Page One

The Zoning Adjustments Board will soon have to decide whether or not to overrule the Landmarks Preservation Commission and give developer Ruegg & Ellsworth permission demolish the historic Blood House. 

On March 11, ZAB will hear both sides of the debate, with preservationists pushing an alternative plan that would restore the Blood House to its original use as residential housing, and developer Ruegg & Ellsworth arguing that it is impossible to come up with a financially feasible plan to develop the site without razing the century-old building. 

“This is a difficult call and will require a fair amount of analysis,” said principal planner Debbie Sanderson, speaking to ZAB commissioners at their Feb. 26 meeting. 

Preservationists have argued that the developer has no right to tear down the house, which was designated a “Structure of Merit,” and thus a historic resource, by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1999. The designation brings the Southside area building, located at 2526 Durant Ave. and one of three remaining Victorians in the immediate neighborhood, under the protection of the California Environmental Protection Act (CEQA). That means the city must adopt a Statement of Overriding Considerations, which says that the merits of a proposed project outweigh the loss of a historic resource, before approving destruction of the building. In weighing whether or not to adopt the statement, the city must also make sure that all reasonable alternatives to demolition have been considered. 

Ruegg & Ellsworth has maintained that the addition of 44 housing units, seven of which are affordable, constitutes a community benefit that overrides the loss of the building. But so far, ZAB commissioners have not been convinced, twice ordering the developer back to the drawing board to come up with more viable alternatives to demolition. Since the first ZAB meeting about the issue last June, Ruegg & Ellsworth has proposed six plans that would preserve the Blood House, either by relocating it off site or by moving it to another place on the lot. But, according to project manager Brendan Heafey, the developer would lose between $1.4 to $2.9 million under any of those alternative plans. 

But activists pushing to save the house say the developer hasn’t exhausted all the options. And at the March 11 ZAB hearing on the case, they will present a proposal that calls for renovating the Blood House for use as a three-story, five-unit apartment building and surrounding it with a L-shaped building containing up to 35 residential units and a commercial section. They say the plan, devised by architect Mark Gillem, would provide almost the same number of housing units of about the same size while providing a profit comparable to that yielded by the developer's preferred plan. 

They also note that the preservation proposal allows for more light and open space on the site, as well as amenities within the buildings, such as computer-room alcoves and bay windows. The catch? The preservation plan includes no parking lot, a modification that is necessary in order to free up space that will instead go to the Blood House, whose basement level will be raised two feet and turned into a livable unit. 

It’s not a sacrifice the developer is willing to make. Although parking is not legally required on the site, Heafey said it is necessary. For one, he said, eliminating parking will make it more difficult to market the units to professionals and other non-students. “No parking will contribute to a more homogenous Southside population,” he said, adding that most of the 1,500 Southside-area housing units recently built or undergoing construction are intended for students. He also said area businesses would suffer. “Merchants complain that customers from outside the area cannot conveniently drive to their shops,” Heafey told us. 

Preservationists disagree, noting that the draft Southside plan, a long-range planning guide for the city, encourages development that minimizes car use in the dense area north of Dwight Way. John McBride, a member of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA), which hired Gillem to devise the plan, said Gillem is providing a public service to the city, which could be sued if it approves the plan without thoroughly considering alternatives to demolition. 

“I see myself as an unbiased player in this,” Gillem said. “This is not a case where people are trying to stop development; the community wants to see development. We are not trying to punish the developer. We wanted to create a good project for the developer, one that would be profitable for them.” He added that the case presents a test of the city’s stated commitment to car-free development. “If it can’t work here, it can’t work anywhere,” he said. 

The preservationists’ challenge is convincing ZAB that their alternative plan, yielding a profit of at least 8.01 percent, is financially feasible. 

The developer says it is not. 

In a letter to city planner Greg Powell, Heafey said BAHA had underestimated the cost of its plan by about $1.5 million. That figure was based on the findings of three consultants, including Oliver & Company and BBI Construction. “The plan is simply infeasible,” Heafey said. 

The disagreement over projected costs revolves around two issues: the cost to renovate the Blood House and the type of construction used in the new building. According to Heafey’s consultants, the cost to convert the house to a three-story apartment building would actually run from $285 to $375 per square foot, 36 percent to 79 percent higher than the cost estimate provided by BAHA. 

But McBride said the developer’s figures are based on misinformation. “Their consultant says in their letter that we propose adding an additional story. But our plan doesn’t call for adding a floor,” McBride said. “We just want to elevate the basement two feet to make it livable.” 

Heafey countered that this does, in effect, constitute adding another story. “There’s nothing down there now. You will have to put in the kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, so forth,” he said. 

A more complicated matter is the type of construction called for in BAHA’s plan. The original plan submitted by Gillem proposed using concrete construction on the ground floor and wood framing for the top four stories, at a cost of $135 per square foot. Gillem’s plan had to be revised, however, after Heafey presented evidence showing that the California Building Code forbids residential uses on the ground floor of a building that has wood frame construction above a ground-floor concrete podium. 

Heafey said the only way Gillem’s plan could work is if the building were constructed using metal frame construction, a change that would raise the cost to at least $175 per square foot. 

Gillem’s latest proposal calls for removing the fifth floor of the new building and making the fourth floor units lofts instead. That revision, Gillem says, eliminates the need for the troublesome—and relatively expensive—concrete podium, which is required in buildings that have more than four stories. Under the new proposal, the new building would have 38 units instead of 40. BAHA says the loss of the units would be offset by the reduction in total building area, bringing the cost to no more than $135 per square foot. 

But Heafey isn’t so sure of this. He said wood frame is not necessarily less expensive to do and doubts if building lofts can compensate for the loss of the fifth floor units. 

“I haven’t seen a drawing on this latest plan,” he told us. “Until I know what it looks like I won’t be able to see if it meets building code requirements. It’s all up in the air at this point.” 

A