Editorials

Editorial: Growth: Who Pays for It?

By Becky O’Malley
Friday November 16, 2007

An e-mail from an old friend chided me recently for this space’s seeming pre-occupation with local land use issues (and with opera). He pointed out that serious national matters like Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s inexcusable endorsement of Michael Mukasey deserve attention too, and he’s got a point. Luckily here in Berkeley we’ve got a good number of writers, some better than me, to keep track of Feinstein’s lapses, and they’re doing a sterling job, so we are off the hook.  

Why are we so preoccupied with land use? At my age, despite any efforts I might make, I won’t personally be using land in Berkeley for more than a couple of decades longer, even in the best case that I live as long as my parents have. If things get bad enough, I could afford to go elsewhere. Someone’s children and grandchildren will be living here, but they won’t necessarily be mine. So why do I care? 

Deep down, it’s because I believe that the ability and responsibility of citizens to shape the environment around them is central to the American democratic tradition. For those of us who have always lived in cities, the built environment that we’ve inherited is just as important as the untouched natural environment outside of urban areas. Those of us who care about such things are fond of quoting John Ruskin, who labored long and hard in 19th century England to stop the demolition of ancient buildings. Here’s a sample, contributed by Jane Powell in response to local efforts to gut the Landmark Preservation Ordinance: “Old buildings are not ours. They belong, partly to those who built them, and partly to the generations of mankind who are to follow us. The dead still have their right in them: that which they labored for… we have no right to obliterate.” 

But conserving the best of the old is only part of the story. The other legacy which we have the obligation of preserving for future generations is more intangible: the space, the views, the street amenities which we’ve inherited along with the buildings. A number of years ago there was a push to build a new subdivision on the hill above Claremont Canyon. Some of us who look up at that hill got to work to stop it by persuading the East Bay Regional Park district to accept stewardship of the property. The park board held a hearing. There our then-supervisor, the late John George, who was a powerful orator in the old African-American church style, spoke of coming to Berkeley for the first time and being reminded of the biblical phrase “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.” He urged the board to preserve that view for future flatlanders, and they did so.  

The views of hills from the flats, not just the view of the flats from the hills, are again at risk. In recent meetings a coalition of Downtown Area Planning Commissioners who don’t always agree on everything have put together a compromise land use plan which passed by a respectable majority, but which is already under attack by development interests even before the ink is dry.  

On the facing page we’re reprinting a bit of e-mail sent to DAPAC which has been in general circulation over the last week. It is the clearest evidence imaginable for the charge that there has been a struggle in Berkeley in the last few years between local citizens and advocacy planners on the public payroll for control of the city’s soul.  

Mark Rhoades, a recently resigned planning department staffer, expresses in it his obvious contempt for the plans which have been made by generations of Berkeley residents, which he was supposed to be faithfully administering while he worked for them. He’s entitled to his own opinion now that he’s a private citizen, but as a public servant his attitude was all wrong, and this e-mail shows it. And even more important, his reasoning then and now is equally poor. 

The minority members of DAPAC (including Rhoades’ wife, a recent appointee), in a last ditch effort to save their beloved 16-story buildings, advanced the argument that hoped-for improvements in downtown amenities couldn’t be paid for without much more and bigger building construction. That is supposed to produce the “impact fees” Rhoades’ letter alludes to, though even he admits that these haven’t panned out so far. He says “it is all simple math and the data is [sic] out there.”  

Well, the data is (or are) indeed out there, and he’s wrong. There have been many studies ever since Proposition 13 was passed, long long ago now, which show that new development almost always costs more to service than it returns in revenue. The whole darn state is now (poorly) supported by retail sales taxes, which is why we have so many new shopping malls.  

The Daily Planet hereby offers a prize of a $100 gift certificate, to be used at any downtown restaurant or theater, for anyone who can prove that an influx of new residents and/or office buildings downtown can pay for itself—can pay the city more than the cost of providing the services and infrastructure it will need. An additional bonus prize of another $100 gift certificate will be awarded for further proof that any such development can ever produce a surplus which can be employed for public amenities like a creekside plaza on Center Street. 

And this is where I part company with my friends who voted with the DAPAC majority to compromise on “just a few” extra-big buildings. The oldest negotiating tactic in the book is to ask your opponents first to list everything they might want from the deal, and then to argue that they can’t get it without approving what you want yourself. The majority votes on DAPAC came from the civic-minded people who are interested in public benefits: transit, open space, low-income housing. They’ve been convinced that somehow allowing big buildings downtown will make all this possible.  

I think the old bait-and-switch deal might just still be at work. We’ll get the two 20-story hotels, all right, but the city will waive the hotel tax—that deal is already under study by developer-funded consultants with the city council’s blessing. And the buildings will end up being more than half condos instead of taxable hotel rooms.  

But then, I’m a cynic. It’s in my job description.