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Preservationists won a hard-fought battle Thursday when members of the Zoning Adjustment Board made clear that as far as they were concerned, any development at 2526 Durant Ave. would have to include the Blood House. 

By a unanimous vote, the board spared the stuccoed, 19th-century Victorian from the wrecking ball, and denied permits to developer Ruegg & Ellsworth to tear down the Blood House and build a 44-unit apartment complex with 18 parking spots on the site. The board determined that, despite the developer’s claims to the contrary, Ruegg & Ellsworth could build a feasible apartment complex that incorporated the Structure of Merit.  

Board members ordered staff to draft findings to deny Ruegg & Ellsworth a use permit on grounds that an alternative was “not infeasible.” Staff will present the findings in four weeks. At that time, the developer has the option of returning to the board with a new apartment development proposal that includes retention of the Blood House. 

Ruegg & Ellsworth can also appeal the decision to the City Council and, if spurned, go before the Alameda County Superior Court. 

Unlike previous projects before them in recent times, the ZAB respected the legal implications of the Structure of Merit designation for the building issued in 1999 by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) changed its tactics from filing lawsuits, upon defeat, to engaging the debate with development alternatives that incorporated the Blood House.  

ZAB commissioners—several of whom have sparred with BAHA in the past—thanked the organization for offering an analysis that allowed them to save the Victorian, and in a moment that bordered on the surreal, noted developer Patrick Kennedy, who officially served the developer as a consultant on the project, congratulated BAHA members on a job well done.  

“This is uncharted territory,” said Lesley Emmington-Jones of BAHA, who credited the group’s architect Mark Gillem for the victory. “It was incredible, to save a historic house and offer a plan with affordable housing. This is having the cake and eating it too.” 

Though the future of the Blood House is more secure, the viability of the building—which many argued had long since lost its aesthetic charm— remains in doubt. 

BAHA fears that Ruegg & Ellsworth, denied their housing project, might let the Victorian—which is currently used as office space—fall further into disrepair, instead of restoring it as part of a larger development on the 10,377-square-foot plot just east of Telegraph Avenue. 

Brendan Heafey, project manager for the developer, couldn’t guarantee that a new proposal would be forthcoming. “Now that our plan has been rejected, I need to step back from that and see how, if at all, we go forward,” he said, adding that he will meet with BAHA’s Gillem to discuss alternative proposals. 

During the hearing, Heafey had dismissed Gillem’s design that moved the restored house to the northwest corner of plot next to a new apartment building. He said the plan lacked comprehensive fire egress, laundry room and viable retail space, undervalued expenses, limited potential tenants to people without cars, and included a gated corridor that would invite crime. 

“I don’t care if you put barbed wire on that thing, every homeless guy in the area is going to hop that fence and put his blanket there,” Heafey said. 

“All the concerns the developer brought up are minor,” replied Gillem. “The simplicity is its really about preservation or parking. It appears there’s a feasible alternative that doesn’t include parking.” 

Ruegg & Ellsworth fought an uphill battle to attempt to win approval for their plan. Since the City Council had already upheld the Blood House as a Structure of Merit, the developers had to perform a full Environmental Impact Report.  

In accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which offers no means to mitigate the loss of a historic 

resource. The only way the ZAB could have approved the project would have been to make a finding that there was no feasible alternative which incorporated the Blood House. In addition, in the event that such a finding were made, ZAB would also have to conclude that the benefits of the new housing outweighed the loss of the Blood House. 

The task of offering alternatives fell to Ruegg & Ellsworth, which never managed to win the ZAB’s trust that they were making a good faith effort to keep the building. Since the first hearing in June, commissioners repeatedly ordered the developer to return with different, possibly more viable alternatives. On Thursday commissioners accused the owners of inflating construction cost estimates and understating the revenue potential of a restored Blood House. 

ZAB Commissioner David Blake pressed staff to provide such data in future cases. 

BAHA rushed in to fill the credibility vacuum with a plan they said offered the same investment yield and saved the house at the expense of all of the parking spaces—a sacrifice allowed under the draft Southside Plan. That appeared to be enough to ensure ZAB’s decision. 

For BAHA, the decision to jump into the Blood House debate was rooted in its failure to stop the demolition last year of a Structure of Merit building named after turn-of-20th century Berkeley resident John Doyle. 

“After the Doyle house, we decided to roll up our sleeves and make our mark in the beginning, rather than hire a lawyer and go to court,” said Emmington-Jones, adding that the group anticipated employing the strategy in future cases as well. 

Instead of hiring a lawyer, BAHA hired Gillem of MLG Architecture and Planning, who arrived on the Berkeley planning scene five years ago with a proposal that preserved the McKinley School and fostered a compromise plan for a development at the First Presbyterian Church. 

“He’s saved the day twice now,” said Emmington-Jones, who credited the soft-spoken architect with toning down rancor between the parties. “He met with the developers and staff and made it a discussion among gentleman,” she said.