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The war over Berkeley’s architectural legacy, waged at the polls in November and in the current referendum effort, continues on another front in the struggle to create a new downtown plan. 

Just what role should historic buildings play in a city center being shaped, in part, by the increasingly heavy hand of a powerful and expanding university? 

That question has dominated the meetings of a small committee formed to advise the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) about the role of historic buildings in the new plan. 

Comprised of members of DAPAC and the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), the subcommittee has been preparing the first comprehensive review of downtown’s historical heritage in more than a decade. 

As the chief player in the downtown development game, UC Berkeley is funding DAPAC as a condition of the settlement of a city lawsuit challenging the institution’s Long Range Development Plan 2020—or LRDP. 

The perimeters of downtown planning were expanded over those of the earlier 1990 plan, largely to encompass the scope of the university’s plans to occupy an additional 800,000 square feet of off-campus space in the city’s core. 

One key issue that emerged early on is the future of downtown’s array of buildings erected before World War II, some by well known local architects. And while Berkeley voters may have minimal regard for “old buildings,” the citizen commissioners and committee members appointed by the officials they elect seem to value preservation. 

Matt Taecker, the planner hired by the city—with university funds—to manage the planning process conceded as much during a recent DAPAC meeting. 

Subcommittee members early on rejected the city’s planned approach to the subject—a quick survey followed by a collection of individual reports on 30 buildings—and insisted on a more detailed survey without the 30 reports. 

Unlike many city meetings where public comment is tightly controlled and limited to two- or three-minute pitches, the subcommittee has opened itself to a free-flowing dialog with the handful of community members who attend its sessions in an upstairs room of the North Berkeley Senior Center. 

“This has been a pretty free dialogue,” said chair Steven Winkel, “an interchange without being a free-for-all.” 

As a result, the city-commissioned survey has gradually emerged as a cooperative effort, with the key players being subcommittee members, the city-hired consultants from Architectural Resources Group (ARG) of San Francisco and local preservationists, most notably John English, a retired planner who has emerged as Berkeley’s leading preservation policy wonk. 

A diminutive man with unruly hair and a matching full white beard, English sits in the audience, offering frequent, polite comments and serving as the group’s de facto fact-checker, pointing out errors and flaws in documents and maps and making suggestions that are greeted with respect. 

(It was English who prepared the documents leading to city and national recognition of Memorial Stadium as a historic site, a move that followed the university’s announcement of major building plans at and near the stadium.) 

The resignation of City Council hopeful and DAPAC member Raudel Wilson after his move from the city following his defeat in November has left the subcommittee with only one serious critic of the preservationist majority, Carole Kennerly—though her attendance has been irregular. 

Wilson’s replacement on DAPAC is Jim Novosel of Bay Architects, who has worked on the adaptive restoration of several historic buildings as well as the construction of new in-fill apartment developments . 

The results of the subcommittee’s work will be presented to a joint meeting of the full memberships of DAPAC and the LPC when they meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the senior center at 1901 Hearst Ave. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

During Monday night’s subcommittee meeting, the last before the joint session, two members of the public—graduate planning student and Livable Berkeley board member Jennifer Phelps-Quinn and architectural historian Sally Woodbridge—urged greater density downtown. 

Woodbridge urged planners to “make a deliberate and serious examination of one- and two-story buildings downtown, even if they are landmarks and structures of merit or not,” referring to the city’s two classes of officially designated historical resources. 

Phelps-Quinn called for adding density “in a positive way that will make it (downtown) an interesting place to be for young single women like myself.” 

John Parman, who has written about Berkeley’s downtown architecture for design 1, an online architectural journal, said the city center density could be increased, but only by buildings of architectural merit and without demolishing significant historic structures. He faulted some recent developments downtown and along the city’s major thoroughfares for adding excessive density without quality. 

Another voice from the audience belonged to DAPAC member James Samuels, an architect who also sits on the city’s Zoning Adjustments Board. 

Samuels urged the committee to bear in mind their possible impacts on economic revitalization of downtown “and the effects on attracting or discouraging private capital from investing in downtown.” 

Rhoades urged the creation of guidelines specific enough to allow projects that meet them to sail through the permit process. 

Matrix, maps, ideas 

One result of the subcommittee’s efforts has been the creation of a still-imperfect but extensive matrix of properties within the planning area, listing such categories as age, architects (when available), relative integrity, alterations, relative significance and inclusion in other surveys and reports. 

Data from the matrix can be displayed on the charts in a process that city Planning Manager Mark Rhoades described as “the most difficult mapping project” since he started work for the city. 

Some of those maps will be presented at Wednesday’s joint meeting, including one prepared with the significant help of English. 

As critical for the emerging downtown plan as locating historic structures may be, the maps also identify development sites: parcels without notable structures which could be developed without raising preservation issues. 

The subcommittee has reached several specific conclusions, including: 

• a call for preserving the city’s existing downtown design guidelines; 

• refining the architectural survey with the participation of both LPC and DAPAC; 

• development of guidelines for alterations and new construction in areas of the downtown where historic buildings are concentrated; 

• development of a spectrum of policies to enhance good development, including tax credits and incentives, historic districts, loans and grants, facade improvements and transfer of development rights, and 

• rejection of redevelopment. 

Other policies would focus on 

• using preservation to revitalize community life, encourage restoration as a green policy; 

• developing programs to celebrate the downtown’s historic character to improve tourism;  

• enhancing opportunities for small business; 

• encouraging suitable development of one- and two-story historic buildings with projects that add height and density while preserving historic facades. 

Photograph by Richard Brenneman.  

Matt Taecker, the city planner charged with preparing a new downtown plan, talks with Planning Manager Mark Rhoades (center) as their boss, Planning and Development Director Dan Marks, listens during Monday night’s meeting of a subcommittee of the DAPAC and the Landmarks Preservation Commission that is formulating proposals for the future of historic buildings in the new plan.