Features

In the latest chapter of the struggle to define West Berkeley, the Planning Commission held a public workshop on proposed zoning amendments that would restrict office development and protect light industry and arts and crafts studios. 

About 150 people attended the Wednesday workshop, which sought public input on 12 recommendations made by a Planning Commission sub-committee. The recommendations include calls for an inventory of industrial property uses, that proposed office development meet higher standards before use permits are granted and that guidelines in the West Berkeley Plan be more thoroughly shifted into the city’s zoning ordinance. 

The meeting room in the North Berkeley Senior Center was filled to capacity with artists, craftspeople, manufacturers, property owners, architects, office developers and West Berkeley home owners. Of the people who spoke, many were concerned that additional office restrictions would create an economic backlash. Others said they felt unprotected against real estate market forces that could entice property owners to evict small businesses and craft studios in favor of office-oriented businesses, which can pay up to three times as much in rent. 

Industrial designer Darrell deTienne said the zoning ordinance should allow as much economic flexibility as possible to accommodate a constantly changing business environment. 

“We’re going down a slippery slope,” deTienne said about the sub-committee’s recommendations. “Over-regulation is a problem and social engineering is a problem.” 

Clover Catskill, who runs Wildcat Dance Studio in the Sawtooth Building, said the West Berkeley dance scene is already in need of space and that office conversation threatens what little space there is. 

“There is a fairly lively dance community in west Berkeley,” Catskill said. “We need a huge amount of square footage and there isn’t a whole lot of available space. If we lose what we have, there’s nowhere else in the Bay Area for us to go.” 

Richard Brooks, a two-year Berkeley resident who works in San Francisco, said high residential property values result in mostly white collar workers moving to Berkeley. He said the city should encourage office development to provide non-commute jobs for new property owners.  

“To live here, you have to make a lot of money and right now those jobs are in San Francisco,” he said.  

Painter Caitlin Mitchell Dayton, who has a live-work space in the Nexus Building at 2701 Eighth street said she’s seen studio space dry up in the 17 years she has lived and worked in west Berkeley.  

“It used to seem to be easier to find a little space where you could work in West Berkeley,” she said. “When San Francisco artists lost their places, they would come here to find a new space, now they go to East Oakland or Richmond.” 

The West Berkeley Plan was adopted by the City Council in 1993. The plan was the result of eight years of weekly meetings attended by West Berkeley stakeholders, many of whom spoke at Wednesday’s workshop. 

The plan was meant to guide development and, ideally, many of its guidelines were to become city policy or adopted into the zoning ordinance. 

Primarily at issue is the Mixed Use -Light Industrial District, also known as the MULI. The district covers approximately 60 blocks in West Berkeley and stretches between the city’s northern and southern borders. 

The MULI is characterized by a wide variety of land uses including arts and crafts studios, wineries, manufacturing, offices, warehouses and laboratories. 

Three planning commissioners are concerned that office development in West Berkeley will overwhelm light industry and change the district’s character. Chair Zelda Bronstein, Vice Chair Gene Poschman and Commissioner John Curl compiled a report, released in March, that contends the West Berkeley Plan has not been fully adopted into city policy or the zoning ordinance. They argue the result is the endangerment of blue collar jobs and arts and crafts studios by widespread office development. 

“The West Berkeley Plan represents an effort to protect the most diverse, most creative and in some ways the most vibrant part of Berkeley,” Bronstein said. “That diversity can only be maintained by public policy. If you go by only by market forces that essential part of the city will be destroyed.” 

However, a memorandum written by Planning Commissioner Harry Pollack and distributed at Tuesday’s workshop, counters that the sub-committee’s report mis-characterizes the goals of the West Berkeley Plan.  

According to Pollack’s memorandum, the sub-committee report inaccurately characterizes office development as “undesirable” and that the report lacks data about potential tax revenue impacts from restrictive zoning designed to protect arts and crafts uses. 

“We have to be very careful what we do in West Berkeley,” he said. “West Berkeley in many ways is the city’s economic engine and we shouldn’t mess with it unless we’re sure we’re improving it and not harming it.” 

The Planning Commission will discuss their next steps at its June 25th meeting at the North Berkeley Senior Center at 7 p.m.