Columns

When Mayor Bates ran for re-election last year, he said the protection of West Berkeley artists and artisans was one of his top priorities. But when confronted with appeals for help from real, beleaguered artists and artisans, the mayor and his allies, who make up the current council majority, merely wring their hands and shed copious crocodile tears, if that. In 2005 the city did nothing to halt the destruction of the live-work artists’ community at the Drayage, nor did it help the evicted tenants find new space. In 2006 the Bates council ignored the artists evicted from the now-defunct Nexus Institute.  

This year it’s the Fantasy filmmakers’ turn. Last Tuesday evening 40-plus artists from the big building at Tenth and Parker showed up in the council chambers to ask the city to persuade their new landlord, Wareham Development’s notorious Rich Robbins, to back off his 40-100 percent rent hikes for six months—long enough for them to find new space that can accommodate their working community.  

The mayor’s response showed his true colors. First he defended Robbins’s so-called concessions—free parking space, and air conditioning during working hours. That drew cries of protest from the crowd. Next Mr. Bates tried to wriggle off the committee that was to negotiate with Wareham in the few days that remained before Sunday, April 1, the date that the Fantasy rents were scheduled to go up. “We’re going East on Saturday for Easter,” he said. “We already have tickets.” At this point, Councilmember Linda Maio decided to intervene. “Doesn’t everyone here,” she asked, “want the mayor to serve on this committee?” The response to this query was underwhelming. Nevertheless, Mr. Bates ended up staying on the committee, to which he had added Councilmembers Max Anderson and Laurie Capitelli. The latter issued the customary plea of official impotence: “We don’t have the resources.” 

True, the city cannot compel commercial landlords to lower their rents. But it could help artists and artisans in other ways. Last Tuesday, the mayor could have said: “I pledge to do everything I can to help the Fantasy filmmakers and our city’s other artists stay in town and prosper. I’m asking our Office of Economic Development to scour the city for properties and landlords who can provide workspace that’s affordable to artists and artisans. A few weeks ago, I announced that I am joining with other Berkeley notables to raise $35 million to renovate the Maudelle Shirek Building, formerly Old City Hall. Tonight I pledge to help create a public-private partnership that will find the funds to purchase permanently affordable workspace for our artists and artisans. And, most important, the city, including my own office, will start upholding the industrial zoning that has kept West Berkeley affordable to manufacturing and the arts.” 

By contrast, in his recent State of the City address Mr. Bates averred that industry is finished in Berkeley. He went on to point with pride to Bayer’s current expansion. In fact, Bayer is expanding its clinical manufacturing facility. The company chose to stay here only because the city agreed to the long-term zoning protections it needs. Just so, artists and artisans are leaving West Berkeley because the city has been dismantling their zoning protections.  

In this regard, the Bates council made a signal decision last June when it voted to change the zoning of the future West Berkeley Bowl site from Mixed-Use/Light Industry to Commercial. WeBAIC (West Berkeley Artisanal and Industrial Companies) had asked the city to approve a grocery store but to deny the zoning change and instead give the applicant, Bowl owner Glen Yasuda, a variance. At the June meeting, not a single councilmember addressed the zoning issue. Yasuda got the change he sought (but did not need) and with it, a windfall worth millions of dollars. With this decision, the Bates administration indicated that it was ready to roll over for big developers, abandon the industrial zoning mandated by the West Berkeley Plan and accelerate the area’s gentrification.  

Up to now, it’s been well-nigh impossible to get the public at large to realize what’s going on. That’s partly due to the arcane nature of zoning. Unless you are a policy wonk or personally affected (and even then), land use regulation is an eye-glazing subject. But the gentrifying aims of the Bates administration have also been intentionally obscured by stealth planning.  

Take the $85,000 that the council allocated on Feb. 27 for a senior planner to spend six months doing “Planned Unit Development Zoning” for West Berkeley. The goal here, Office of Economic Development Director Michael Caplan told the council, is “to do green development, to facilitate long-term affordable housing for artists, and to protect small light industry that is in danger of being priced out of the market” through “Limited Flexibility Zoning” in West Berkeley.  

Sounds great. Unfortunately, it’s Orwellian doublespeak. Caplan said as much when he commented that the new policy should really be called “Flexible Zoning.” What he didn’t say was that it’s the city’s “flexibility” that threatens to destroy the very things that the new policy is supposed to protect. What “Limited Flexibility Zoning” would enable is the likes of Doug Herst’s plans for the Peerless Lighting site: a seven-story condominium building, a huge corporate headquarters and what amounts to a petting farm for artists. Last Wednesday planning staff told the Planning Commission that their top priority for fiscal year 2007-2008 is “Limited Flexibility Zoning” for West Berkeley.  

If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that the stature of the Fantasy filmmakers, who include 13 Oscar nominees, will finally get the Berkeley public to recognize the damage that the Bates administration is doing to the cultural economy of this city and to demand a change of course.  

In hopes of spurring such an outcry, I’ve done a little moviemaking myself. Last year I teamed up with two veteran Berkeley filmmakers, Witt Monts and Paul Shain, to produce a five-minute video, “Made in Berkeley” that features artists, artisans and manufacturers of West Berkeley. It can be viewed online at www.madeinberkeleymovie.com.  

Zelda Bronstein is a former candidate for mayor and a former chair of the Berkeley Planning Commission.