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After five years on the back burner, the Southside Plan is finally coming to a boil—with the Planning Commission set to discuss the document later this month. 

Commissioners will hold a hearing April 23 on the draft environmental impact report (DEIR), a document that must be adopted before the adoption of the plan itself. The review was prepared by LSA Associates, an Irvine-based consulting firm with offices in Berkeley. 

The Southside Plan covers the area south of the main UC Berkeley campus, bounded by Bancroft Way on the north, properties along the eastern side of Prospect Street to the east, properties along the southern side of Dwight Way to the south and properties along the western edge of Fulton Street to the west. 

The plan, which had originally been completed in 2001 and revised two years later, has been delayed because UC Berkeley officials requested modifications. 

The environmental impact process was begun in 2004, with a scoping session held later in the year, but the entire study was then delayed so that the plan’s transportation element could include data from AC Transit’s planned Bus Rapid Transit service in its analysis and to allow detailed study of planned conversion of some one-way streets to two-way traffic, said Jesse Arreguin, aide to City Councilmember Kris Worthington. 

“It’s been a long time coming, and I hope it’s worth all that money,” said Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who remembers dealing with the plan when he served on the Planning Commission. 

“The plan began over a decade ago,” he said, originating in discussions between then-UC Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien and then-Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean. 

“Then it got hijacked by the Planning Commission, with the university relegated to being just one of the players,” Wozniak said. 

The councilmember said the environmental review was “very expensive, but why it took so long I really don’t know.” 

Worthington, whose council district includes the largest share of the planning district, said his immediate concern is public access to the draft EIR. 

While the document is posted online at the Planning Department website at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=17998, Worthington said he wants the city to provide printed copies “at least to those people who volunteered all their time” in helping to prepare the plan. 

Hard copies are available for $10 for the main document, plus an additional $30 for the accompanying technical appendices. 

“I think it should be available to everyone who needs it,” Worthington said, adding that reading a paper copy is often more convenient. 

While the transportation section is complex, Wozniak said, the land use changes are fairly simple, with upzoning along Bancroft Way and downzoning along Dwight Way. Upzoning also extends along Telegraph. 

The land use segment of the plan allows inclusion of one to two additional floors for housing projects that meet or exceed state density bonus law requirements, while calling for preservation of existing group living facilities and discouraging demolition of existing housing that meets current seismic and other safety standards, encouraging rehabilitation over demolition when financially feasible. 

The land use element calls for creation of four land use subareas within the plan’s boundaries: Residential Medium Density (R-3), Residential High Density (R-S), Residential Mixed Use (R-SMU) and Commerical (C-T). 

With the exception of the existing C-T zoning, most of the area is currently zoned R-4. 

The new R-S zone would bar office uses in new construction, while downscaling parking requirements for residences and increasing the amount of lot space a building could cover. 

University offices and facilities would be allowed in the new R-SMU zone, along with religious, social and cultural institutions and ancillary offices and facilities, recreational facilities, retail stores serving the neighborhood and parking garages, with housing listed as the preferred use. 

Construction of new infill projects on existing surface parking lots within the zone would also be encouraged. 

The plan also calls for preserving existing historic and architectural resources within the zone. 

Zoning in the C-T commercial zone would be expanded to encourage new mixed use buildings and additions to existing structures. 

The plan would allow for a 15-foot increase in maximum heights for structures in the C-T zone, from the current 50 feet to 65 feet, while eliminating setbacks for higher floors and eliminating parking requirements. 

The plan would significantly reduce the open space required for each housing unit in the new R-SMU zone from the 200 square feet required now in R-4 housing to 40 square feet. 

Heights in the R-SMU zone would increase from the current 65-foot limit to 75 feet for housing north of Durant Avenue, and in other areas would drop to 60 feet for buildings without housing.  

Heights for medium density (R-3) projects would remain the same at 35 feet while 45-foot heights would be allowed for R-S housing. 

Setbacks between buildings and lot lines would be reduced in some zones, and parking requirements generally would be reduced, with a no-parking overlay generally for housing along College Avenue between Bancroft and Haste Street west to the plan’s boundary lines, with the exception of the two-block area west of Ellsworth Street between Haste and Channing. 

Traffic changes 

The plan endorses AC Transit’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan, and calls for AC Transit and other regional transportation agencies to evaluate the possibility of light rail service along College and Telegraph avenues, Bancroft Way and Durant Avenue. 

Worthington said he is concerned at the timing of the release of the document, given the simultaneous push by AC Transit for approval of a preferred route for consideration in that agency’s own final EIR on the BRT project. 

“It’s funny how they let it (the Southside Plan) sit around for so long, then they suddenly rush it through now that they need it,” he said. 

Some of the plan’s greatest changes would affect drivers who navigate the Southside’s current maze of one-way and two-way streets. 

The plan calls for conversion of Dana and Ellsworth streets from their current one-way status to two-way, and calls for consideration of conversion of Bancroft Way and Durant Avenue to two-way streets, combined with restriction of through traffic on Telegraph Avenue. 

New or changed traffic signals and stop sign configurations should be considered for intersection with high collision rates, including those of Durant Avenue, Dwight Way and Bancroft Way with Telegraph Avenue, Bancroft’s intersection with Dana and Bowditch streets and Bancroft and College Avenue, it says. 

The plan also calls for programs to reduce car trips, including encouragement of transit subsidies, increased charges for employee parking, and prohibition of surface parking lots. 

Much of the street reconfiguration is also premised on the need to make bicycle and pedestrian travel safer. 

The consultants concluded that, after appropriate mitigations, the plan will have no significant environmental impacts, beyond a long-term increase in emissions of ozone precursors that would exceed thresholds set by the Bay Area Air Quality Monitoring District. 

As a result of land use changes embodied in the plan, LSA predicts construction of 472 new housing units with 1.038 residents, along with construction of 638,290 square feet of new commercial development that would provide an additional 2,130 jobs.