Election Section

The recently recommended revisions to the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance are basically intended to simply and clarify a process that is currently very interpretive, often ambiguous, creating landmarks that are later overturned by the City Council. Clarifying the ordinance would help everyone by creating standards everyone understands. This would improve the functionality of the commission, assist historic preservationists in preserving unique Berkeley buildings and clarify to builders what’s an appropriate site to build on. 

This controversy has everyone both in Berkeley and the Bay Area laughing about how the landmarks process works—or should I say doesn’t. I mean, come on, how can this system be used to designate Celia’s restaurant a structure of merit, for example? This vastly interpretive view of the ordinance allows those sitting on the commission to use a very wide set of standards to discover and ordain a landmark or the more ambiguous “structure of merit.” As a result, these moves are then overturned by the City Council after weeks of delay and wasted time—and yes, Berkeley tax dollars. To date I have never heard a clear and rational explanation behind Celia’s designation. If anything it makes those priding themselves on historic preservation look uniformed and arbitrary in their approach. 

The structure of merit designation, for example, does not landmark a building but says that the building or property has “significant qualities” that warrant prevention of alteration or demolition. This gray area does nothing in terms of clarification but gives great sway to those who may not want to see any new buildings on a site or may not want to see a building altered—for reasons having nothing to do with its history. But aren’t these powers really vested in the Zoning Adjustments Board and the Planning Commission? This is what clarity and purpose mean with the ordinance. 

In the ongoing hearings those supporting no change to LPO constantly talk about developers wanting to demolish Berkeley landmarks. Tell me one developer in town or out of town who has it on their check list—demolish historic buildings in Berkeley, make way for L.A.-style development. This is Berkeley, folks—BERKELEY. Those working, living and building here must be sensitive to the needs of the community and want to be. The days of bulldozing redevelopment ended in the 1970s. More than 30 years have passed and both the historic buildings of Berkeley’s past and innovative new structures need to share the progressive future of Berkeley. By the way, aren’t we supposed to be a PROGRESSIVE city? 

The bottom line is that the landmarks commissioners are supposed to be looking out for the common good of the entire population of Berkeley and our historically significant buildings. Well, let’s do that and make the rationale behind it up front and clear. 

I encourage the City Council to modify the ordinance with rational thinking at its core. Change the structure of merit designation to a requirement for a historic plaque that reflects how a location fits into the historic web of Berkeley’s past and define our Landmarks Preservation Ordinance along the lines of state and national standards to preserve our great inventory of historic buildings. 

Steven Donaldson is a life-long Berkeley resident and property owner. 

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