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PC coffee, height limits voted down

By Kurtis Alexander Daily Planet Staff
Wednesday November 06, 2002

Berkeley’s two most-watched ballot measures appeared well on their way to defeat late Tuesday night. 

With 68 percent of city precincts reported, residents were appearing jittery about calls for socially-conscience coffee, voting 70 to 30 percent against the initiative that would require retailers to brew and sell only organic, shade-grown or “Fair Trade” cups of coffee. 

Berkeley voters also weighed in on the increasingly contentious issue of urban growth, rejecting an initiative that aimed to steer high-rise housing out of the city. 

With 68 percent of precincts reported, the initiative was losing 79 to 21 percent. 

Both Measure P, the height initiative, and Measure O, the coffee initiative, pushed historic thresholds of citizen-driven initiatives, bringing such issues as international trade and population growth into the realm of local policy-making. 

While disappointed by the loss of the height initiative, supporters remained confident that their attempts to put limits on the heights of new buildings could be established through other means. 

“There are three lawsuits against the city in regard to development and others in the pipeline,” said height initiative author Howie Muir, claiming that the city has illegally approved oversized projects and will likely be admonished by the courts. 

The height initiative had sought to reduce Berkeley’s population density by cutting permissible height limits along several major traffic corridors. On sections of San Pablo Avenue, under the initiative, limits would have dropped from four stories to two and on parts of University, Shattuck and College avenues height limits would have dropped an average of one story. 

“We’re the 20th densist city in the country for cities with more than 100,000 people,” Muir noted. 

While campaign literature conjured images of the Manhatten skyline taking shape in Berkeley, opponents of the height initiative said the rhetoric was overdone. 

Garnering support from the League of Women Voters, the entire City Council and advocates of so-called smart growth, the opposition made the case that much-needed housing opportunities would be lost if the measure passed. 

“We need to be able to continue revitalizing corridors like San Pablo and provide affordable housing along transit corridors. Measure P wouldn’t allow either of these things,” said Stuart Cohen, executive director of the Oakand-based Transportation and Land Use Coalition. 

A sign held by an opponent of the measure read, “Don’t P on Berkeley.” 

Opposition to Berkeley’s high-profile coffee initiative met with similar success. 

Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Starbucks Coffee and the National Coffee Association, each throwing more than $10,000 into the opposition effort, argued that politically correct coffee would hurt both local businesses and consumers because of its higher wholesale cost. 

Supporters of the coffee initiative, though, said untold costs of labor exploitation and environmentally-destructive farming practices would far exceed any local price increases. 

“If this would have passed, my money would have gone to small farmers who are struggling to survive. Now it goes to corporate farms and companies that don’t care about labor practices,” said Rick Young who authored the coffee initiative.