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The city’s Planning Commission will again open hearings Wednesday on a controversial plan to temporarily halt the conversion of industrial space to office space in parts of west Berkeley. 

Earlier this year, the commission had recommended that the City Council approve a one-year moratorium on office conversions in area zoned for mixed-use/light-industrial purposes in the West Berkeley Plan. But after city planners said that they had not properly notified the public about the commission’s meetings on the topic, the City Council, on June 12, told the Planning Commission to start the process over. 

At least one major office conversion in the MU-LI zone is currently in the works. Publishers Group West, at 1700 Fourth St., wants to take over space now used by its neighbor, clothing manufacturer Tom Tom. 

The West Berkeley Plan, which was instituted in 1993, is designed to preserve manufacturing in the city. In an interview last week, Planning Commissioner Zelda Bronstein said that the moratorium is necessary if the intentions of the plan are to be fulfilled 

“The word diversity still means something in Berkeley — that includes diversity in the economic sense, and in the social sense,” she said. “We want to provide good, well-paying blue collar jobs.” 

But the rules of development in the MU-LI zone, which are at the heart of the current moratorium debate, do include certain provisions for industrial space to offices. Over 160,000 square feet in buildings zoned MU-LI were converted to offices between 1997 and 2000. 

Bronstein laid much of the blame for the current weakness