Features

The Berkeley City Council is scheduled to take its first formal look at the city’s ambitious Downtown Area Plan (DAP) during a work session on the plan scheduled for Tuesday, May 19, at 5 p.m. 

The work session, which will precede the council’s regular 7 p.m. meeting, will be held in the Berkeley City Council chambers at Old City Hall on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in downtown Berkeley. 

Under the council’s work session procedure, a report on the plan will be given by city staff, the public will be able to comment, and councilmembers are free to ask questions, but no council action will be taken. 

The council has scheduled a June 2 hearing on the plan, with a follow-up public discussion on July 14. 

Details of the DAP are available online at http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us. 

The Downtown Area Plan is a far-reaching proposal to set goals and policy guidelines for the city’s downtown area. The original plan was developed by the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, with members appointed by the council. Since then, the city Planning Commission has completed a proposal of measures to implement the DAP recommendations. In its online report on the two proposals, the city Planning and Development Department said that “the Planning Commission differed with DAPAC on few substantive issues, but differences exist. Most notably seven out of nine of Planning Commissioners supported taller Downtown buildings than did a majority of DAPAC members, based on a development feasibility assessment that concluded taller buildings would be necessary to achieve higher density development and associated public benefits.” 

Both the original DAPAC proposal and the Planning Commission implementing procedures will be presented to the council and the public at Tuesday’s meeting.