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The demolition process has begun in the construction of the new Congregation Beth El synagogue, the 35,000-square-foot project that pitted the synagogue against neighborhood activists. 

Neighbors who are opposed to the expansion said the project would prevent the future opening, or daylighting, of Codornices Creek, which runs through a culvert on the southern portion of the construction site, and create parking and traffic problems in the area. 

On Monday, workers began clearing trees, many of them mature cypresses that neighborhood activists had asked the synagogue to preserve. A ground-breaking ceremony will be held June 15 to kick off the demolition and construction process. 

The project, located on Oxford Street near Spruce Street, is expected to be monitored closely by two committees formed last year as part of an agreement between the synagogue and neighbors.  

The committees, composed of representatives from the synagogue and the neighborhood, will meet throughout the construction process to make sure the developer is abiding by the plans agreed to as a condition of its use permit. The plans include promises to restore and protect the creek and to provide enough parking to prevent neighborhood traffic congestion. 

“We have worked with and will continue to work with the committees,” said Harry Pollack, a spokesman for the synagogue and a city planning commissioner. 

David Dempster is a project neighbor and chairman of the Live Oak Codornices Creek Neighborhood Association (LOCCNA), the group that fought to block the project in 2001. He said he hopes neighbors and the synagogue can keep the lines of communication open to prevent any acrimony. 

“Since the signing of the agreement, I have made efforts to try to be as welcoming as possible to CBE because they’re going to be our neighbors and I want to make sure we have the best possible relationship,” he said. 

Juliet Lamont, a neighbor who lives one block from the new synagogue site and a member of the creeks committee that will monitor Beth El’s compliance with its proposed creeks restoration plan, said she didn’t want to “build ill will” with the synagogue but was disappointed that so many trees were cut down.  

Lamont said neighbors had repeatedly asked Beth El to save as many trees as possible, and the developer has agreed to preserve many of the trees in the southern portion of the project. But on the north end, where the synagogue will be built, at least 80 percent of the trees, which total over 100, had been cut down in the past week, she said. 

“The whole perimeter was denuded,” she said. “It was a shock and it’s really a tragedy that this could happen on any site like that, not just for this site but for all of Berkeley.”  

Lamont said the Beth El project points to the need for not only a stronger creeks protection ordinance in the city, but also for the creation of a mature tree protection ordinance.