlining Act – which requires city planning agencies to approve or deny projects within six months after their applications are completed – so that the DRC could look at the project again. Patel’s architect chose to waive his PSA rights. 

In an interview on Friday, Massih said that the setback requirement was inappropriate for an urban area. 

“Where are we – In Irvine, or in Berkeley?” he asked. “This is a totally suburban move.” 

“With these setbacks, the commercial space we worked so hard to provide for the neighborhood is going to have to be sacrificed.” 

The site of the motel itself is in a zone that permits building with no setback requirement, but because it is bordered on two sides by neighborhoods zoned residential it required a no-setback permit from the ZAB. 

David Blake, who is a member of both the ZAB and the DRC but was absent from Thursday’s ZAB meeting, was surprised by the decision. 

“It’s unusual not to grant a use permit for no setback, particularly with Library Gardens going up next door,” he said. “But DRC will have to look at it to see if this project can be effectively built without a setback.” 

Blake said that while the DRC was not completely enthusiastic about the proposed motel, it did think that it would pass muster at the ZAB. 

“I don’t think that Design Review loved the way it looked, but considering the limitation of their budget, we thought it was acceptable,” he said. 

Schwartz said on Friday that he did want to see a new building at that site, given that “the current building is a bit of an eyesore,” but that the prominence of the site called for caution. 

“It’s a very sensitive site, in my mind, being right across from the high school on a prominent corner,” he said. 

“I really appreciate the fact that the applicants are trying to improve the corner. I would just like it to be a bit more aesthetically pleasing than the current design.” 

Massih said that in light of his recent experiences, the Permit Streamlining Act seems somewhat irrelevant – and he thought the city suffers. 

“The planning department had set up these deadlines, just so that things don’t get dragged on so long,” he said. “What’s the point of that, if you can threaten me with killing the project or taking it before the council?” 

“Every time the process gets dragged on, it costs the project something. The cost ends up coming out of the product – the building. By dragging it out, you end up getting cheaper buildings – and I don’t think that that’s what the city really wants.”