Features

The battle between preservationists and would-be housing developers over the fate of a 19th-century Victorian home at 2526 Durant Ave. is expected to heat up in the next few weeks, as the city puts the final touches on the project’s environmental impact report (EIR) and considers whether to issue a permit allowing developers to replace the historical Ellen Blood house with a 31,000-square-foot, five-story development that will include two retail establishments and 44 units of housing. 

On Thursday, the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) will consider whether the final EIR, which was released in April 2003, is adequate. State law mandates that local entities approve an EIR for any project that threatens to significantly impact a historical resource, so that they can examine solutions that may mitigate such impacts. 

The Blood House, a two-story structure built in 1891 that is now being used for office space, was designated a city structure of merit in September 1999. Among the reasons for the designation are the building’s Queen Anne style decor—characterized by textured shingles, curved and turned woodwork, lattice brackets and patterned masonry—and its status as one of only a handful of 19th-century buildings on the historic College Homestead tract, a Southside neighborhood developed at the turn of the last century. The house is located in the Telegraph Avenue commercial district near Bowditch Street between two other structures of merit, the Beau Sky Hotel and the Albra Apartments. 

Preservationists have taken issue with the EIR’s position that the Blood House, although a historic resource as defined by the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, has lost its historic integrity due to extensive alteration, including the paving over of its original garden and the replacement of its original exterior with cement plaster. 

One such preservationist is Sally Sachs, former president of the board of directors of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. In a letter commenting on the draft EIR, Sachs said the EIR’s authors, in pointing to the alterations to the building’s exterior, “establish a ridiculously low threshold of historic significance.” 

Despite the EIR’s half-hearted defense of the Blood House as a historic resource, its final conclusion on the matter may make it tougher for developers to go through with their plans. The EIR concludes that the project’s proposal to demolish or remove the Blood House constitutes a significant impact that cannot be mitigated. That means that in order for developers to carry out plans to destroy or relocate the Blood House, they will have to convince the ZAB and City Council to craft and approve a Statement of Overriding Considerations, which lists reasons why the development should proceed despite harm to a historic resource. 

“In this particular case,” said Greg Powell, senior planner and Landmarks Preservation Commission staff person, “the city may find that the need to produce our fair share of housing [in the region] outweighs the benefit of preserving a historic structure.” 

The Statement of Overriding Considerations must be approved if the city decides to issue a use permit for the project, and both City Council and the ZAB must approve it. 

Blood House defenders and the house owner say they are hoping for a win-win situation. Carrie Olson, a Landmarks Preservation commissioner, said she hopes the property owners, the Ruegg & Ellsworth company, will voluntarily decide to make a good faith effort to move the house, which she describes as huge and “beautiful inside” despite its stucco exterior. “The notion of putting a notice on it for several months in hopes that someone will come forward is not good enough,” she said. “We need to ask for concrete solutions, such as contacting property owners of the vacant lots around Berkeley to see if they would be interested in taking the house.”