Page One

Future of University Ave.
development is uncertain 

The Berkeley City Council will determine the fate of a family-owned flower shop that has become a lightning rod in the battle between preservationists and developers. 

Preservationists thought they had succeeded in blocking plans by developer Patrick Kennedy to turn the Darling Flower Shop, at 2008 University Ave., into a 30-unit housing complex. 

Now, though, the project’s defeat is far from certain. A ruling by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission which many perceived as the end of the new development was recently overturned by the city’s Zoning Adjustments Board. 

At a July 11 meeting, the ZAB voted 8-1 to issue a use permit for the demolition of the flower shop and the adjoining Victorian house which dates back to the 1880s. 

The use permit flew in the face of a July 1 decision of the landmarks commission, designating the site as a “structure of merit” and giving the landmarks commission exclusive control over the fate of the historic structure, according to commissioners. 

But according to city planner Matt Legrant, the ZAB is in the right. The ZAB has the ultimate authority to decide whether a building is demolished, he said. 

The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, though, says it will appeal the ZAB’s authority to City Council. 

The appeal will center on two issues: that the ZAB did not have the authority to issue a use permit on a “structure of merit” and that it violated California law by approving a insufficient substitute for assessing environmental impacts of the proposed development. 

According to Leslie Emmington, a landmarks commissioner and member of the heritage association, all historic properties are required to undergo an environmental impact report before they can be redeveloped. But the ZAB ignored this fact, she said, and approved only a mitigated negative declaration. 

City Council will have several options, according to Emmington. It could overturn the ZAB’s use permit or approve the permit, or it could delay demolition until a comprehensive Environmental Impact Report is performed. 

This is not the first time the council has mediated conflicting rulings of the ZAB and the landmarks commission. In the late 1990s, the council backed the ZAB’s use permit for the demolition of the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley when landmark commissioners were protesting it. 

In that case, the heritage association sued the city for approving the use permit without an environmental impact report. During the legal procedures a compromise was reached between the parties, maintaining the church’s historic features. 

Emmington has not ruled out legal action in the case of the Darling Flower Shop. However, she hopes a compromise can be reached before it would come to that. 

Contact reporter at matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net