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The unthinkable has happened. And six young people have died. And seven more are in the hospital in serious or critical condition. And our hearts go out to all those who have been affected.

A balcony has fallen in our busy downtown. How in the world does a balcony on a building less than 10 years old catastrophically fail?

There will be months, years of investigation, theories, finger pointing, lawsuits. But for now, I want to vent.

For years, many of us have been raising flags about the buildings going up in Berkeley – their design, their mass, their proximity to little houses, their height, their construction, their noise, their unaffordability and their use. And we are scoffed at and trivialized. And that is OK, we have developed thick skins. But there is truth in what we say.

It is time to slow this down, and take a look at all large multi-unit buildings constructed in the past 15 years of the building boom, and examine them for possible safety concerns. 

This balcony was constructed of wood, cantilevered out from the apartment building about 4 feet. Yes, a balcony can only hold so much load. From the pictures, the wood where it cracked off the wood appears rotten. If so, rotten wood holds no load. But there will be an investigation. We will know for sure. 

These days, the standard large building along Berkeley’s streets is constructed of 4 or 5 stories of wood over a floor of concrete. Taller buildings (like Gaia) are required by state building code to have another material instead. Gaia is concrete, some are steel. Wood construction is fine under the California Uniform Building code up to 6 stories. But water must be abated – it is a must to slant to any balcony or deck surface and provide a way to catch the water, and add a protective covering in between the decking and the support beams. Protective coverings have gotten very durable in recent decades. But there will be an investigation. We will know for sure. 

Should those city officials who brought us this building have known something could go wrong? I was on commissions at the time that this project moved through the citizen process, but there is not a commission that looks at potential safety concerns. Luckily, there is a City of Berkeley Plan Check process, and for a project this large, we can assume that would have been very thorough. But there will be an investigation. We will know for sure. 

But this project was anything but usual. The developer appealed his own project twice, first to reduce the number of required parking spaces, and then to relieve himself of providing affordable housing in perpetuity as part of the approved project. This last step added 2 ½ years to his project timeline. At the time, Councilmember Dona Spring said “This really creates bad faith with the community, to try to sneak out of the affordable housing requirements, it really puts TransAction in a bad light.” 

These are some of the people we will see asked the hard questions as this process unfolds because we know there will be an investigation. 

· John DeClercq, developer along with his firm TransAction Companies, downtown property owner, Ex-CEO of the Chamber of Commerce 

· Mayor Tom Bates, City of Berkeley 

· The 2004 City Council, who were the final approvers for this project 

· Carol Barrett , City of Berkeley Planning Director when the project first was approved in late 2001 

· Dan Marks, City of Berkeley Planning Director when it moved through the appeals process in early 2004 

· Mark Rhoades, City of Berkeley Current Planning Director through 2007 

· Joan MacQuarrie, City of Berkeley Building Official through 2012 

We will know for sure what happened last night, but we also need to know this will never happen again.