Features

Planners Tackle Car Sites; ZAB Takes on Black & White Issue By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday February 07, 2006

Planning commissioners will face a full agenda when they meet Wednesday night, while the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) faces a fairly light slate Thursday. 

Planners will discuss West Berkeley zoning changes that would allow Berkeley car sellers to relocate from downtown to areas near the freeway that are currently zoned only for manufacturing and light industrial uses. 

City Hall and Mayor Tom Bates are pushing for the changes as an effort to keep car dealers and their sales taxes in the city. The commission took up the discussion at their last meeting and continued it to Wednesday’s session, which begins at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

Also on the agenda is a discussion of possible preliminary changes to the city’s creek ordinance, which affects more than 2,000 property owners whose homes and businesses abut the city’s above-ground and culverted creeks. 

The commission is also slated to set hearings on the environmental impact report for the planned new Berkeley Bowl in West Berkeley, a provisional extension of the ordinance governing low-income units required of major new housing projects and a joint meeting of several city commissions on UC Berkeley’s expansion plans for Memorial Stadium and surroundings in the campus’ southeastern quadrant. 

ZAB, which meets at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers in the Maudelle Shirek Building (Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way), will once again take up the case of Black & White Liquors. 

While ZAB had initially voted to declare the 3027 Adeline St. store a public nuisance in December, members relented two weeks ago and decided instead to allow owner Sucha Singh Banger to work out a zoning certificate with city staff. 

ZAB will hear a report on the conditions proposed for the certificate and may take action Thursday. 

Also on the agenda is an application by Spud’s Pizza, at 3290 Adeline St., for a beer and wine license.