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The City Council in closed session Monday authorized the city attorney to file a lawsuit against UC Berkeley unless the university satisfies concerns about the environmental impact of its latest Long Range Development Plan (LRDP). 

The vote puts the two entities on a collision course as city staff presents its assessment of the 1,300-page environmental impact report (EIR) at Tuesday’s council meeting. 

Also, the council will consider an appeal of the permits granted to the nine-story Seagate building that would stand taller than all but two downtown buildings. 

Last year, the city issued a scathing critique of UC Berkeley’s draft plan. City officials said the university has failed to address their concerns over new parking spaces, inadequate compensation for city services and lack of detailed information about new projects. 

Among those eager to challenge the university is Councilmember Dona Spring, who wants the city to start shopping for outside litigation attorneys to mount a lawsuit. “I don’t think we have anyone yet who can go to court with this,” she said. 

The university’s plan, which will guide development on UC Berkeley’s main campus and nearby neighborhoods through 2020, projects up to 2,600 new dormitory beds, 2,300 new parking spaces and 2.2 million square feet of new administrative space—three times more than called for in the university’s 1990 LRDP. 

In response to city and neighborhood concerns, the university withdrew plans to build 100 faculty-housing units in the Berkeley hills and has proposed deferring the construction of 500 parking spaces if AC Transit builds a proposed rapid bus service through Berkeley. 

The plan is scheduled to go before the UC Board of Regents Buildings and Maintenance Committee on Jan. 18 and then to the full Regents for approval on Jan. 20. After approval from the Regents, the city would have 30 days to file a lawsuit challenging the EIR. 

City officials said they are concerned that the plan would grant the university a blank check to proceed with specific developments without having to study the impacts on the city and consider alternatives. 

Unlike UC Berkeley’s 1990 LRDP, which identified specific projects it planned to build, the new plan only outlines one project, the Tien Center for East Asian Studies, slated to go on the main campus. 

“The university should be very concerned about the city’s threat of legal action,” said Antonio Rossmann, a land use attorney and Boalt Hall lecturer, who in 1978 successfully sued UCLA on behalf of private homeowners who argued the campus’ LRDP environmental report was faulty. 

“If I were representing the university right now there is no way I could advise them to go forward with this when they see how other agencies view it,” he said. 

Rossmann said, that in his estimation, UC Berkeley had failed to adequately address several concerns raised by public agencies, including comments from AC Transit questioning why the university’s proposal to lessen transit burdens caused by more parking spaces didn’t include BART.  

“The university can’t say it addressed the transit issue until it involves the most significant transit agency in the East Bay,” he said.  

Seagate appeal 

Also on Tuesday’s agenda is the appeal of the Seagate building’s permit, which was approved 7-2 by the Zoning Adjustment Board last October. The building would rise 115 feet above Center Street between Shattuck Avenue and Milvia Street and contain 149 residential units, rehearsal space for the Berkeley Repertory Theater, retail space and 160 underground parking spaces. 

The appellants, Friends of Downtown Berkeley, questioned city staff’s awarding of extra floors in exchange for providing low-income units and arts and cultural space and cited what it believed were numerous violations of city housing law including: 

• Restriction of low-income units to certain floors.  

• Allocation of fewer two-bedroom than one-bedroom units for low-income tenants. 

• Provision of smaller one- and two-bedroom units for low-income tenants than for market-rate tenants. 

Berkeley Planning Director Dan Marks wrote in response to the challenge that the ZAB found that the concessions would ensure maximum revenue for the project thus partially offsetting the cost of providing low-income units. He added that the ZAB also determined that the plan for the low-income units was consistent with city zoning laws, “because it does not create an identifiable low-income area within the project…” 

In a separate appeal before the council Tuesday, several neighbors are asking the council to also reconsider the ZAB’s approval of a four-story condominium project at Martin Luther King Jr. and Dwight ways. 

The neighbors argue that the project, slated to rise at the Dwight & King Drop-Off Recycling Center, lacks viable commercial space, is set too close to the sidewalk and lacks adequate parking. 

Mayor’s address 

Prior to the meeting, Mayor Tom Bates will give a televised start-of-the-year address at 5 p.m. council chambers. 

The speech will touch on five goals for the coming year, the mayor said: 

• Reforming city government. 

• Improving the city’s downtown. 

• Establishing the city as an environmental leader. 

• Supporting youth programs. 

• Winning concessions from UC Berkeley. 

With the city facing a $7.5 million deficit, Mayor Bates said he wants to better involve the public in this year’s budget deliberations. He has proposed setting aside one council meeting a month to solely focus on the budget and will hold neighborhood budget meetings throughout the city. 

“We want to make this the most open process imaginable,” Bates said. 

Last November voters rejected four city tax measures in what was largely seen as a rebuke of city hall. 

Bates said he also wants the city to pass a sunshine ordinance this year. Such laws specify a city’s obligation to conduct official business in the open and give the public ample notice of issues to be considered. 

For the downtown, Bates said he wanted to begin public meetings this spring to develop a community vision for the future of Berkeley’s urban core. 

Bates also said he planned expand the city’s summer reading program for youth and increase the number of green businesses operating within city limits. 

With the city threatening to sue UC Berkeley over its Long Range Development Plan, Bates said he would try to accentuate some of the positives of UC-city relations. However, he added that the city would continue to demand that the university pay more for the city services it receives. 

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