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Agreeing with critics and city staff that their planned five-story, two-building project at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and University Avenue wasn’t the best piece of design Berkeley has ever seen, the developers tried to get a city board to come up with an alternative Thursday. 

The project would be built at the site of the strip mall at the northwest corner of the intersection that now houses the Kragen Auto Parts store. 

Chris Hudson and Evan McDonald walked into the Zoning Adjustments Board meeting kn owing that the city planning staff had called the board to reject the mass and five-story height of the 1885 University Ave. complex so the developers could come up with an alternative. 

But the only things Hudson and McDonald had to show ZAB members were the same plans and drawings that ZAB had spurned six months earlier, along with two letters, one an admonition-laced missive from their attorney. They told the board that if they didn’t like the plans for the building, they should come up with another design themselves. 

Senior Planner Debbie Sanderson said city staff recommended a rejection so the developers could then present a new plan to the city’s Design Review Committee, the first step towards bring the proposal back to ZAB for a final approval. 

“They want recommendations more specific than last time,” she said, referring to the April session when ZAB members last looked at the Hudson McDonald LLC proposal. 

‘Like San Quentin’ 

To say that members disliked the original plans by architect Kirk Peterson is almost faint praise compared with member Jesse Anthony’s critique Thursday. 

“Some buildings make you happy to see them,” Anthony said. But as for the design for 1885 University Ave., “Put bars on it, and it looks like a prison,” he said. “To me, it looks like San Quentin. It’s an indecent building. It just looks terrible.” 

“I’m more uncomfortable than ever with this,” said ZAB member Dave Blake. “It’s going to be very hard to give direction on a building that isn’t going to look like this.” 

For mer Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean, filling in Thursday for absent member Bob Allen, said she favored outright denial.  

Member Dean Metzger asked Sanderson if the board could simply deny the project so that the applicants could start the process over with an entirely new design. 

Because the application has been pending in the Planning Department for two-and-a-half years, Sanderson said, “We think it is fairer and more expeditious to give them very specific directions for specific boundaries for a redesign.” 

“Its not our job to design a building,” said member Chris Tiedemann. “Given that this is not the design that anyone contemplates, we should focus on the staff recommendations and keep our suggestions simple.” 

The developer said the city staff report “is seriously flawed and contains many factual errors” and presented the panel with a four-page letter challenging the document as well as a second four-page letter from San Francisco attorney Allen Matkins threatening litigation should the city deny the p roject. 

McDonald’s letter faulted the staff report for its declaration that their project had raised significant opposition, charging instead that most of it came from “a small number of dedicated opponents.” 

He didn’t add that the opponents were heavily drawn from residents who live on Berkeley Way, which borders the project on the north and Grant Street to the west, and would be most impacted by the project. 

Neighbors worried 

“The project needs to die a timely death,” said Steve Wollmer, a neighbor and an activist with PlanBerkeley.org who offered praise for the staff report. “There needs to be more adult supervision and participation between neighbors and the developer.” 

Regan Richardson, another Berkeley Way resident, reiterated Wollmer’s call to include neighbors in the planning process and faulted the plans for inadequate parking and insufficient setbacks from smaller adjacent residences. 

Sarah Hilders, a Grant Street resident, said the expanded commercial space would lead to further traffic p roblems on her street and called for speed bumps to be added to both Grant and Berkeley Way to keep traffic under control. 

Valerie Artese, who lives three doors down Berkeley Way from the project site, said the building would cast her garden into long ho urs of shadow in the summer months and create “a huge, huge parking mess.” 

Trader Joe’s 

Neighbors were especially concerned to hear that the developers are planning to include 15,000 square feet for a Trader Joe’s market. 

“There needs to be a better me chanism for informing the public,” said Jonathan Stillman, who lives 150 feet from the site. He complained that he had only received the city staff report on the day of the meeting. 

“I will lose my view of the hills,” said Stephen Olson, president of the University Lofts Homeowners Association, a condominium project at University and Grant. He also predicted more traffic in the area as a result of the Trader Joe’s. 

Tom Hunt, a Berkeley Way resident, said he agreed with former Mayor Dean that “you should deny this and move on to something that the developer, the people in the neighborhood and you can all be proud of.” 

In rebuttal, Chris Hudson said that any denial would be immediately appealed because any new project would have to adhere to the new zoning policies of the University Avenue Strategic Plan (UASP), which he said virtually precludes development on the thoroughfare. 

“I hope there will be a series of meeting with neighbors, with written outcomes so there are no misunderstandings,” said Dean. “It will be a difficult and controversial process.” 

Dean also said she didn’t think the traffic problems generated by the presence of a popular market could be solved simply by establishing a traffic light at MLK and Berkeley Way, and said that the devel opers should have to prove that their project couldn’t be built under the UASP zoning. 

“This is a real loggerhead,” said Hudson. “State law is clear that it conforms to the zoning. We have to protect the rights given to this piece of property.” 

In the e nd, with only Dean Metzger voting to reject the plan, the board sent the project back to the developers with the criticisms generated in April and recommendations to add a setback and landscaping along Berkeley Way and to include more open space for residents of the complex.?t