Page One

Preservationists Will Challenge New LPO at Polls

By Richard Brenneman
Friday December 15, 2006

Even before the second and final City Council vote Tuesday establishing a more developer-friendly Berkeley landmark law, opponents were preparing their counterattack. 

Though voters rejected an alternative, neighborhood preservation-based alternative in November, in the hours before Tuesday night’s council meeting backers of the failed Measure J filed a petition to challenge the council’s ordinance through a voter referendum. 

Laurie Bright, one of the sponsors of both the initiative and the new referendum, said the referendum was moving forward despite the failure of the initiative last month. 

“We’re not holding a referendum on Measure J; we’re referending the mayor’s ordinance,” Bright said. 

The ordinance passed by the council was sponsored by the mayor and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli. 

“Well God bless ‘em,” said Capitelli when told the petition had been filed. “I would hope people would stop and think before signing.” 

“It’s kind of like that movie Groundhog Day, where the same things happen over and over again,” said Cisco De Vries, chief of staff for Mayor Tom Bates, who has left to spend the holiday break in India. 

Bright said copies of the referendum petition “were delivered to the eight or nine captains” Wednesday; they, in turn, distributed them to signature collectors. 

Announcement of the referendum campaign was posted on the www.lpo2006.org website, which was created for the Measure J campaign. The same text was sent to Measure J supporters who had signed up for campaign emails. 

City Clerk Pamyla Means’s acceptance of the petition triggered a 30-day period during which referendum supporters must gather the 4,100 signatures needed to force a special election. 

Article XIV, Section 93 of the City Charter mandates blocking enactment of a new ordinance if opponents gather signatures equal to 10 percent of voters in the last general election with a mayoral race. 

The block would remain in force until after the referendum is presented to voters in the next general or special election, when a majority vote determines the outcome. 

“The next general election is in 2008, although the council at one time talked about a special election to bring some new taxes to the voters,” Bright said. 

Deadline for gathering the signatures is Jan. 12. 

The strongest opposition to Measure J came the affluent Berkeley hills, while the strongest support came from UC Berkeley students and neighborhoods in South and West Berkeley. 

“We’ll have a good idea of how we’re doing by the end of next week,” he said. The initial drive will target on UC Berkeley students, many of whom are due to leave the city for the holiday break after finals conclude today (Friday). 

While Measure J basically tweaked the city’s existing Landmarks Preservation Ordinance to comply with provisions of state law, filing the referendum’s signature quota would keep the current law in effect until the election. 

DeVries said Mayor Bates wouldn’t call for a special election on the referendum, “if only because the cost would be $200,000 to $300,000.” 

A long shot might be a special election if the council needs a vote on proposals to save the warm water pool or voter authorization of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), a power sharing plan for local governments. 

The former would be needed only if the Berkeley Unified School District moves forward with plans to demolish the old Berkeley High School building housing the pool, and a special election on CCA wouldn’t been needed unless other governments insisted, he said. 

Absent a special election, the matter couldn’t go to the ballot before the 2008 primary election, and in any case, the city would be forced to bear that part of the costs of the election related to the referendum, he said. 

Capitelli said deciding on an appropriate response if referendum backers get the needed signatures would be up the council. 

“I haven’t really given it that much thought,” he said. 

The other choice, Bright said, would be for the council to rescind their ordinance and let the old law stand. 

Developers wanted changes in the existing law in part because they content that their projects are often blocked when opponents file petitions to landmark the buildings they plan to demolish or alter. 

The landmark legislation created by Bates and Laurie Capitelli and adopted by the council adds a new provision that forces the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to rule on the potential landmark-worthiness of properties at an owner’s request, with a two-year exemption from any landmarking efforts from any quarter if the commission fails to initiate on their own. 

Once granted, developers can then file for project permits knowing no landmarking efforts could block their projects. 

Since the new law allows this “safe harbor” provision to be used by property owners before their permit applications for new developments are filed, critics like Bright and co-sponsor Roger Marquis contend that neighbors could be stuck with unwanted projects they didn’t know were coming when it’s too late to landmark the buildings already on the site.