Extra

Planners Ponder Sustainability During Post-Debate Late Meeting

By Richard Brenneman
Monday October 13, 2008 - 06:22:00 PM

Meeting an hour later than usual, Berkeley’s planning commissioners will have time to watching the final presidential debate before Wednesday night’s meeting. 

The session, which begins at 8 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1091 Hearst Ave., will feature discussions of sustainability chapters from two pending plans. 

The meeting time is incorrectly posted on two city websites.  

During the session, commissioners will have a go at the Climate Action Plan’s Sustainable Transportation and Land Use Chapter, followed by continuing revisions of the Downtown Area Plan’s Environmental Sustainability chapter. 

Both plans consider aspects of AC Transit’s controversial plan to bring Bus Rapid Transit service to Berkeley as the terminus of a line that would run from the downtown BART station to a BART station in San Leandro. 

The proposed service has generated enough controversy to produce a Berkeley ballot measure for next month’s general election to decide whether or not any final plan should be subject to a referendum by Berkeley voters. 

While both plans on Wednesday’s agenda were created by other bodies—Berkeley city staff for the climate plan and the city’s Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee for the second—commissioners get their own bite of the apple, and will prepare recommendations to present to the City Council when that body makes the final decisions. 

Commissioners will also set the date for a hearing on the proposed revisions to the city ordinance governing cell phone antennas. 

The Downtown Area Plan is available on line—including the sustainability chapter—at www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=10828  

The climate plan chapter is available as a pdf file online at www