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Segment 1

Hi everyone, good evening.
I'm going to call us to order.
Today is Wednesday, July 23, 2025, and I'm calling to order the special meeting of the Berkeley City Council.
Can you please take a row? Council member Kesarwani? Here.
Taplin? Present.
Bartlett? Present.
Appears to be absent.
Tregub? Present.
O'Keeffe? Is absent.
Blackabee? Council member Blackabee on the roll? I'm here.
Thank you.
Lunaparra? Here.
Humbert? I'm present.
And Mayor Ishii? Here.
Thank you.
Okay, so today is a special meeting, but we do have a brief announcement.
So I'll ask that you come forward and share.
You can give your public comment.
Thank you, appreciate it.
Good evening, Mayor and Council.
My name is Ryan Lau, external affairs representative at AC Transit.
So after two years of extensive review and updating of our bus network and robust public outreach, we are about to launch AC Transit's realigned service change August 10th.
So as a reminder, this is a response to post-pandemic era changes in ridership due to hybrid work and remote work and that sort of thing.
And we're doing so with the understanding that we have a constrained budget due to lower revenues and increasing costs.
And we've weighed all of our decisions through a filter of guiding principles of reliability, equity, and frequency, while also ensuring that we have sufficient workforce to deliver reliable service to the community at large, but in particular, low-income and transit-dependent communities.
So right now, we have gone live on our website.
That's kind of our central hub for all the route profiles and new schedules and the like.
We're also going to have on-bus materials, advertisements, brochures, and car cards.
We're also pushing out digital through e-news and social media and the like.
And so just wanted to remind everybody, we're also doing ambassador shifts at various bus stops throughout the network so that people are aware, not caught off guard before they go into effect August 10th.
So appreciate the time.
We're also bagging stops.
There's 1,500 that we're touching, so it may take a little bit of time before the specific changes for your bus stop to actually get flagged with signage.
So I encourage everybody to go to www.actransit.org slash realign.
I also left some brochures with Rose.
So thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
We got them.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate your comment and your time to come here to speak with us about this.
Okay, moving on.
So we are moving on to item number one, which is the Landmarks Preservation Commission appeal for 2425 Durant.
Landmark application number LMIN 2024-008.
And I'm going to open the public hearing and pass it on to staff.
Thanks, Mayor Ishii.
Good evening, Council Members.
I'm Jordan Klein, Director of Planning and Development.
And presenting on all three items this evening will be Robert Rivera, Senior Planner, and I think he's pulling up the slide deck now for item one.
Yep, let me pull up the slides and I'll share it to our Zoom.
Great.
Should be available.
All right, good evening, Council.
Madam Mayor, my name is Robert Rivera, and I'm a Senior Planner with the Land Use Planning Division.
Before you this evening is an appeal of a Landmark Preservation Commission decision to designate the subject property at 2425 Durant Avenue as a city landmark.
I'll present the review history of the proposed designation and provide some project-specific details before addressing the appeal.
The upcoming slides provide a summary of the relevant permit and landmark review milestones on November 18, 2024.
The City received a Preliminary Use Permit Application pursuant to SB 330.
The Use Permit Application was then submitted on November 21st.
Then on December 13th, the Preliminary Use Permit Application was deemed complete and vested to the date of submittal, November 21st.
Then on December 31st, the City received a Landmark or Structured Merit Application for the subject property, which initiated formal consideration of the site for historic designation and then on January 13th, 2025, public hearing notices were mailed to property owners and occupants within 300 feet of the site, as well as to interested neighborhood organizations.
And then on March 6th, the LPC held the public hearing, and after reviewing the record and receiving public comment, the Commission voted to designate the property located at 2421 Durant Avenue as a City Landmark.
On March 13th, the Use Permit Application was deemed complete, and then on April 15, 2025, the appellant filed an appeal of the LPC's decision, which brings us to today's hearing.
Before I present the project location and details, I want to correct an error with regard to the LPC's notice of decision.
The LPC's notice of decision that was mailed to the applicant incorrectly included all properties.
The notice of decision should have excluded 2425 Durant Avenue and the rear cottage.
The LPC's decision is narrowly focused on 2421 Durant Avenue.
A supplemental memo, which was included with a revised notice of decision, includes a red line strikethrough format to reflect the removal of those buildings from the City Landmark designation.
The appellant was made aware of the error and would still like to continue the appeal hearing regardless of the new narrow scope.
Moving on to the project location, this slide shows the zoning designation and location of 2425 Durant Avenue.
The property is located in the RSMU Residential Southside Zoning District, which allows for a mix of residential and commercial uses and encourages a higher density multi-story development closer to major shopping, transportation, and employment centers.
In terms of the historic context, the subject property is surrounded by multiple designated historic structures, including the Cambridge Apartments, the Fred Turner Building, the Barfield, and the Albra.
These upcoming slides show a street-level view of the subject property.
2421 Durant Avenue is a two- to three-story over basement Victorian with a tower roof, rectangular footprint, and wood siding and shingle exterior.
It's a stick style and includes horizontal and vertical bent details, decorative trusses and gables at the primary elevation, and overhanging eaves with exposed rafter ends.
It was constructed in 1886.
2425 Durant Avenue, which is excluded from the Landmark's designation, is a two-story plus attic flat that was built in 1905.
This shows the rear cottage, which was also excluded from the Landmark designation.
It was built in 1906 and is a simple craftsman style two-story cottage.
Moving on to the main appeal issues, I'd like to briefly summarize the key appeal issues and a more detailed discussion can be found in the staff report.
The appellants claim that the Landmark designation is prohibited by SB 330 and the Housing Accountability Act, claiming that it places the housing project at risk by imposing new standards after the application was deemed vested and complete.
Under state law, once an SB 330 preliminary application for a housing development project is submitted and deemed complete, it is protected from the application of new policies or standards, which include historic designations.
The LPC designated the site as a historic landmark on March 6, 2025, after the vested rights had been established, which in this case the preliminary application was deemed complete on November 21, 2024.
So any subsequent changes to zoning or local regulations, including the discretionary decisions such as a local Landmark designation, are not applicable to the housing development project.
And accordingly, staff recommends reversing the designation because it cannot be applied at the proposed project under state law.
Staff recommends that Council conduct a public hearing and adopt a resolution reversing the LPC's decision to designate the property at 2421 Durant Avenue as a city landmark.
Alternatively, Council may continue the public hearing, affirm or modify the LPC's decision, or remand the matter back to the LPC.
This concludes staff's presentation, and I'm available for any questions.
Thank you.
I'm wondering if we should take questions now or if there are other presentations.
Yeah.
I think typically we go straight to the five-minute presentation by the Yeah, let's do that.
So in this case, the applicant is going to be the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, and then it looks like our appellant is already coming forward.
Thanks.
And so landmarks, who's speaking today? The applicant is Baja, the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, and the application was submitted by Anthony Bruce, but I believe there's another person here to present on behalf of Baja.
Who's speaking? Oh, someone's speaking virtually, okay.
Sorry, that was my question.
Thank you.
I can get you that name.
Is it Isaac? Yes.
Okay, Isaac is on.
Okay.
Okay.
You have your five minutes.
Thank you very much, and good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council, staff, and happy summer.
I want to once again thank the staff for such a thorough and succinct response to this issue.
Landmarks Commission, I hope, is going to be in better alignment with state law after this, and I regret that Baja's invited folks out tonight because it's a legal issue and not a political issue.
These are really cool old buildings, no doubt about it, and every building in Berkeley has a history, but that doesn't make them historic resources.
These buildings are otherwise somewhat unremarkable, but none of that matters tonight.
What matters is that the landmarking, the designation, shouldn't have occurred in the first place, and we are opposed to that designation under any circumstance, the property, property in the buildings, et cetera.
And their histories, by the way, are now very well documented and recorded in the record here tonight.
I only have three requests to leave with you here.
First, adopt the staff recommendations as they're written.
It's taken us some time to get here and come to these understandings, and also, by the way, for the next project, which is in a similar circumstance.
I would like to request a refund of our appeal fees, if that's possible.
But lastly, I want to just point out, having been a landmark secretary for some amount of time in the past, as well as a planning manager, the Landmarks Ordinance was written in the 1970s, the late 1970s.
It has not been substantially updated since then.
When are we going to create a new Landmarks Preservation Ordinance that better aligns with our city's ideals and how we know that we need to address housing today? Because I think that if we were to do that, we wouldn't have situations like this in front of us that I think are generally unnecessary.
So thank you very much.
Happy to answer any questions you might have.
Thank you.
And then our next speaker is online, and we'll call you back for questions, too.
All right.
So Isaac is on, and Isaac, you should be able to speak.
So we've got, they have five minutes to speak, so that's how long they'll have.
Thank you.
Good evening, everyone.
Good evening, Council.
My name is Isaac Warshower.
I'm a Berkeley resident, and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, of which I'm a board member.
The history of the Southside neighborhood is one of continual transformation, and so, too, is the history of this property on which one structure after another was added over the years.
These additions increased the density of the property more than tenfold, but the history of the site remained perfectly legible in the ensemble of buildings.
Let this be a lesson for the city at large.
For historic preservation to serve as an educational force, the history of its development needs to be evident in its building stock.
And I actually had a question for the staff or for the clerk.
I submitted a couple of slides to present.
I wonder if those are on hand.
You, as a panelist, if you have the slides available, can share your screen to share those, but we do not have those readily available.
Can we pause his time? I'm sorry.
I just want to.
I'm sorry.
I wasn't aware of the meeting to present.
Just a second.
I do have them on this computer.
All right.
All right.
I will continue.
So, 2421 Durant, the only structure noted in the features to be preserved by the LBC, is noted in the Appellant's historical resource evaluation as one of the last remaining residences in its vicinity, much less a residency from its early period of construction.
Here's an image of the house soon after it was constructed, at a time when Berkeley's earliest university-associated neighborhood was only just starting to fill in.
There's a house in front of it, but otherwise the block on which it is on is largely empty.
The very fact that the Appellant's historical evaluation considers the property vestigial is what actually renders it historically significant as a great educational force.
Without 2421 Durant, the city is one step closer to losing one of the last reminders of the historical depth of the neighborhood.
The real pity is that the landmark designation under consideration leaves plenty of room for dramatic redevelopment.
Although we at Baja believe the entire ensemble of buildings had historical significance, the LBC chose to designate only 2421 as a carrier of the features to be preserved.
As a result, the rest of the parcel could easily be used for new housing, much like the housing currently going up at the landmark Littrell House, only a few blocks away.
That's the image on the right.
And as you can see, 2421 Durant actually occupies a larger parcel than Littrell House.
Such development would accommodate both many more units and preserve the significance of the parcel as an educational force.
Now council members, you might say, and I'm sure you will, that your hands are tied by state law and that we simply aren't allowed to landmark this property.
And to that I say these things.
The city previously interpreted state law such that landmarking would have symbolic value and perhaps protect the historic features of the property under future development applications.
This remains in our analysis a reasonable interpretation of state law and something the council should get to the bottom of tonight.
And second, even if your hands are tied today, this landmark designation and appeal is a shameful reminder that the city has not fulfilled its obligation under the law to plan comprehensively for historic preservation.
The city has repeatedly promised to make appropriations for a citywide historic survey, but these funds have never materialized.
And let me remind the council that the city is required to undertake this as part of its housing element EIR.
Such a survey would allow the Berkeley community to assess the educational value of its built environment across the board.
And crucial properties like this wouldn't fall through the cracks.
And moreover, they can be designated proactively before they are threatened by redevelopment.
Every year that passes without such a survey will result in more loss of properties like this.
And little by little, Berkeley's building stock will no longer tell its history.
And let me add that historic preservation is important because the history might exist in the written record as the appellant indicated tonight, but that history is not experienced on a daily basis and it's not something that the average Berkeley resident can appreciate.
And the value of historic preservation is that there is a sense of a history of a place in the course of its built environment.
And it's important for the city, given these unfortunate schedules and state law coincidences and all these other things that are coming together that make protection difficult in this case.
Despite all that, it's important for the city to take this lesson and move forward proactively to preserve the history of the city.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council members, do you have any questions? Yes, go ahead, Council Member.
Oh, I'll turn this on.
Go ahead.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Had the LPC of state law landmarking this property after our application? Yes, the LPCs that have an SB330 vesting are made aware of that.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Trajkub.
Thank you.
I have a question on one of the appeals that was just made.
I don't know if it was an appeal point.
The comprehensive historical study that was referenced as something to the effect of the city previously made a commitment or allegedly made a commitment to do that as part of its housing element.
Can you expand on this particular element? I'm not sure I have been made familiar with this particular point.
Sure, thank you.
I can feel that.
Sure, thank you.
I can feel that.
The environmental impact report that the city completed in association with the adoption of the 2023 to 2031 housing element identified some significant unavoidable impacts.
And one of those was the potential loss of historic resources in Berkeley.
And one of the mitigation measures that the city identified to mitigate the impacts of this was the development of a citywide historic context statement.
And I do want to, it's a little different than a comprehensive survey, but a citywide historic context statement to help inform policymaking and decisions around historic preservation in Berkeley.
And that still is an outstanding action.
Thank you.
I don't want to get too far afield from what is before us, but can you just in general terms state how is that to be delivered item? How is it being tracked? Is it something that the planning department is working on or plans to work on? Or is it part of a referral? Can you just kind of provide a general statement of where this is housed? Absolutely.
That is in the planning department's work plan.
And it's something that we are seeking funding for, whether through grant funding, or an allocation of general funds, or other potential funding sources.
So that is, that's part of our work plan.
Okay.
Council Member Blackabee.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
I just have two quick questions for staff, process questions as I understand.
If this property had been landmarked prior to November 18th, 2024, and the planning department received an SB 330 application, how would that have unfolded at that point? Yeah, if the property had been landmarked prior to the application filing, it would be considered a cultural resource under CEQA, and it would have gone through presumably a focused environmental impact report to evaluate the loss of the resource.
Okay.
And so the process, obviously, would have been very different and unfolded very differently.
It would have been more review of that, of the impact on that resource and a determination made at that point? That's correct.
Okay.
And looking forward, because we know that not all of these housing projects that are, that get to reach this point necessarily proceed and conclude, is there a point at which, if the council decided tonight to reverse the landmarking status, and at some point, this project did not, was not completed, could it be landmarked? How would that unfold down the road downstream? Sure.
If, so, if this project were to not proceed, you know, there's certain timelines in which the project has to be completed, and if the project were to lose its entitlement, or actually, it's not yet entitled, and if it did not become entitled, and if the project were canceled, then there would be an opportunity where the vested rights under the preliminary SB 330 application would expire.
And subsequent to that expiration, there could be an opening for a new landmark application to proceed.
Okay.
Thank you.
Those are helpful on the process side.
Thanks.
Okay.
Thank you.
Council Member Lunapara.
Thank you.
I have a question for the appellant.
I'm curious if the appellant can lay out any design features that they're planning to preserve in the new development? Thank you for the question, Council Member.
We are not planning to preserve any of them, because it's being replaced by, approximately proposed to be replaced by a quite large apartment building, and there aren't features on these buildings that would be worth preserving towards that end.
Okay.
Thank you.
That's my question.
I also have a question for staff, and something I kind of wanted to clear up, because I asked my LPC commissioner about how the LPC generally goes about projects like this, where the application for landmark status is submitted after a project's papers are pulled, and it is HAA, it's covered by the HAA.
And they said that the LPC essentially takes a position of viewing the landmark on its merit, and knowing that the HAA protects the project, regardless of whether it's considered a landmark or not.
And so, I'm curious, I guess, if you have any thoughts on that, or if you agree with that read of how the LPC operates.
I think the explanation that you were provided by your LPC member sounds consistent with their practice, and how this has proceeded on other applications.
Okay.
Thank you.
And do you know if this has been an issue in other projects recently? Did you mean specifically the landmarking after vesting? Yeah, as in if the landmarking stops the project from happening, essentially.
No, the landmarking has not stopped projects from proceeding.
Okay.
I'm curious if the appellate can speak to why this landmark status would stop this project, or would it be a reason to stop this project from proceeding? Sorry to call you back up.
No, that's okay.
And I'm glad to jump in here as much as possible.
You're going to hear more about it from the next appellant who's in a similar circumstance.
I would say to begin with, though, that we have been delayed now as a result of what's going on here.
As staff indicated earlier, they were setting public hearing for this project back in March.
It's now July, and so we've been held up this amount of time on this issue.
The state law is pretty clear with respect to what has happened after a preliminary application has been submitted.
And one of the effects of what a landmarking does in this circumstance is it chills the ability of us, our client developers, to get funding for the project.
We have to record deed restrictions.
The insurance companies and the lenders look very, very carefully at these things.
And you're taking yourself out of the A category, and you're putting yourself in the C category if we federate a development project with something like this.
That's why the state law was passed the way it was.
And Berkeley had a reputation in the past.
It was quite notorious around this issue in the early 2000s and the late 90s.
And so this state law is an attempt to stop that kind of abuse, process abuse relevant to housing production.
Thank you.
And my final question is if you're confident that this project can move forward as planned if this appeal is granted? I'm quite confident.
We're watching the market very, very carefully.
You know, our policy victories the last few years have led to an incredible amount of new housing openings in Berkeley over the last couple of years.
The market's been impacted.
Some projects aren't going to move forward.
This project is in a location that we absolutely plan to move forward with and look forward to providing a great deal of new housing right close to the edge of the South Edge campus where it belongs.
Okay, great.
Thank you so much.
Those are all my questions.
Thank you.
I just want to check before we go back to Council Member Traigub to see if anyone else has questions.
No? Okay, Council Member Traigub.
Sorry, Mark, can you come back up? Might as well just stay there.
It's okay, I don't have my steps in yet today.
This might help.

Segment 2

I know that in the past, I'm going to use the word, older housing stock, because I know historical housing stock has a particular context.
It sometimes has been relocated to other parts of the city where they now continue to be and remain preserved.
I was curious if any consideration has been given to at least explore possible relocation of this subject property.
I appreciate that question and I've been on both sides of it a few times here in Berkeley and it's worked a couple of times.
So, you know, it's not a mitigation that can be applied to the project in this process, but I will maybe go out on a little bit of a limb with respect to my client.
But I would commit to you that we would do something very similar to what's been done in the past.
Offer the structures for a dollar to see if there's real interest in the community and moving them.
We've engaged in a couple of these in the past where there's a lot of enthusiasm for a potential mover to move a structure, but it ended up costing the project months to realize that that wasn't going to happen.
But we will make an earnest effort to do so, but even reach out to Baja if they wanted to and allow them to advertise that fact.
We would work something up like we have in the past.
Okay, thank you.
And then a question for staff.
Should there be the possibility of moving such a property to a different site? Should one be available and feasible? Speaking generally, what kind of, I know that everything has to go through a process, so I'm just asking if consideration can be given by staff or what has been done in the past to try to facilitate around approvals.
Should something be available to be moved and feasible to do? What can the city do on that side? Certainly, I can say that I've actually worked on helping facilitate the permitting of the house move off of the site where currently the northeast corner of Haste and Telegraph, where one of the most interesting buildings in Berkeley currently stands.
So, yes, we would do what we can to facilitate permitting, to facilitate a house move.
Thank you.
Council Member Lunaparra has another question.
Thank you, yeah, and I appreciated the comment about the Haste and Telegraph building.
Sorry, I meant to ask this earlier, but I'm not feeling well and not in the right mind.
I'm curious if you can speak to the status of the building on the inside.
How many units are inside and what is the general structural status and habitability of it? I think that's a question for me.
I haven't been inside the building personally, but folks have lived there more or less recently.
And, of course, those folks have been informed of the project.
And, you know, there's a number of units.
I can't remember off the top of my head.
Maybe nine or 11.
Might be as many as 19 in this case.
It would all get replaced as a part of the future project.
It's subject to the new demolition ordinance, correct? Sorry, I didn't mean that.
I don't, I don't, I cannot recall off the top.
I didn't prepare.
That's a zoning adjustments board kind of question.
I didn't prepare for that, but I can figure that out in just a moment if you'd like.
Staff may have that information at hand right now.
I think that our staff are discussing that to answer that question for you.
And once we get the answer, we can circle back to it.
Unless, Jordan, maybe you have.
You know, I think I'd like to avoid asking specific questions about the development project because the development project is not what is before city council.
The consideration of the development project is specifically not before.
It's really strictly limited to the consideration of the landmark designation.
Okay.
We've just walked the forum, so we have to take a minute.
I'm sorry.
We are limited because we have folks that are online, not in the area, so.
And Council Member Riley, I see you have your hands up.
So when we come back, then I will go to you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
I'd like to ask that folks just kind of leave staff alone since they're presenting and they're sitting up there.
They need to be, you know, paying attention to what they're doing.
So if you have questions, you're welcome to ask the clerk.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It's good.
It's good.
Okay.
Okay.
We have quorum again.
Okay.
Very good.
Thank you.
No worries.
All right.
Okay.
So, any other questions before we move on? Okay.
Yes, I think.
I'm sorry.
Do you have a question? Oh, yes, please.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I questioned this.
Or.
For staff.
Question.
Okay.
Mr.
Rhodes mentioned this being as much a legal issue.
As much as.
What exactly is the legal issue at play? I guess.
So.
I can elaborate on on the policy questions, but the staff report and Jordan's report and and and others have sort of delved into that.
It's not really a legal issue because, as mentioned earlier, I think, by the applicant and staff would agree with the designation doesn't apply to this housing project.
The designation has been made, but it's symbolic and it doesn't apply to this project.
Okay, does that answer the question? And Jordan, feel free to.
Yeah, that wasn't quite the angle.
I think.
Maybe the question, but go ahead and I'm sorry, folks.
I know.
If you have a discussion, if you're going to have a conversation, please just take it outside so that we can focus on what's going on here.
Yeah, I would just add to the city attorney's comments and I want to acknowledge that staff changed our recommendation on this item.
From the recommendation to LPC to the recommendation to city council after further consideration of the statute, the timing of the applications, as well as the potential of the designation to pose a constraint on housing production.
As described by the appellant in their comments.
So those are all of the pieces of information that inform staff's decision to change our recommendation to city council.
And, you know.
The city attorney is framed as a policy question for council to consider.
You know, and we're here to answer any other questions you have that can inform your decision.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council member top one.
Okay, thank you.
So.
Council.
Given that.
LPC designation would impose a constraint.
Upon the project that might conflict with.
I think.
The SB 3, 30 considerations so SB 3, 30 bars us from designating attaching a designation that could impact.
A project and that that is clear.
I think.
There's also.
There's also.
From municipalities, taking actions to constrain the production of housing.
And that also informs staff's recommendation on this matter.
Understood.
Thank you.
And for the.
For the appellants.
Earlier you spoke about.
The cost of this project.
Could you elaborate on that? It's already cost us 4 months of time.
In a public hearing and having the projects entitlement improved.
If the landmarks question is to stand, we face future uncertainty from lenders.
This has the chilling effect that is very much a violation of state law as stated in the state density bonus law.
In our opinion, and in the opinion of the attorney for the next project as well, whose letter I'm sure you've read same set of circumstances.
We very much believe this to be a prima facie legal issue.
Thank you.
I'd like to ask the city attorney to expand upon what she was saying.
Just.
I have to say, I disagree with the developers attorney's letter and the developer that it's a legal.
It's a prima facie legal issue.
It's really a policy issue because the designation is symbolic and it doesn't apply to the project.
The project is vested.
But the city council, and this is something that the staff has laid out very coherently before you in the staff report and in the presentation has the option to reverse course.
And from a policy perspective, decide that for various other reasons, the applicant has mentioned, for example, the chilling effect.
Maybe there's financing issues.
There's other circumstances that bolster the argument why the designation shouldn't stand.
So, I think it's important to sort of be crisp about our thinking that it's not that you're legally prohibited.
The designation has been made, but it doesn't have a legal effect because it doesn't apply to the project.
The project is vested.
Its rights are frozen in time.
And I apologize if this is too technical, but I think it's worth being clear about it.
Yeah, I guess the reason I was confused is because it says on one of the slides that the staff recommends reversing the designation because it cannot be applied to the proposed project under state law.
And I guess that was why I had understood that to be this part of it is an illegal issue.
That's correct.
That statement is correct.
Okay, great.
I guess maybe one way to think about it is that the designation is just symbolic.
Jordan, do you want to elaborate? Yes, the designation can't apply to the project.
And so I think that's why, like, if it only applies to the parcel, then that's why it's called symbolic because the project is still free to come in and demolish the building.
Right? Because the designation can't apply to the project.
Yeah, thank you.
Okay.
All right.
So I think then in that case, we can move on from council questions and go to public comment.
So if you have public comment, you can come up here to the side.
Good evening.
Good evening.
I'm a resident.
Could you move the mic closer to you, please? You can pull it all the way.
Yeah, there you go.
Good evening.
My name is Bonnie Zhu.
I'm a resident at 2421.
I appreciate you giving me the chance for public to speak about this matter.
I want to ask the historical value, does that include cultural value or civic value, given that this location is right next to UC Berkeley campus? And the street name is even named after the first UC Berkeley president.
And the reason why, Bonnie, is that probably previously the party for the preservation, such a symbolic designation, already showed you that the previous owner of this location had done preservation and won an award for its aesthetical appealing for this building.
So right now I'm asking question about do we preserve certain kind of a cultural, civic, or moral value of this building or the current, the landlord who's going to be building a 20-floor building at the current location, who currently every 13, from last time I heard, resident tenant of Berkeley is his.
And this tenant, he, this landlord, in contrast previous landlord was a generous kind.
And this current owner, when he took over the ownership, then right the COVID hits.
Or the most of the, many of the landlords of Berkeley automatically just offering the rent deduction, given that such a difficult time for everyone, remote everything.
But at this location, it raised to the maximum, legal maximum.
Not only that, they didn't provide any safety check every year for, for seven, all the seven years they purchased this location.
And even didn't install mono- Thank you, I'm sorry, your time is up.
Thanks for your public comment.
They didn't install the- No, no, I'm sorry, you can't speak anymore.
Carbon monoxide detector.
I'm so sorry, but your time is up, so you, your comment is over.
Thank you.
Are there other comments? Folks, if you have a public comment, can you just line up over here so I know how many people are speaking? Is anyone else speaking on this matter? Okay, can you, can you go over there, please? You're welcome to sit on the other side, but just, you know, okay.
Yes, Mark and I were on the Landmarks Commission at the same time.
And at that time, it was very important as each building was designated.
And we considered each designation as a single.
In this case, it's a last standing in the south of campus.
South of campus, my friends, people who are taking care of Berkeley now is becoming nameless, soulless, and a housing place that has lots of for lease signs.
And Mark knows about building, I'm sure building now has a lot more risks to it.
Is it going to be rented? This woman spoke at the Landmarks Commission.
It was very heartfelt.
And she lives in the building.
People have lived in those two buildings for many, many years.
And I'm sure they're probably the units are more hospitable than what might be built in the eight stories, ten stories.
It's not just one.
Anthony Bruce landmarked it because it was what was left.
Going up Durant in the south campus area on telegraph, the housing, the building, are you working for money? Or are you working for the future of our town to have a soul and to have a place? Because money is driving the YIMBY mantra.
Money that is there are for lease signs everywhere in Berkeley.
And we are even on the precipice of students not coming internationally into our town that were the reason the Bank of America site was torn down for the first Asian students to come over.
Really, we are in a turn of events, a new time.
And it's irreplaceable what's there and what Anthony searched for us.
And the Landmarks Commission endorsed.
Thank you.
Folks, I am a stickler for time.
So you're going to have your two minutes.
And that's what you get.
I'm sorry, but we've got a lot of things to cover tonight.
I want to make sure we're getting through this meeting and we're being respectful to everyone's time.
Okay.
Two minutes.
Good evening, council members.
I'm Steve Fennec.
I'm a member of the Landmarks Commission, the appointee of the distinguished counselor from District 4.
And I think I'm the only LPC member here tonight.
So if you have any questions about what the LPC does or how the process works, I'm happy to try to answer those.
I came up because Council Member Taplin had asked a question earlier.
And correct me if I didn't understand it right.
But you asked if the commission knew what it was doing in context of SB 330 when it landmarked the property.
Is that right? Pardon? I don't respond to comments.
Okay.
I understand.
Yes.
So I wanted to clarify.
The commission has been operating for the past three years or so under a letter from the city attorney, which said basically what the staff has explained, that if a property is landmarked after the SB 330 project application is vested, then the landmarking can proceed, but it doesn't apply to that project.
That's what the commission voted, what our understanding was when we voted on designating this property.
And it was a unanimous vote from the commission.
Afterwards, the change in policy, which the city attorney spoke to, is very, very recent.
We didn't learn about it until our meeting at the beginning of this month.
So I just wanted to clarify that we were entirely in alignment with what city staff and the city attorney had advised on policy and procedure.
Does that make sense to everybody? I hope so.
And I'm happy to answer any other questions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Are there any other comments online? Yes.
We have one raised hand.
And Kelly, you should be able to speak.
Hello.
It's really quite a stunning house.
And it would be a shame to lose it.
And it's a shame that they can't just design a project around it and leave it so that we can have what was history in Berkeley, and we can have what is new in Berkeley.
And it would be a shame to just mow everything down and only have what's new and not have a variety of building.
The designation is symbolic, which means that they can still tear it down anyway, but it really would be a shame.
It would be so much better to build around it and save it.
There was a roads project that I read about in the paper.
We were all supposed to get this project at the California theater, and that's now dead.
I walked downtown today and I walked by the big hole in the ground of a building project, which seems to be dead.
It does have a pretty fence around it, but it doesn't appear to be going anywhere.
I go to the design review committee meetings.
I go to the zoning adjustment board meetings.
And what I see year after year is projects get approved that just never seem to go anywhere.
So it would be a shame to lose this house and then just have another hole in the ground because we hear that there can't be enough money made on the project, which is what we heard about the California theater, what, about a week and a half or two weeks ago.
So I would really encourage you to dismiss the appeal, let the historical designation stay.
It would be great if we could do that and we'd have a variety of buildings in the city.
Thank you.
Thanks, Kelly.
Other comments online? Yes, our next speaker is Krishna.
Krishna, you should be able to speak.
Hello.
I'd like to cede my time to Isaac, if that's possible.
Isaac already spoke during the period for the applicant.
However, if you'd like to speak during this time, you may.
I just wanted to say that I'm a student at Berkeley and I think it's people like me who are possibly the most immensely affected by decisions such as these, but we're not part of the decision making process.
So I wanted to come here and voice my opinion and just let you know that we want to live in a beautiful neighborhood.
We don't want big high rise buildings where we cannot see past them.
We're already having so many university housing units coming up.
We've had one more new unit come up just very recently, and they are finding it very difficult to fill that housing in the first place.
So we truly appreciate if we can have a more beautiful surrounding to be around because it really helps our mental health.
Thank you.
Are there other comments online? That was our last raised hand.
Okay.
We are going to go to our comments.
Actually, yeah.
Don't we move to.
I was going to say, is there a motion to close the public hearing? Second.
Hearing.
Okay.
Thank you.
Can you take the roll, please? Yes.
And Mayor, prior to closing the public hearing, would the council members like to disclose any ex parte communications? Council member.
Sometime in the fall of 2024, I was contacted by the applicant about this project.
At the time, the discussion was limited to legal implications under SP 330.
Okay.
Anyone else? All right.
In that case, can you take the roll, please, clerk? Yep.
Council member.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And council member Humbert.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I've got a fairly lengthy set of comments on this item, and I would ask your indulgence for me maybe to exceed five minutes on this one.
I will, my comments on the succeeding items will be much shorter.
Thank you.
That's fine.
Thank you.
And maybe go ahead and turn that off because otherwise it's going to be in the middle of the comments.
And then I'll jump.
In my view, there are in fact two main issues at hand, and I think these will also apply to item two, the Kittredge project.
First question, and I think it's worth going to, is one of the merits.
Do the structures at 2421 and 2425 Durant, I guess actually the more elaborate ornate one is the one that the designation is purportedly symbolically attached to, do they meet the criteria for a landmark designation? The second question, of course, is one of process.
Can and should the city designate landmarks on sites with projects that have submitted pre-applications and thus have vested under state law? And I have to say that for this particular project on Durant, I've struggled with these questions around the landmark designation and appeal.
Although I don't find the 2425 structure particularly noteworthy.
It's nice.
I do think the house at 2421 is beautiful.
I appreciate the story 2421 tells about the history of the block and would be genuinely sad to see it go.
If I could wave a magic wand or pick it up and put it on a truck, I might preserve it and double the height of the new house.

Segment 3

Welcome to the meeting of the Berkeley City Council on the 2425 site or relocate something to another site, but despite my personal feelings, I think we have to operate within the bounds of the municipal code and state law and broader circumstances that are in play right now.
In reality, my preferred magical options are likely infeasible and we face, we continue to face, a severe housing crisis.
Despite rents that remain unaffordably high, Berkeley is seeing a slowdown in home building because of rising construction costs and interest rates and yes, the burdens we impose locally, the city does.
If we were to consider historic preservation values in pure isolation, we'd landmark everything because pretty much everything has a historic value greater than zero and perhaps that's what some people want.
But that's not what the people who voted us into office expect of us.
They expect us to look at the big picture and follow the law.
And within the law, they expect us to balance the competing interests and challenges we face as we weigh the historic value of existing buildings.
As much as we try to insist that landmarking decisions are based on purely objective criteria, it's just not the case.
It's unavoidably true that it will ultimately come down to subjective value judgments.
With the exception of the criterion related to inclusion on state or federal registries, which isn't applicable here, every single one of our landmarking criteria incorporates the word value into its language.
And even inclusion on state and federal registries itself comes as a result of value judgments.
They're always going to be contextual.
So while I believe that at least 2421 has some non-zero historic value and maybe significantly more than that, I don't think that value rises to the level that would justify a landmark designation for the property.
I'm going to go through the criteria.
For the criterion of architectural merit, the Municipal Code establishes three tests.
Property that is the first, last, only, or most significant architectural property of its type in the region.
The region.
This property does not appear to meet this criterion.
The word region is key.
There are numerous similar structures in our region, and I've not seen evidence that this one is the first, last, only, or most significant.
And I don't think the argument can be made that the neighborhood is the region, because the word neighborhood is used elsewhere in the same criterion section.
In this particular test, if this particular test was meant to be based on neighborhood, it would have said neighborhood.
B.
Properties that are prototypes of or outstanding examples of period styles, architectural movements, construction, or examples of the more notable works of the best surviving work in a region of an architect, designer, or master builder.
And again, I think the building is lovely, but it's not prototypical, and I don't think it rises to the level of being an outstanding example.
Again, the notion of something being outstanding is inherently subjective.
There are, in fact, other even more impressive examples of this style of architecture across the city and in the region.
I don't think this criterion is met, and once again, I don't think the regional standard is being met.
For example, the Bajas website has an entire page of surviving and better examples of this particular architect's work in San Francisco.
And this is clearly not the best or last remaining example of his work in the region.
And it's not even, in fact, the last example of his work in Berkeley, since, as I understand it, the Masonic Temple was designed by him and is, in fact, an existing landmark.
So the next item is architectural examples criterion worth preserving for the exceptional values they add as part of the neighborhood fabric.
And, of course, this is the one I struggled with the most.
I think the 2421 structure adds value to the neighborhood fabric, but I don't think we can call it exceptional.
As much as I love this home and the history it prompts me to imagine, I don't think this structure represents exceptional value for the overwhelming majority of Berkeley residents and passersby.
When people think about Southside and its defining structures, I'm willing to bet that few, if any, people thought of these two buildings.
And while I'm sure many people would agree that the building's lovely, 2421, I doubt that many would identify it as integral to the neighborhood.
And finally, since these structures are not listed on state or federal registries, that criterion is moot.
That's the other criteria.
All of the remaining criteria relate explicitly to non-architectural values.
For cultural or educational value, I don't think these structures meet the standards.
Neither is associated with a particular notable cultural movement, and I don't think either serves as an educational force, which is a strange and amorphous standard in my view.
Historic value, that's another criterion, and that's the last one.
It means to embody and express the history of Berkeley, Alameda County, and California, or the United States.
This is another highly subjective, amorphous, and elastic standard, since every structure embodies or expresses history to some degree.
The landmark application appears to argue that the structures embody and express history because they are representative of an early pattern of residential development and representative of the continuing residential development in this area.
And I don't think that's compelling.
Setting the bar so low for historic value means that almost any residential structure would be representative of an early pattern of residential development or of continuing residential development.
Indeed, building the proposed project would also be representative of continued residential development, which illustrates the incredible looseness of this justification.
An argument for historic value that seems to materialize not independently, but also at the same time a project is proposed should be treated with some scrutiny.
This was not, nobody sought to landmark it before the development application was submitted.
In my view, the fact that this property was not the subject of such a landmarking designation prior to the project application, despite Berkeley's very liberal approach to the designation of landmarks, is a telling factor.
For all these reasons, I believe the Landmark Preservation Commission committed error in designating this landmark on the merits of the question.
And now turning to process, I think it's fairly cut and dry.
For any proposed project that submits a preliminary application, state law says that we can only apply the ordinances, policies, and standards adopted and in effect at the time the application was submitted.
Landmarking this property at this time and attempting to apply resulting standards would clearly, in my view, maybe the city attorney disagrees with me, but my view is it's a violation of state law.
And it is because of the burden that it places.
It seems to me it's not entirely symbolic because it places a burden on this property.
Theoretically, we could adopt the landmark and not apply the standards, but it seems kind of moot to do so.
I do worry about liability, exposing the city to liability from the developer, from the applicant, and from the state.
If the state believes that simply adopting a landmark represents the attempted imposition of a new standard, they could come after us.
So, you know, I'm not convinced that SB 330 allows symbolic requirements, especially if those symbolic requirements constitute a burden on developing the property.
So for all these reasons, I think that approving this landmark at this time would represent a breach of process and an unacceptable risk for the city.
I intend to vote in favor of granting the property owner's appeal and overturning the decision of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And just to be transparent to my council colleagues, Councilmember Hempert had asked earlier, and that's why I gave him extra time, but I know we are really trying to keep within our five minutes.
So thank you.
I appreciate you checking in.
Okay, Councilmember Traka, or Taplin, I'm sorry.
No worries.
Thank you very much.
I will be speaking extemporaneously, so please feel free to time me, and I will be far less eloquent, just fair warning.
I was not planning to speak tonight, and I do appreciate getting the background of this building.
I do feel that I must say that neither the city will, like, There are structures and societies that predate both the city and the university.
Our history did not begin in the 1800s.
And, you know, I do have a deep love for the city's history.
I really appreciate learning about it.
I just also wish that we would bring forward our history at other times than when there might be a new building happening, because not liking tall buildings or new buildings, seeing for lease signs, do not make this structure worthy of a landmarking status, in my opinion.
And I've tried all these years to really hold on to the belief that we are utilizing our power to landmark because we value our history, and that's not about, like, tying up things in process or blocking new housing.
But I, you know, respectfully, what I heard tonight is making that harder to maintain as a belief.
And I will also be voting to uphold the appeal.
I have all these other amazing things to say, but I'm losing those.
But I'll leave it there unless I, unless the further inspiration.
But I think, you know, I mean, Mr.
Humbert, my colleague, really kind of took the words out of my mouth.
So, yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Trakob.
And then we're going to go online to Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you.
I work for my constituents and a little over $85,000.
So if that's considered working for money, so be it.
I have a few comments.
First of all, this is really, I anticipate we're going to be, as staff has noted in their materials, we anticipate seeing more of these kinds of projects either come before us and or the LPC post SB340.
And there are two important values to keep in that all of us are striving to balance.
One around historical preservation and the other around meeting our housing affordability, meeting and hopefully exceeding our local and regional housing affordability goals.
I too have struggled mightily with this particular appeal.
I do agree with the comments of my colleague on my right.
I am not sure that I could make the claim that this has special significance, but that is not to say that I really appreciate very much both the value of the architecture and the history behind this project.
To that end, the challenge is on.
I hope that there is an opportunity to move this building somewhere.
And when I was serving on the zoning board, we approved a few, not many, but several such relocations.
I believe some of them are now proudly standing in my district.
And I would love to see something like that happen if at all possible.
With that said, I think state law is quite clear on this point.
And just on that basis alone, I feel that I have no choice but to support the staff recommendation and what I will say to the demolition concerns.
This was my very first vote on the council last year.
I'm proud to have been part of a council that approved what I believe to be one of the strongest demolition ordinances in the nation.
To be clear, that does not keep buildings from being demolished.
But what it does is it ensures robust and lasting protections for sitting tenants.
And while this is not before us today, I wanted to just reference that.
Thank you for this opportunity.
Thank you.
Council Member Bartlett? Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm on my phone out here.
It's interesting, divine timing here.
Because when I wake up later when the day starts, I'm going to be visiting sites associated with Alexander the Great.
So very interesting timing.
You know, to the historical preservation community, I appreciate your work, your efforts.
We do have a beautiful city.
Lots of architectural marvels.
So much historical import tied to different places.
But unfortunately, I don't think this is the place.
And I think if it had, you would have done it before the application for the building.
You know, I just think it's important that when it comes to these processes we have to beautify our city, protect our culture, that it's used with integrity.
And not used as a tool of weaponization to stop development.
And your point about the for rent signs, that's good.
Lots of rent signs are good.
That means landlords are competing for tenants.
And when you compete for tenants, you lower the rent.
So that's good.
So our rent is falling.
Very clear.
So, yeah, I'm going to vote to uphold the appeal.
And I do, I think we need to really kind of come to grips here and sort of reevaluate our tools for preserving our landmarks and determining them.
I think we need a new criteria that's rooted in community interest, community value, more specific community value that's expressed through a legacy of culture, whether it's physical or otherwise.
Because otherwise we're kind of, now we're going into the CEQA abuse territory and we saw where the state just curtailed use of CEQA because it was used.
So we want to avoid that.
So let's get our house in order and really think about the business of beautifying our community.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Keserwani.
And just so we're clear on the order because we're hopping back and forth between online and in person.
After Council Member Keserwani will be Council Member Linapara, then Blackabee since he hasn't gone yet, and then Taplin.
Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
Thank you to our planning staff for your presentation.
Thank you to the appellant and the applicant for your comments and for comments from members of the public.
I do just want to level set.
I think my colleagues have pointed this out as our staff have as well, and our city attorney has as well.
The landmarking, if we were to proceed with that and agree with the Landmark Preservation Commission, it would be purely symbolic, meaning it would have no practical effect on the future project.
Aside from, it sounds like some of the financing issues, it would not cause the project to be required to preserve any element of that very charming old home.
Correct? Correct.
Okay.
So when we are being asked to do that, remember there's no practical effect for taking that symbolic action.
The practical effect is that we invite legal risk because our staff is advising us that state law gives the applicant vested rights, and we are hearing concerns that even this symbolic landmarking affects their ability to proceed with the project.
They've already had a four-month delay, and I'm concerned about what we're hearing about how this could affect financing or how it may already affect financing.
For me, this is really about process.
I find it actually disappointing that this even came to the Landmark Preservation Commission because, as our planning director noted, we need to do that historic context statement and survey so that we have an understanding of which structures in our city have historic merit, which ones are cultural resources, so that we can just level set that, and we don't have these situations where it seems to me, in this case and the next case that we're going to be looking at, an applicant submits an application for a use permit, and then we have other folks in the community who seem to take notice and want to try to landmark that structure.
That's not a good process.
I just want to say that.
One, it doesn't treat all historic structures and cultural resources fairly.
It seems that the ones that are subject of these use permits get heightened scrutiny, so that's not fair, and it slows down these projects.
I want to preserve our historic structures and cultural resources.
I think we all do, but we have to do it fairly.
I just want to express my commitment to funding that survey because we have tried to fund it in the past.
We have had difficult budgets, but I think with these appeals tonight, what we're seeing is that there are costs to not funding the survey.
We're here because we didn't do the survey, and we have these one-off situations that we now have to adjudicate.
I'm disappointed in that, and I hope we can fix that moving forward.
With that, I would like to make a motion to uphold the appeal and reverse the Landmarks Preservation Commission decision.
For the purposes of discussion, I just want to make that motion.
I do understand we need to hear from some other members of our council.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Munopara.
Thank you.
I first want to say that I agree with our city attorney and disagree with the appellant that this is a legal issue.
In my opinion, a theoretical financial burden on the development does not count as the city preventing the development from happening and does not violate the HAA, since this would be a symbolic decision.
I don't want to hide behind a state law while we make this decision.
However, I do want to tie myself to a lot of Council Member Humbert's comments.
I ultimately don't think that this building reaches the standard for a historic designation.
I also agree with Council Member Taplin and Bartlett in that it is really frustrating that we decide to care about historic places after a development is proposed.
I think that this building especially, which I've walked by hundreds if not thousands of times, regularly gets lost in a very lively and beautiful neighborhood.
The building next door, 2419 Durant, I believe, much better encompasses the spirit and history of the neighborhood.
I also want to say that I hear both the current tenant and the student resident that gave public comment earlier, and I would love to hear from you, especially to discuss our design standards about new development.
At the same time, I want to say that there are so many things that make a neighborhood beautiful, and I fundamentally do not believe that we need to freeze our city in amber to preserve and honor our history.
I was going to make the motion, but Council Member Castellano beat me to it.
Those are all my comments.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Blackaby? I'll be brief.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
I just want to associate myself with the comments of all of my colleagues, particularly Council Member Humbert, who very articulately laid out the case, both on the merits as well as on the process and legal and policy sides of this.
I also agree with what Mr.
Warschauer said in his comments, and also Council Member Castellano picked up in her comments, which is we should be much more strategic and proactive about identifying the properties that have historic merit in our city, and make sure we are preserving those and not doing it as an afterthought as new development projects are coming to the floor.
Again, I agree with Council Member Castellano and others that I think funding, even in this period where we are in a tight budget environment, to avoid these kind of conflicts down the road and also just be more strategic and thoughtful and take the time to do this right, doing the historic context survey and identifying those significant properties starting now and getting ahead of it so we know what we want to preserve ahead of time is smart and is good for the community and good for preserving the historical sites of significance in our city.
So I appreciate the motion from Council Member Castellano.
We lost him, but I think we can move on to Council Member Taplin's comments.
So we still have two more items left, folks.
Thanks, I'll just be very brief.
I do think it's important to think about whose history matters and why.
You know, I think multiplexes in the Elmwood and throughout the city are part of the city's history.
Apartment buildings in South and West Berkeley and throughout the city are part of the city's history.
And student housing in the Southside and downtown and elsewhere are also part of the city's history.
And I also think it's a little surprising that this has progressed so far given the clear implications of state law.
So I do think it's warranted to bring our local ordinance into alignment with the state law.
Thank you.
Okay.
I just want to say that I agree with my colleagues and I'm also interested in this citywide historic context statement.
I think that that makes sense.
Council Member Castellano, I'm glad you brought that back up again.
And I know we have a motion on the floor.
So I'd love to move us forward and ask the clerk to take roll, please.
All right.
On the motion, Council Member Keserwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
And Blackabee says he lost power and is returning shortly.
Council Member Trago? Aye.
O'Keefe is absent.
It does not appear as though Blackabee is back on yet.
Council Member Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
Mayor Ishii? Yes.
And I don't see Bartlett on yet.
Blackabee? I'm sorry.
Blackabee, thank you.
That's okay.
He'll be noted as absent.
Okay.
I think the motion carries, so.
Yes.
Okay.
Very good.
Thank you.
Thank you all for coming and thank you to staff for your presentation.
But don't go anywhere because we have another one.
So we're moving on to number two, which is the Landmarks Preservation Commission Appeal 2138 Kittredge Landmark Application LMIN 2024-0006.
And I'm going to open the public hearing starting with a presentation from staff.
I'm sorry.
Do you mind? Could you please not speak to staff because they're working? Thank you.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Council.
The next appeal is 2138 Kittredge Street.
This is an appeal of a Landmark Preservation Commission, similar to the other one, to designate the subject property at 2138 Kittredge as a city landmark.
Similar, I'll present the review history of the proposed designation, provide some project-specific details before addressing the appeal.
The upcoming slides provide a summary of the relevant permit and landmark review milestones.
Starting on February 14, 2024, the city received a preliminary use permit application pursuant to SB 330.
And on April 4, the preliminary use permit application was deemed complete and vested to that date.
Then on August 6, the appellant submitted a use permit application under SB 330.
That application was deemed complete on September 5, 2024.
Subsequently, on October 30, 2024, the city received a landmark or structure merit application for the subject property, which initiated formal consideration of the site for historic designation.
Although a public hearing was initially scheduled for January 6, 2025, it was postponed to February 6 to allow for additional time for public notice and to address questions raised by interested parties.
On January 2025, public hearing notices were mailed to property owners and occupants within 300 feet of the site, as well as to interested neighborhood organizations.
The LPC held the public hearing on February 6, and after reviewing the record and receiving public comment, the commission voted to designate the property as a city landmark.
Then finally, on March 24, the appellant filed an appeal of the LPC's decision, which brings us to today's hearing.
This slide shows the zoning designation and location of 2138 Kittredge.
The property is located in the CDMU zoning district, downtown core sub area, which allows for a mix of residential and commercial uses and encourages higher density development in downtown Berkeley.
The primary structure on the site, historically known as the Fitzpatrick House and later as the Pepper Tree Tea Room, is situated near the northwest corner of the lot.
Its north-facing facade is built directly along the northern property line, fronting Kittredge Street, and a one-story carport structure is located at the rear of the site, occupying the southwest corner and spanning the full width of the rear property line.
In terms of historic context, the site is located just outside the boundaries of the Berkeley Historic Civic Center district.
It's surrounded by multiple designated historic structures, including the Masonic Temple, Tupper and Reed building, and the Heslett Silk Store building.
Here's a view of the subject property.
It shows a street-level view of the Fitzpatrick House.
The building reflects a hybrid of colonial, revival, and modern influenced Georgian revival styles.
Here's another view of the facade and the decorative windows.
Here are the eastern and western frontages showing the horizontal shiplap wood siding, the multi-pane, double-hung windows with molded wood trim, and the decorative cornice that frames the roof line.
Moving on to the main appeal issue.
This is a summary of the appeal issues and staff's response.

Segment 4

More detailed discussion can be found in the staff report.
The appellant claims that the landmark designation is prohibited by SB 330 and the Housing Accountability Act, claiming that it places the housing project at risk by imposing new standards after the application was deemed complete.
Under state law, once an SB 330 preliminary application for a housing development project is submitted and deemed complete, it is protected from the application of new policies or standards, including historic designations.
The LPC designated the site as Historic Landmark on February 6, 2025, after the vested rights had been established, which in this case, the preliminary application was deemed complete on April 4, 2024.
Any subsequent changes to zoning or other local regulations, including discretionary decisions such as a local landmark designation, are not applicable to the housing development project, and accordingly, staff recommends reversing the designation because it cannot be applied to the proposed project under state law.
Staff recommends that Council conduct a public hearing and adopt a resolution reversing the LPC's decision to designate the property at 2138 Kittwood Street as a City Landmark.
Alternately, Council may continue the public hearing, affirm or modify the LPC's decision, or remand the matter back to LPC.
This concludes staff's presentation, and I'm available for any questions.
Thank you.
Can I have the appellant come forward, please? You'll have five minutes for your presentation.
And as you've heard, you only need two, you said? Okay.
And as you've heard, I'm a stickler for time, so.
Good evening, Mayor and City staff, or City staff and Council.
My name's Bill Schrader.
I own the Austin Group, a development company, and the affiliated entity that owns the Studio One property before you tonight.
We support staff's report reversing the landmarking of our property, and would ask for your yes votes this evening.
I did want to take a couple of minutes to provide some clarifications for the public record.
There may be, as you've heard tonight, some lingering questions regarding prospectively landmarking properties here in town.
While on the surface, it may appear to be an innocuous decision and only impacts the development if the initial developer fails to build the approved project, this is not true.
As a prospective landmarking impacts the project lender's collateral, and also impacts the project's title, and clearly violates SB 330 and the Housing Accountability Act, as pointed out both in our appeal and the staff report.
Second, we have been working closely with the State's Housing and Community Development Department, sometimes referred to as HCD.
They agree with our position.
In fact, at HCD's request, we provided them a list of all the previous projects that had properties also prospectively landmarked.
I would highly recommend that the City look at reversing those decisions, as I do not believe any of those projects have moved forward.
I have also looked closely at the cost of this appeal process to our project.
The delays and legal costs exceed a half a million dollars, resulting in me potentially having to raise the project rents by approximately $50 a month per unit on our tenants in this very small project.
It also costs the City a year's worth of property taxes and other revenue collections.
Lastly, and I'm going to try to be polite here, I do not believe it's in the City's best interest to have a Landmarks Committee that seems to operate like an extension of Baja.
Frankly, I believe this is how we all got here tonight.
If the City wants to landmark particular buildings in Berkeley that it considers important historic resources, it needs to happen before housing developers, in good faith, decide to move forward on a new project.
Not after we've done preliminary due diligence, we've checked all the available resources, only to have Baja file an appeal with the intended goal of stopping housing development, which is exactly what happened in this case.
In fact, their opening paragraph specifically stated this.
They filed it to stop the development.
With that, thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you.
Please turn off your phones, folks.
Thank you.
Is there an applicant here to speak? Or maybe online? I believe it's Isaac again, online.
Okay.
Thank you, Isaac.
I see your hand.
You will have five minutes.
Thank you.
I would like to begin to address some of the allegations leveled by the applicant about Baja, both Baja's intentions with regard to historic preservation and the LPC's relationship with Baja.
Historically, Baja has been very involved in historic preservation in the City, partly because the members of Baja were involved in the formation of the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance in the very beginning.
And second of all, Baja has undertaken, in the absence of investment by the City, many of the functions that the LPC was given in the Landmarks Ordinance.
That includes gathering archives of information about the historic buildings in the City.
It includes conducting surveys of historic property.
And as a result, Baja has become an indispensable resource for the study of the historic resources in the City.
Furthermore, Baja's mission is not to prevent any change in the City.
And I know that the interests of Baja and of people who are opposed to particular developments have at times coincided.
But in this case, I can speak to the motives of Anthony Bruce, and that these are buildings that have been on the radar of Anthony Bruce for many, many years, but he happens to be one man and the only paid staff member at Baja, and there are many, many buildings to consider in the entire City.
So the fact that this happens at the last minute is not a desire to go around stopping all developments that ever come up in the City.
It comes out of a desire to do the things that are most urgent, given extremely limited resources.
Baja is ready, as always, to collaborate with the City on proceeding with comprehensive historic preservation planning.
It just requires a small amount of investment, requires a small amount of planning, and it also requires understanding in a participatory way what is important about the history.
As an undergrad, I was an archaeology major, and I focused on the prehistory of North America.
And I understand that the history of the Bay Area begins long before the Spanish arrives, and certainly long before the University was established here.
But I also understand that in the absence of any preservation protections, very little physical remnant of prehistoric settlement in Berkeley remains.
And if we are to protect all the stories that Berkeley contains, we have to pursue preservation in a systematic way, and do so not just to protect what seem to be gleaming architectural examples, things that you notice walking down the street, but also protect buildings that are not obviously remarkable, but are important for understanding the historical development of the City, so that people who are here can understand, whether at a conscious or a subconscious level, where the City has been and where they are trying to take it.
So Baja does not come at this as a purely NIMBY organization, and I can speak for myself as an architect who designs affordable housing for a living, that my livelihood depends on new housing production.
But I'm also invested in the preservation of aspects of the built fabric that express Berkeley's history.
Furthermore, I would like to indicate that Kittredge Street has been recognized as an historic resource over the years.
Let me show a couple of slides.
So in the Shattuck Avenue Commercial Corridor Historic Context and Survey, it was indicated as a possible contributing structure to a proposed historic district.
This has clear historical merit, and it was identified by the Appellant's Historic Resource Evaluation as a potential property for local designation.
And furthermore, I want to make sure that the City understands that this property falls under an exception to the infill housing exemption to CEQA, because it has been recognized an historic resource, and drafts, well, versions that were sent to the City of the Historic Resource Evaluation indicated that it would be an historic resource under CEQA.
So that's important to get out of the way.
And then secondly, I would like to point out that the City's EIR for the housing element isn't simply about producing a context statement.
It is about producing a cultural resources survey of the entire City.
And so fulfilling the EIR obligations under CEQA requires the City not only to produce a context statement, which has some importance, but also to proceed with a survey of the entire City so that we can understand where resources are and proactively try to protect them.
And lastly, on behalf of Baja, I would like to submit that we agree with the City's interpretation of the EIR.
I'm sorry.
Your time is up, Isaac.
Thank you.
Thanks for your presentation.
At this time, I'd like to see if anyone has any ex-parte communications to disclose.
Yes.
I did speak with a search radar in the spring.
In the spring.
Okay.
All right.
I did as well.
In March of 2025, my team and I attended a tour of the property provided by the appellant.
Okay.
Anyone else? Oh, Council Member Bach.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Also, on March 31st, I had a meeting with the appellant at the property.
Second, I also apologize for the previous—I ask that my vote be recorded as yes on the previous item.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Council Member Lenapara, go ahead.
Thank you.
Yeah.
In the spring, my staff spoke with the appellant, and I submitted the ex-parte form to the clerk.
Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
Yes.
And just make sure everyone turns in their forms for that.
Okay.
Okay.
Do we have Council questions on this one? Just checking in with Council Member Lenapara, since I can't see you.
Okay.
No.
No.
No questions.
Very good.
Okay.
Can I take public comment then, please? Folks, if you have a public comment, can you come line up here? Or are you all here for three? Yes.
Okay.
That's good to know.
All right.
All right.
Come on up.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Steven Schuyler.
I live at the Oxford Plaza Apartments at the corner of Kittredge Street in Oxford.
And I've been there since 2009.
I'm an original resident there, right next door to the California Movie Theater and right across the street from this property.
And I think what's important to understand for everybody on the staff, on the City Council, is that the human part, the people part, how this all affects the people who already live in these neighborhoods, where developers need to take responsibility for when they build these buildings and all the people and the traffic from the construction.
And once they're built, all the people and everything who are there, coming and going from school and how it affects the disabled people and all this other stuff, nobody really spends a lot of time talking about that part.
We've been spending a lot of time talking about buildings and codes and all that.
I like some people to start talking about people.
And I'm really concerned.
And now we hear about the California Theater is dead, Oxford Street or Center Street is now two or three years, they just decided to hold and it's all fenced off and boarded up and they disconnected their utilities so they can't reopen for business.
So that's going to sit there all boarded up like just a really bad part of town in this middle of Center Street, downtown Berkeley.
This is not okay.
This is not okay.
And now the builder is going to be responsible for whatever happens in our neighborhood.
He's responsible for whatever choices you make.
There's people behind every decision you make.
Remember that.
Thank you for your comments.
Folks, if you have a comment, can you just make sure to line up so I know who else is speaking? Who else? Is anyone else speaking for this item? Okay, go ahead.
Good evening.
My name is Donna Charge and I will speak on my own behalf because I thought Isaac did such a good job from AHA.
I think that where this council is making a mistake is you're not looking at what the promises were that were made by the state and that you all believed it.
And I really recommend you go out and take a walk around the downtown area and other parts of the city and look how far this promise has really taken anybody.
You know, a city's job is never to encourage blight, but I'm going to tell you, if the things I'm hearing and the things I'm seeing are true, this gentleman that just spoke, you need to open your eyes and you need to start evaluating just how well you're doing with the promise because it needs to have some kind of result that does, in fact, as promised by the state, that does reduce homelessness and they're all doing, you know, better than they were before.
The housing is really pretty good on that score.
You know, you're talking about, well, the rents came down.
The students can't afford those rents.
They can't afford to live in those buildings that have the swimming pool and all that other kind of stuff, and they can't hide behind the state because when the state's done with a promise that they haven't kept, you're left here.
This is our city and here you are.
And so I'm just encouraging you to look at the other side of this promise that you could legislate your way out of expensive housing and you could legislate your way out of homelessness and it's all because of the promise.
So I'll speak on that later.
Thank you.
Bye.
Thank you.
Are there comments online? No, Mayor.
There are no hands raised online.
Oh, I'm sorry.
A hand just was raised.
If you'd like to speak on Zoom, please use the raise hand function.
Our speaker is Tony.
Tony, you should be allowed to speak.
Good evening, everybody.
It's Tony Mester in District 2.
I want to thank Mr.
Isaac Warschauer for his insightful comments about planning for preservation rather than doing it bit by bit, piece by piece, a more comprehensive view.
And I agree with that very much.
You know, I turned 82 recently.
And one of the good things about getting old is you get a sense of history.
You know, you develop a sense of history and historical trends.
And I've lived in Berkeley for over half a century.
I came here in 1972.
And I do think that we're seeing a kind of death by a thousand cuts.
You know, it's this demolition here.
Well, this building isn't that important.
And then there's this demolition over here.
And then there's, you know, and it's all for a higher cause.
And this is not going this is not a good thing.
And I want to, before I sign off tonight, give a shout out to the late John English, who was a professional planner and a professional preservationist who befriended me, taught me about the density bonus, took me around town and showed me with his expert eye what buildings represented historically, aesthetically.
And we need that people like John, unfortunately, we lost him.
He was a wonderful man.
People who knew John English know what I'm talking about.
We need more preservationists that can dedicate themselves to saving what's important in Berkeley.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Tony.
Mayor, that was our last raised hand.
Okay.
Council members, do you have comments? Should we close the public hearing? Second.
Thank you.
And Council Member Trachub.
I'm sorry.
We need to take the roll.
All right.
To close the public hearing, Council Member Casarwani? Yes.
Taplin? Aye.
Bartlett? Yes.
Trachub? Aye.
O'Keefe is absent.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead, Council Member Trachub.
Thank you.
I'm going to try to separate out the issues that were raised by members of the public, and I really do appreciate members of the public's participation.
Some of them I know are my constituents.
As the representative for this district, I can assure you that I walk the streets of my district every day.
If you're concerned about the issues of a lack of activation in some key streets, so am I.
And our office is working every day to try to, in the face of a very challenging macroeconomic climate, move the needle on that.
I will note that this, again, is a quasi-judicial matter.
I appreciate what a colleague of mine said on the previous appeal, if he could wave a magic wand.
I wish I could wave a magic wand or had one as well, but I don't.
And I remember when I was on the zoning board and we denied an approval of something that ended up then being appealed in court based on state law at that time, and the city lost that case.
So not only did that building get demolished anyway, not only did the sitting tenant on that property get displaced anyway, and this is before we had the strong demolition ordinance that we do now, but the city then had to pay a not insignificant amount of money to the applicant.
So I remember that because it guides me in trying my best when facing quasi-judicial decisions like this to balance different equities and also do my best to understand what the state law is saying, and I very much believe that at least I'm in agreement with the city attorney and our staff.
And so I will be voting to support the appeal.
I'm not, you know, obviously it's bittersweet for me to do that, but I also hope that not only is my vote today in conformance with what I understand state law to be, which I think is quite clear on this point, but also with the hope that we will be able to realize our community-centered, people-centered vision.
And I will just note that in the appeal itself, there is a statement from 1904 when this building in question was being proposed.
On January 4th, 1904, the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported plans to erect a large building at Shattuck Avenue and Kittredge.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Humbert.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
This one will be much quicker.
For similar reasons to those that I gave for the Durant landmarking application, I feel that the landmark application for 2131 Kittredge lacks merit.
2138 is not a state or federal landmark.
I don't believe its architecture or aesthetics meet the levels necessary for the relevant preservation criteria, and it's, you know, some Georgian revival features on a brick building that's applied to an older building.
I mean, that's not that significant.
I see no evidence of sufficient cultural or educational value, and I don't think that merely being an example of a storefront attached to a residential home represents a historic embodiment worthy of preservation in the neighborhood or broader context.
I think designating this as a landmark would be a—you know, it was a real mistake and would cheapen landmark preservation in Berkeley in general.
On the issue of burden, I've got to say that the appellant here clearly demonstrated that we're talking about very significant dollars that have cost the applicant as a result of this process.
So there is a—there's a real burden to this symbolic designation.
I therefore intend to vote in support of granting the appeal and overturning the decision of the Landmarks Preservation Commission with respect to this building.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Other comments? Okay.
Nobody? All right.
Well, I will just briefly say that it would have been nice to be able to hear what about this building made it so that it should be a landmark, because I would agree with Councilmember Humbert to his points that he made there.
And to the person who commented on people and considering people, I just want to say that is one of the reasons why I'm going to be supporting this, because I know that there are many people who don't have homes, and when we talk about disabled people, well, there are people who are disabled that are also unhoused in our community, and not to mention that a lot of these new buildings are more accessible for people who have disabilities.
So I just feel like that reasoning is not strong enough.
And so, anyway, I'm going to move forward and see if there's a motion.
I will move the staff recommendation.
Second.
Clerk, can you take the roll, please? Okay.
On the staff recommendation, Councilmember Castorwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
O'Keefe? Aye.
O'Keefe is absent.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Okay.
Motion passes.
Thank you all.
We're going to take a 10-minute break.
Thank you, staff.
All right.
Mics are on.
Okay.
Hi, everyone.
We're coming back.
If I could have you take your seats, please.
Settle down.
Thank you.
All right.
We are moving on to Item No.
3, the Zoning Adjustments Board Appeal for 2655 Shattuck Use Permit ZP2024-0057, and I'm going to open the public hearing and we'll have a presentation from staff.
Great.
Thank you, Mayor.
And presenting for staff again is Robert Rivera.
Thank you very much, Council.
The third appeal is 2655 Shattuck Avenue.
It's an appeal of the Zoning Adjustment Board decision to approve a use permit to demolish a one-story, 8,185-square-foot non-residential building and construct an eight-story, 85-feet, roughly 84,000-square-foot mixed-use residential building containing 97 dwelling units, including 10 very low-income units, roughly 2,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space, and 41 vehicle parking spaces.
I'll present the review history of the proposed project and provide project-specific details before addressing the appeal issues.
The upcoming slides provide a summary of the relevant permit and landmark review milestones.
Beginning on December 4th, 2023, the City received a preliminary use permit application pursuant to SB330.
The prelim application was deemed complete and thereby vesting rights on December 12th.
The use permit application was submitted on May 22nd, 2024, and after a couple of rounds of review, was deemed complete on August 18th.
Then on February 6th, 2025, the LPC held a public hearing and took no action to initiate a landmark or structure of merit designation.
On February 20th, the DRC held a public hearing and provided a favorable recommendation to the ZAB.
Then on February 27th, the City mailed public hearing notices to property owners and occupants within 300 feet of the project site, as well as to interested neighborhood organizations.
The City also posted notices at three nearby locations within the neighborhood.
Then on March 13th, 2025, the ZAB held a public hearing and voted to approve the use permit.
The City received an appeal from nearby residents on March 26th, 2025, which brings us to today's hearing.

Segment 5

The product site is located along the northeast corner of Shattuck Avenue and Derby Street within the Adeline Corridor Commercial District.
The product site is surrounded by primarily commercial uses and mixed-use buildings to the north, south, and west.
A vacant auto sales site is located directly to the north of the product site, and to the west across Shattuck Avenue is a mix of commercial uses, the Berkeley Fire Station, and residential apartments.
A student-oriented housing project has been recently constructed to the south of the site across Derby Street.
The surrounding apartments and mixed-use buildings are between five and six stories in height, and there are existing single-family residences ranging from one to two stories located to the east behind the site and to the south, also across Derby.
The proposed project would demolish the existing commercial building and construct an 84,399-square-foot mixed-use residential building containing 97 dwelling units, including 10 very low-income density bonus qualifying units.
Approximately 2,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and 41 vehicle parking spaces are provided.
The proposed project is also providing 4,720 square feet of usable open space, 48 bicycle parking spaces, and new street trees on Shattuck and Derby.
Here shown is the west elevation facing Shattuck Avenue.
Shown here is the south elevation facing Derby Street.
And this is the east elevation facing the existing residential.
The proposed project qualifies as a housing development project under SB 330 and is entitled to density bonus under state law.
The density bonus is calculated based on the site's base density, which is the maximum number of units allowed on site, while fully complying with the applicable district's development standards, such as height, setbacks, usable open space, and parking.
The density bonus is then determined by the percentage of total units dedicated as affordable and their affordability level.
For this site, the base density, or the maximum number of units allowed, is 65 dwelling units.
The proposed project is providing 10 very low-income units, which is 15% of the total units, and under state law, that permits a 50% density bonus.
50% of the 65 units is 33 units.
Added to the base density, that's a maximum total of 98 units.
The project is providing 97 units.
Moving on to the appeal issues.
This is a summary of the appeal issues and staff's response.
A more detailed discussion can be found in the staff report.
The first appeal issue relates with parking requirements.
The appellant requests to eliminate parking entirely in order to shorten the eastern wing.
If this is not possible, the appellant requests to move the driveway from Derby Street to Shattuck Avenue in order to reduce traffic.
Parking maximums are regulated by BMC Section 23.322.070B.
This section states that residential projects may not exceed a 0.5 off-street parking space per dwelling unit.
The project has permitted a maximum of 49 parking spaces and is proposing 41 parking spaces, which is consistent with the requirement.
Because this is a SB 330 project, the city may not impose stricter parking limitations as the development rights are considered vested under state law.
Here's a closer view of the 41 parking spaces provided.
The applicant has also included double-stacked parking spaces to preserve space.
The second appeal issue relates to ground floor commercial space.
The appellant claims commercial space is unwarranted and requests the removal of the commercial space in order to redesign the project with regards to height and circulation.
Under the CAC zoning district requirements, ground floor commercial with a depth of 30 feet is required.
The project is providing 27 feet and 10 inches and is also requesting a waiver to reduce this requirement.
The city does not have the authority to require the applicant to modify a waiver request or to redesign the project as it is a SB 330 project.
The third appeal issue relates to shade and shadow.
Appellants claim the proposed project would create shade impacts eastward along Derby Street and would further impact air, privacy, and property values for the adjacent homes.
The shadow studies submitted indicate new shadows would fall on nearby residents.
However, these would be limited in duration and extent and affect only portions of the building for a few hours of a day only during certain times of the year.
Such shadows are typical in a built urban environment and are not considered detrimental to the surrounding residential uses.
To address shadow and privacy, the proposed project includes additional trees and screening plants at the ground level as well as a landscape roof on the second floor.
And further, all stories above the first floor are stepped back 20 feet from the nearest residential property line to further minimize potential privacy impacts.
Appeal issue four is related to density bonus.
Appellants claim the proposed project was not properly noticed because the public could not review the base project, which warrants restarting the process.
The proposed project was properly noticed and reviewed in accordance with city and state law.
The base project refers to a theoretical calculation of the maximum allowable density permitted and is not a separate proposal that requires discretionary review.
Staff has followed all procedures required by state law and there are no grounds for denial of the project or restarting the process.
And the last appeal issue relates to the inclusionary housing ordinance and in-lieu fee.
Appellants claim the city and the ZAB are incorrectly applying the inclusionary housing ordinance and the affordable housing in-lieu fees are too low.
The proposed project is providing 15% very low income below market rate units on site and will pay a prorated in-lieu fee, which is consistent with the requirement of 20%.
So they'll pay a 5% in-lieu fee.
Further, the affordable housing in-lieu fee was recently analyzed and found to be similar to the city's typical contribution towards providing on-site 100% affordable housing.
Staff recommends that council conduct a public hearing and adopt a resolution affirming the ZAB's decision to approve the use permit at 2655 Shattuck Avenue.
Alternatively, council may continue the public hearing, reverse or modify the LPC's decision, or remand the matter back to the LPC.
And this concludes staff's presentation.
We're available for any questions.
Thank you very much for the presentation.
Can I have the appellant come forward, please? And you will have five minutes to speak.
Thank you.
That's a..
Were you saying something, Robert? Sorry.
I pulled out the presentation early.
I have the appellant's notes.
Thank you.
Sorry.
Is the issue that we're having trouble with screen sharing, or..
Yeah, okay.
And because I think..
Do you have the same presentation? No, different.
I see.
Okay.
Okay.
Is that it? Okay.
Look back here.
There was a message.
Sorry.
Do you have a microphone? Someone is unmuted online, I think.
We are trying to get the presentation on for the appellant.
Okay.
Technically, we tested this before, and it worked, and now it's not.
Oh, okay.
Is it working now, or not at all? I'm going to try to work around it.
I'll play the sound out of the computer, put the microphone next to it, and see if that's adequate.
Okay, got it.
All right, we're going to give this a shot, everyone.
Okay.
I think the reverb sounds pretty bad.
Can it be shared with someone? Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay, I want to give you a few more minutes to try to do this.
I'm going to give you two more minutes, and then we need to move forward.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Can you say something about this two-minute clip? No, I'm sorry.
That's just you're saying two more minutes and you have to say it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is a nightmare.
Can we do something unusual since this is not what we tested? I'm sure you tested.
So what are you asking for? Bring it up.
It has to be visible to everyone.
Can you can you talk us through it or something? I think we really need to move on with the meeting because it's.
What is the what is the problem is to understand the issues you have to be able to see it.
And that's why we filmed it.
And we went to some extent to make a 2 minute and 50 second video that shows it because otherwise it's it's much more comprehensible if you can see it.
And so is is there like, we can't get that video onto someone else's computer or can someone explain to me? That's fine, but let's try to figure out.
Let's try to figure out a different way.
So just clerk, is there a reason why it can't get played on someone else's laptop? We're not sure if there is a compatibility challenge.
It was mentioning that it was a Mac drive and staff devices are not Macs.
So we did try to pull it up on our machines.
Could we play a Vimeo link? Do you have a Vimeo link? Vimeo? Yeah.
Do you have a link? Sure.
Can you share that link with someone, please? We can play it here in the room.
Sure.
No, I mean, can you? It seems like the problem is related to your computer.
So could you share, send email that link over to our clerk and they can play it from the laptop there.
Okay, there we go.
All right.
Millennial.
Council member, I'm going to put it on TikTok and then do it that way.
That's intergenerational.
Sorry.
I think that's ages.
I don't think she actually is on.
Are you on TikTok? Yeah.
I'm barely so that's why I can sort of reference, but can't do it.
Thank you.
Is it on your are you having trouble emailing it or you emailed it or you're having trouble emailing it? Okay.
You just emailed it.
Okay.
All right.
Seems like we're moving forward.
Okay.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Okay.
Okay.
I think we've given sufficient time to try to figure this out.
And unfortunately, we're having some technical difficulties and we'll be able to see this video.
But I, you know, if if you'd like to have us play it and then you can speak over it, that's fine.
But we can see it.
The problem is the sound.
So, if you can talk, yeah, that's what I was suggesting.
So, I think we should do that and then move forward.
So, we've got the clock set for 5 minutes.
You'll have 5 minutes to speak and we will play the video and start it when you're ready.
Yep.
Roll it.
Roll it.
Welcome to Derby Street, a residential street of small homes, densely populated, yet quiet enough for the city to designate as a bike route.
Located just east of Shattuck, this block starts just after the curve or Adeline and many fast cars join Shattuck.
This is 2655 Shattuck.
It stretches deep into Derby past Walker Street.
The proposed 2 story, the proposed 2 building, 8 story, 97 unit project wants to put their driveway on Derby directly across from Walker Street.
That idea has already been judged as a public safety hazard.
In 1997, the city council voted to place the driveway to this large lot, then a video store and said it should be on Shattuck.
Then, at that point, the city built a dedicated lane for vehicles to move safely on to exit Shattuck and access the property via a 2 way driveway on 2655 Shattuck.
This is the dedicated lane for vehicles exiting the property to merge safely back onto Shattuck.
This is the dedicated left turn lane in the center divider for the sole purpose of turning into this property.
Berkeley City Council voted to spend money to build traffic infrastructure for the purpose of keeping kids walking to and from Willard Junior High safe, to keep residents, their vehicles and bikes safe, and to keep the added noise and pollution off Derby.
We believe, and previous council votes ratified, that the driveway for this property remain on Shattuck.
Solving this problem also opens up a way to mitigate the shade cast by a 5 story building scant feet from its closest neighbor.
They will be shaded every day for at least 3 hours before sunset most days of the year.
On June 21st, a half dozen houses will be darkened 3 hours before sunset, not to mention dozens of windows looking into their backyard.
If the driveway remains on Shattuck, developers could put their garage where a portion of the commercial space is now located.
That could lower the back building by a full story.
Commercial space south of the driveway could comply with zoning and could provide a cafe for all.
The number of residential units would remain the same.
The project must be directed to preserve a set of 100 year old bio-relief panels that have been judged historically and aesthetically significant.
The owner and developer currently presides over a blighted property.
Trash, graffiti, open gates, an encampment, and abandoned cars.
This project is not shovel ready.
We are told there is no money.
They have time to redesign a safer, more respectful project.
Keep the driveway on Shattuck, move the parking or get rid of it, preserve the historic features, compensate or mitigate the detriments to the surrounding properties.
We understand that state law has increasingly deprived citizens of control over their lives and environment and handed it over to powerful units.
A relevant law in this case, SB 330, but in our view this law cannot trump public safety issues that were previously decided by the Berkeley City Council.
If a driveway to a large property on Derby was deemed dangerous in 1997, that driveway would still be dangerous 30 years later.
A councilman cited the standards and policies that were in effect is what should take effect in regards to SB 330.
Nor should state law require a city to abandon or destroy valuable publicly financed infrastructure that was built for public safety.
Nor should our city allow a speculative project of 90% market rate housing to deliver a design that is flawed and threatens our neighborhood with dangers and detriments.
This law allows for only five public meetings and one of the meetings regarding historic preservation was held in secret without notice.
It appears legally dubious to count a secret consultation as a meeting.
When this project was first noticed over a year ago, Betsy and I asked Jordan Klein of the Planning Department to keep us surprised.
We were not.
Our first notice was when the project went to DRC.
When asked why we weren't noticed, their response was simply, sorry.
We could not speak to Planning Department staff but were given an outsourced person of some sort who was coordinating the project but did not have access to emails or records to the department.
We are not asking for anything outrageous.
These are reasonable objections to quantifiable dangers and detriments.
State law cannot prohibit you from protecting public safety.
We come to you in hopes that you can help us.
Instead of politicians dispensing privileges to powerful people, we are asking you to stand up for the people who live here now, the people who pay taxes, live and vote in Berkeley.
We have legitimate concerns about issues that impact our real lives.
This is your opportunity to stand up for the people in Berkeley.
Thank you.
Perfect, perfect timing.
Is the applicant here to speak?.

Segment 6

You will have five minutes to speak.
Good evening staff, council, mayor.
My name is Buddy Williams from Studio KDA Architects.
I just have a few images because he gave a great presentation earlier.
I know that design is not part of our remit this evening in terms of appeal, but I can give a few pointers as to how the building took its shape and why.
Sure.
Can you speak up a bit and maybe position the mic? Thank you.
Righto.
Next slide.
As was mentioned, we've got a majority of the commercial aspect on the west side of the street along Shattuck and residential R2 to the east.
This lot has a bit of a bend on the west side, and given its size and shape, ideally we would want to place double loaded corridor type apartment buildings, and we often have a much more skinny site.
With this site, we had the opportunity to take most of the mass and put it to the west part of the site.
Let's do the next slide.
I just have five.
So the majority of the building, eight stories, is along Shattuck, and as you can see in the top right photo, the remainder of the building is the five stories at the eastern side.
Next one.
I think it's the last one.
And so on the right side, there's a blue dashed line, which is where we were allowed to put building, and also it's important to note that on the right side of the building could have been eight stories, but as it is now, we held the building back further at the second and third floor and also took those three floors and put that mass and pushed it towards the west side of the building and put commercial, which is not only by code, but desirable there on the western portion of the building, the ground floor.
Any other questions in terms of situational aspects of the project? Sure.
So your presentation is complete? Okay.
Thank you.
Council Members, do you have any questions? Yes.
I'm going to let Council Member Bartlett go first since this is his district.
I know you're trying to unmute.
And then Council Member Tracob.
Thank you for your presentation.
I guess my questions for you are, when you were designing the driveway, why the impetus to move it from Shattuck to Derby? By code, it is supposed to be off of Derby.
So we were following planning code.
When we do this in other locations, it's important to take the access to the driveway off of the most busy street where a majority of people are walking along the avenue.
That's what we do in other locations throughout the city, especially on San Pablo.
We would take off of San Pablo.
We would always go off the side streets, similar to Shattuck.
And that's because of the correlation of walking across that driveway entry than there is on the busier street, either Shattuck, University, San Pablo.
It's all kind of the same thing.
Does that code intersect with our bicycle route code as well? This code comes from the Adeline Corridor Specific Plan.
The site is within the Adeline Corridor Specific Plan, which was approved in 2020.
And the specific plan has design strategies for parking and activation of the primary street frontages, including locating parking at the rear of the site and promoting active ground floor commercial frontages at the primary frontage, which is supposed to increase pedestrian activity and create a more comfortable experience for the pedestrian.
Also, I'm wondering, this is for the designer again here as well, so why the parking? The city has taken steps to really make the city more bike and pedestrian friendly, to reduce the number of cars in the street district.
It has a tremendous number of pedestrian and bicycle injuries and fatalities from interacting with cars.
So, you know, we worked hard to reduce the need for parking.
And really, when we can, not require new buildings, specifically on transit corridors like this one, close to the campus, close to downtown, close to BART, close to bus lines, to require parking.
So what's your thinking around requiring parking? Yeah, it was a client call for two reasons.
One, they felt that it was far enough away from campus to warrant the parking.
And second is that this building is being set up as condo as well as apartments.
And it's just the expectation for a condo development is to include parking.
We are technically, as was mentioned, under-parked for maximum.
But for this particular development, that was the client's call.
It was the best mix for their terms of being able to move those units.
Okay, thank you.
Do you have any more questions, Council Member Bartlett? Not at this time.
Thank you.
Council Member Trajka.
Thank you.
One of my questions was actually going to be about parking.
So maybe this is now a question to staff.
Can you speak more to the staff contention that the city may not impose stricter parking limitations under state law and what I'm basically wondering about is does this part of state law have the same power and effect as the Housing Accountability Act? The part about state law where it's similar to the historic designations where there are vested tenant rights.
And under state law, what the rules that were in place when the application was deemed vested is what is being applied, regardless if it's a parking minimum or a parking maximum.
The city doesn't have a parking minimum for this site because it's within a transit-oriented development.
But the parking maximum is set and we wouldn't be able to change or alter that maximum requirement.
And it would be against SB 330 and the vested tenant rights.
Okay, and can you remind me again, is this basically within the limit of what the parking maximum is? Correct, yeah.
Okay.
What they're proposing is the maximum amount of parking allotted for this site? The maximum was 45 and they're proposing 41, I think, under the maximum.
Okay, thank you.
I wanted to, this may be for the applicant, but it might also be for staff.
I'm just trying to, I'm looking at the south elevation facing Darby on the slides, and I just want to confirm that fifth story, the edge on the eastern side, or the end of the step back above the little stub, is that about 60 feet or so? I'm looking at the elevation drawings, but it doesn't provide a specific elevation for that.
Are you talking about at the top of the fifth floor? Yes.
Okay, so about 60.
Yeah.
Thank you.
And then I didn't see this as an appeal point, but since this was brought up by the appellant, staff, could you provide some context about that initial meeting and the contentions that were made by the appellant about noticing? Are you referring to the LPC meeting, the ZAB meeting? I guess, well, it's just what I heard on record now.
I guess it was the LPC meeting that was being referred to.
I'm not sure.
Okay.
I can't speak to the specific contentions that were made, but we can say that all of our required noticing procedures were followed.
Okay, thank you.
That's all my questions.
Thank you.
Other questions from Councilmembers? Oh, Councilmember Bacoby, I see your hand.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
I just had two questions.
First, for the applicant, we heard from the appellants some questions about some of these ball relief features.
We've certainly seen other designs of other new developments in recent past where some of those features, even if not of particular historical significance, some of those features have been maintained in the new design.
Just curious if you had any intention or thoughts about what you might or might not do with those ball relief elements of the current building.
Sure.
Deeper in the packet, there are some images that we created after we had our meeting with LPC when we went to DRC.
We gave that as an example of how to save those two murals that are part of the existing building.
They're really nifty, and we originally showed them as part of the gate entry sequence in front of the courtyard, and their preference at that time was to place them within the building on the building elevation proper.
So we said, look, make it a conditional recommendation that we'll place them on the building proper facing Shattuck, as opposed to being part of the entry space.
But to answer your question, we want to save them, and we're cool with that.
And we showed it as one potential in the drawings, and it was talked about, and we decided that, sure, we'll place it on Shattuck instead.
That's fine with us in terms of being able to exhibit those and make a plaque and a story about it as well.
Awesome.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
And then the second question for staff, I noticed on appeal issue three, questions about the potential shade impacts and sort of done the analysis and had characterized that it's a typical impact in a built urban environment, not considered detrimental.
Just curious, like, how do you make that determination? Is there a level of shade at some point where the scales would be tipped and what might that look like versus what's being presented here? If you could help articulate that, that would be great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The zoning code doesn't have a objective standard for shade.
It's largely subjective.
There aren't any, you know, measurements, but a shade study was conducted and found to be typical with the average shade that comes across in an urban environment.
SB330, unfortunately, without objective standards, there isn't a threshold that we could enforce on the project without having some objective standards for shade and shadow.
So it's a largely subjective determination.
Do you envision a scenario where you were like, wow, that is extreme.
And I'm just curious if you could envision something.
Just help me think through that.
Not for this project, I'm just saying in general.
Could you envision a project that's proposed with such detrimental extreme shade impacts that you'd be like, you know what, that's too much? Yeah.
It might have to be determined based on lumens or some sort of objective standard conducted for the existing conditions versus the proposed project and what that looks like.
We all know that the sun and the angle of the shade changes the year.
So it would really have to be some sort of analysis with underlying findings to create that kind of metric.
Okay.
I'm just, you know, just thinking of it, you know, sometimes thinking of what the most extreme cases and working back is helpful to know, like, maybe where that line gets drawn.
So I just encourage us to be thinking about that.
Okay.
But I appreciate the context.
That's all I got.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
Other questions? Okay.
In that case, we, first of all, I just want to see if folks have any ex parte communications that they need to disclose.
Did I ask that already? I'm sorry.
We had a big break and I want to make sure.
Sorry, I don't have a hand raised button on this phone I'm using, but I do want a follow-up question.
Sure.
Sure.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
This is back to the, our city staff here.
So I'm just trying to understand again, I guess building off the customer black of these questions.
So.
To determine whether it was too much beyond a subjective sort of analysis, you would need to do an objective study.
Is that, is that what you're saying? I think that we're saying that.
Okay.
Council could consider adopting objective standards.
Related to.
Related to solar access, but absent.
Absent and objective standard.
We cannot.
Make a determination of detriment that we would use to deny a project that's not permitted under state law.
I, I think that's a good question.
Because I think in your, in the statement we have here.
It makes it look, you made a determination.
That was minimal.
And that was normal.
When in actuality I've been to the site.
And I've seen that the house next door to it.
And, you know, it's pretty easy to imagine.
That there'll be encased in shadows and the solar panels will be rendered useless by this.
So, yeah, I think that's a good question.
I think.
We may have to make a determination.
Due to our inability to do so.
Because that's, that's, that seems to be more accurate, right? Yeah.
I appreciate that input.
Council member.
Okay.
Council member Trigger.
Did you have a disclosure? Yes.
On July 17th, Okay.
So now let's move on to public comments.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
Yep.
Thanks.
Do folks have public comment.
Please, please line up here.
I also need to report one ex parte.
Oh, thank you.
Council member.
Yeah.
Also on.
July 17th.
I met with the appellants with respect to this project.
Okay, great.
Okay.
Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Okay, go ahead.
Come on up.
And for folks online, if you would also like to speak to this, please go ahead and raise your hand now.
Good evening.
I want to say thank you for having us here and for having this meeting.
I live in the property.
Right behind this property where it will be developed.
And I've noticed that there was going to be development on this property.
And my wife and I are actually very supportive of more housing and development.
That is harmonious with what is already happening.
Our objection is the height of the building and how tall it is.
The other buildings are.
Five stories on our block or six.
The other issue that came up, people talk about foot traffic.
Intersecting with the street.
I know he was saying we're trying to move this.
We're trying to move this.
Cars away from Shattuck.
But I used to work in the old Berkeley bowl building where the Honda dealership is now.
And they were actually required.
I don't know the details, but they did move the driveway access to the garage.
Two Shattuck Avenue over a similar objection to keep it off of the side street.
Because when I worked there, it was.
Thank you.
I appreciate your comment.
Thank you.
I'm Michael Bargo.
I was told that.
There was two minutes or there are too many speakers.
So we have a lot of speakers.
Yeah.
So you'll have one minute.
Go ahead.
Your time is running.
So I don't want you to.
So I'd like to ask for a couple of.
Volunteers to extend my shirt.
You can have up to four minutes.
So, okay.
So let's get going.
Go ahead.
It looks like you've got, I'm going to take them from the three people who are right here.
Okay.
So I'm going to start the clock again.
I was just asking a process question.
I'm not making my present.
I'm sorry, but this is still part of your time.
So go ahead and use your time.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
20 years ago.
I was present when the Hollywood video chain wanted to locate it.
The same address.
Our group South Shattuck neighbors association work with city staff.
And the city council for some time.
Specifically, we work to put the entrance and exit from this property on Shattuck Avenue.
I just want to interject here that this is not a cookie cutter approach to development.
And the first speaker.
Who presented an opposition.
And the second speaker.
Didn't doesn't understand that we're not like any other street in the country.
In fact, we have a bicycle route.
Going up that street.
And we have many school children who are walking and playing on that street on their way to Wheeler.
We also have a woman whose mother.
Was hit by a car at that intersection.
And.
No study was done.
To contradict the study that was done in 1995, which recommended strongly that the entrance be on Shattuck for safety reasons.
And that study should sign.
Should stand the traffic engineer.
Met with us and told us that he was, he was going to put that on, or he was going to advise the council to put it on Shattuck.
And the council agreed with him.
So I think that should be considered.
And what we're asking is the.
South Shattuck neighborhood association is that this go back to Zab for reconsideration.
There's already been a report from the traffic engineer.
Recommended that that entrance be on Shattuck.
And that is our major concern.
It's a safety concern and it's worth not rushing and sending it back back to Zab so that they can look at that report and the, the developer can present contradictory evidence, but the city has already made a decision that that.
Needs to be on Shattuck.
And in fact, it was put on Shattuck as the slide show demonstrates.
We reached an agreement with the owner of the property and with the city.
And the most important part of that agreement was that that entrance be placed on Shattuck to protect the safety of our neighbors, particularly our children.
In 1995, the city zoning's zoning adjustment board issued its findings, which you have in your package there because I sent them in.
They recommended serious mitigation on the project.
Two years later, because we started this in 1995, two years later, the city manager wrote us under item one in your packet.
And I can quote him.
So let's see here.
Sorry.
A little anxious here.
In order to close the Derby street entrance, you and I must do everything he's addressing that to us to minimize risks to pedestrians and autos.
I understand that Chuck DeLue, he's a traffic engineer has found a safe way to close Derby street and I will do whatever it is necessary to make it work.
That's in your packet.
On the second page, he says, I understand that Chuck DeLue has met with you.
I'm sorry.
Your time is up.
My time is up.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
So I'm asking that this go back for further consideration.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
All right.
Sorry, folks, you know, you heard me.
I'm strict on time.
Well, since I only have a minute, I'm going to shorten what I want to say.
I've been in Berkeley since 1969.
And the very area we're talking about now, building affordable housing and at bark used to be owned by mostly African Americans in 1970.
It was 21% African Americans in this city.
Now it's down to 7%.
And you keep saying you're building affordable housing.
The average rent in this city is $2,700.
That's not affordable.
Number one, and the vacancy we can't even tell because you don't do audits.
How do I know? Because I was on the solar tax commission.
We asked for an audit of how many vacancies were in the new buildings.
So the system that you have is not keeping up with what we really need.
We do need a more affordable housing, but we don't need to build a six story, eight story, nine story buildings.
You need to fill the vacancies of the places that you have now.
And a bigger problem for the city.
It's all those small businesses that are closed on Shattuck.
What are you doing about that? Thanks, Joy.
Hi, my name is Charlotte Shimura.
S H I M U R A.
Is someone willing to give me a minute or two? Hi.
I just want to say here.
Okay.
I want to say that 30 years ago, that driveway on Shattuck was approved.
Just like Michael said, it's in your supplemental packet.
We worked on this project for two damn years to make sure that the city and the neighborhood was in agreement, and they said it must be on Shattuck.
It's still there.
It's worked for almost 30 years.
The next thing is the person who wants to build this eight story building.
If they put that driveway on Shattuck, you're going to have a draw, excuse me on Derby.
You're going to have a driveway on Derby, which is there now, which that's that building on the apartment, five story apartment building.
That's across the street.
It already has a driveway on Shattuck.
And then you've got Walker street.
Excuse me.
I'm sorry.
Derby.
And then you've got on Walker street, which is just like a hundred feet from the other driveway on Derby.
You've got another street where children are playing there.
Okay.
If you put a third driveway in there on Shatt on Derby, it's crazy.
It's crazy.
And then it's a bike lane.
And then you've got 41 cars coming in and out of there.
And then you've got children going up to Martin Luther King.
I'm telling you that driveway on Shattuck has worked for 30 years.
Another thing about the shade.
You need, you need to study this more because I think that your compass on the studies was wonky.
I don't think it was very correct.
I stood in front of the, the existing apartment house on the, the corner there, which is already built at four 45 this afternoon.
We're talking about today, July and it was already in shade.
Time is up.
It was already in shade.
I'm sorry.
Your time is up.
We've got many more speakers.
So please, I'm sorry.
Your time.
I thank you.
Your time is up though.
Thanks folks.
Come on, please, please be respectful of our time here.
We've got a lot of folks.
I want to make sure we hear from, from everyone.
I'm sure we have people online too.
Come on up.
Okay, sure.
Are you Betsy? Okay.
All right, Betsy, you'll have two minutes.
A third minute from this woman back here.
If you need two minutes, you only need two minutes.
Save your minute for someone else.
Okay, go ahead.
Hi, go ahead and pull the mic down too, so we can hear you better.
Thank you.
I'm Betsy Mars.
I'm the neighbor with the house and yard.
I live on the south side of the building.
It's due East of the project.
My son doesn't like it if I joke about surviving the construction.
So.
Instead I'll make a small point about the Shattuck side and then read from letters submitted by neighbors.
Up the street, Mark and Liza.
For a larger overview.
On the retail.
I'm going to read from the letter.
And it would be great to use the historic.
By reliefs, et cetera, to frame the cafe.
Just an idea.
Now the two larger perspectives.
Liza writes.
We urgently need smart community focused development in this area.
We need a development that revitalizes our streets.
Respects the character of the neighborhood.
And meets the real needs of Berkeley residents.
Unfortunately, the proposed eight story building currently under consideration.
Fails to meet that standard.
Mark ads.
As we all know.
A developer's role is to maximize profit while adhering to the applicable rules and regulations.
I'm going to read from the letter.
What I can tell the current proposal meets the letter of the law.
However.
I see this particular project as a kind of hostile takeover of the century old neighborhood.
It's scale is completely out of step with the surrounding environment.
The five and eight story walls of apartments will introduce significant light and sound pollution fundamentally.
Altering the daily experience of those of us who live here.
We need to take a meaningful moment to ensure that our city becomes a haven for thoughtful, innovative urban design.
And not just a canvas for maximizing.
Thank you.
Two minutes.
She kept it.
A minute from.
If we have them.
Yes.
If you gave a minute already, then you can't give another one, but there is someone.
So did you want one or two more? Could I have three minutes? Three minutes.
So I'm going to take one from this woman here in the front.
And then this one woman over here in the flat.
Thank you.
This person.
Go ahead.
I just wanted to start out by thanking assembly members.
Black could be and.
For his question about the objective standards for shade.
And I'm just curious about objective standards.
That exist for traffic, because I just really want to hammer this point.
This putting the driveway where it is currently proposed to be is right opposite a cul-de-sac street where.
I played when I was a little kid, decades of children have played.
I was hit by a bike going too fast on that street.
I can only think what would happen when eight stories worth of people are ordering Amazon packages.
And every single one is turning around in that narrow cul-de-sac.

Segment 7

It's a dangerous proposition.
It's on a bike lane.
It's on a street that I see every day dozens and dozens of kids walking up to school.
Shattuck is, that intersection, is a dangerous one to cross.
We shouldn't be introducing the danger of Shattuck into the neighborhood.
At the last meeting we got a, I don't know if it was binding, but a suggestion to make the driveway right turn only.
I really appreciate the comments of the family to our north.
That proposal would mean that every car that's coming out of the driveway would turn on to Carleton if they're trying to go east because they'd go up a block and then turn east on Carleton and that introduces danger to that neighborhood.
They've said that the same kind of thing has already happened with other one-way driveways.
It makes so much sense for the city to take the significant investment that you all made when you put a dedicated left turn lane off of Shattuck and a dedicated right turn lane out of this property.
That is an expensive thing to build which would be orphaned if the proposal is going to proceed in the way that it's currently proposed to do.
I'm curious, you know, if you could ask your staff about, you know, if you have to be listening to these objective standards, are there objective standards for public safety? Because I think that this would violate them and I'd really like somebody to speak to that.
The other last thing I wanted to say was, you know, the staff gave you other options than just approving this.
You could modify it or modify the ZAB approval.
You could send it back to the LPC.
We just, we're not trying to stop this from housing from getting built.
We're trying to help you guys know what the neighborhood needs to have safe housing in the neighborhood.
And a big part of that is taking more time to consider this.
If you vote on this proposal and approve it tonight, we really hope that all of you will continue to apply the kind of soft pressure and authority that you have as council people to help us work with the developer to make this better.
And if you see a way to sending this back to the LPC or sending this back to ZAB with modifications, we'd really like you to explore that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next speaker.
Hi.
I just wanted to say once again, as you can tell, there's people behind every decision you make by all these people behind me.
This goes on to this issue of putting this entrance with all these people are going to be instead of where it should be on Shattuck Avenue, where there's more space.
I want to clarify a point that I made that I think was missed.
When I talked about access for disabled people, I'm not talking about the entrance and exit of a building.
I'm talking about the sidewalk itself.
That's what I'm talking about.
When you start putting a whole bunch of people on a sidewalk, that's not meant to have a bunch of people on it.
You create a problem for people who are blind and in wheelchairs.
I know of a couple people who are blind and who are people who are in wheelchairs.
They already have a problem.
And when you put a building that size, you're going to make a bigger problem and you will be responsible for whatever decision you make.
Good evening.
My name is Louise Rosencrantz and I live on Derby Street.
And I was part of that 1995 discussion decision of putting that lovely entrance on Shattuck.
And Vice Mayor Maudelle Sherrick at the time was our representative and worked hard on this.
And we would like that to be remembered.
If you look on this page three of your site plan, you can see how beautifully it's designed so that you can go in on Shattuck.
You can park.
You can unload your luggage.
There's a big commercial space there.
They can get their trucks unloaded there.
That's what it's designed for.
Derby Street is not designed for trucks or people to be unloading and loading their luggage.
If you take a look, you can see you can enter and exit.
It was built that way.
It's structure that was built so that the decisions would be made on Shattuck, not on Derby.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
I have three quick points to make that haven't been made.
One is about the objective standards.
I just have to say the city spent a lot of money on the Jay Sissel project.
And a lot of time was spent on that.
And no objective standards came out of it.
And now you're using that to say we can't stop these things.
You've got to get these objective standards in.
The second thing I want to say about the parking, 41 cars coming out.
They come out in the morning when people leave for their commute.
That is when the children are going up Derby on their bikes and walking to school.
You have to think about the timing of that.
And the third thing I want to say is it's been said that this project has to have parking because it's so far from campus.
I live three blocks further south than this project.
I walk downtown all the time.
My husband works at a gas station.
He works at a gas station.
I work at a gas station.
I walk downtown all the time.
My husband works at the university and walks every day back and forth to school.
So parking is not needed because it's too far from campus.
Other projects are being built without parking.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
I'm from a neighborhood that's pretty safe.
I live in the Claremont.
And we don't have the middle housing pressures that the rest of Berkeley has.
And I've been to a couple of hearings.
And it's incredible how you, when you hear the people, it's like you are a solid council that's determined to build, build, build.
And why aren't you seeing that the building now has diminished the downtown, Telegraph Avenue, all over town, small businesses, the buildings that are being built that you're so proud of to build more of? It's destroying the structure and the fabric and the humanity of our town and even the commerce.
So where are you making the money? Are you making the money from the university, department of the university, city of Berkeley, department of the university? Are you making the money from the developer fees? Thanks for your comments.
It's crazy.
It's really obvious.
Sorry, your time is up.
And for the record, we're not getting money from anybody.
We're getting paid.
We're getting paid by the city.
And anyway, I'm not even going to go into that.
All right.
Are there comments online? Yes, we have speakers online.
The first speaker is Tony.
You should be allowed to unmute.
Good evening.
It's Tony Messer again.
With just one minute, I will speak to the driveway issue.
I don't believe that it is, I believe you have the power for health and safety reasons to change the driveway.
And if you look towards a decision that the council made, I think it was last year, perhaps the year before on Harrison and San Pablo Avenue, the council did change the driveway from Harrison Street to San Pablo Avenue.
So I believe you have the power if you find health and safety issues.
I'm not a lawyer, but I have in my memory, the health and safety issue gives you the leeway to make that decision.
And there is another option you have, which is not to close the public hearing, but to continue the public hearing to get more information if you need it.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tony.
Are there folks online? Next speaker is Cheryl Davila.
Cheryl, you should be able to unmute.
Hello.
Can you hear me? Yes.
Okay.
Cheryl Davila, former council member to the city of Berkeley.
This has been on the council, out in front of the council for quite some time, even when I was on council.
And I remember the people all wanted the driveway not to be on Derby Street.
There's a lot of issues there.
And yeah, that's a good question that the last person asked about who's getting the money.
Yeah, maybe your salary's coming from the city of Berkeley, but who knows where that other money is because the developers are totally capitalizing on these buildings.
Look at the water.
Look at the aquatic park.
That whole freaking monstrosity is empty.
Empty.
Our next speaker is Kelly Hammergren.
Kelly, you should be able to unmute.
Thank you.
I won't use my total minute.
I just hope that you all will listen to the neighbors on the Derby Street issue.
And it wasn't too long ago that I was going through some old paperwork from Berkeley and how Berkeley declared that you wanted to have a solar, rooftop solar, and to protect that.
And that was part of your climate goal.
And it's just really such a shame that it's gone.
That's it.
Bye.
Thank you, Kelly.
Next speaker is Raymond Barclow.
Raymond, you should be able to speak.
Raymond Barclow, you should be able to speak.
Please unmute if you'd like to provide comments.
Should we move on? Raymond, you should be able to speak.
It looks like you've unmuted.
That's our last raised hand.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
So now that we've taken public comment, is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved.
Second.
Clerk, could you take the roll, please? Council Member Castorwani? Yes.
Caplan? Aye.
Herlitt? Yes.
Tracob? Aye.
O'Keeffe is absent.
Blackaby? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Thank you.
Council Members, Council Member Caplan has comments.
Thank you.
I actually have a question, if that's okay.
For staff, during your presentation, you mentioned the Island Corridor Plan.
I was wondering if you could elaborate on that and its applicability to the elements of this project.
Sure, sure.
The Island Corridor Specific Plan was adopted in 2020, and the site is within the Area Specific Plan boundaries.
The Specific Plan has design strategies for parking and activation of the primary street frontage, the primary street frontage being Shattuck Avenue, in this case.
The Specific Plan includes policies that limit parking on primary streets, minimizes visual impact of parking, including parking garage entrances on primary streets, and providing active ground floor uses on that frontage to ensure that the area has an active pedestrian frontage and pedestrian experience, and that's what's consistent with what's proposed.
The applicant has looked at relocating the driveway, but decided that it wasn't sufficient use of space, and in coordination with our colleagues from the Department of Transportation, the preference was to put the driveway on Derby Street away from the more active pedestrian and vehicle congestion on Shattuck.
Thank you.
The last thing you said, you mentioned the pedestrian vehicle congestion on Shattuck.
Okay, that's what I heard.
Thanks.
Thank you very much.
I know that this is not on the agenda for tonight, so we can't really discuss it, but I did want to say that we are updating our bicycle plan.
I look forward to that.
Thank you.
Council Member Trageb? Yeah, I also have a question for staff.
I recall on several occasions being able to relocate the driveway, particularly within the San Pablo corridor, so can you just clarify if there have been any changes to state law on the point around our discretion if we choose to be able to decide on what we believe is the most appropriate location of a driveway? Can I fill this one? Thank you for the question.
I appreciate it.
I also want to just acknowledge the comments from the neighbors and certainly sympathize with the desire to minimize vehicular traffic on their neighborhood street.
Roberts noted that transportation staff reviewed this and did not comment to require moving it off of Derby, and it's our understanding that their preference is that it be on Derby.
Notably, Robert has cited the consistency with an adopted plan by the City of Berkeley that the goals and policies in an adopted plan, and I believe that that limits Council's authority to attach a condition or require the amendment of the project or deny, which would effectively be denying the project as proposed, which is compliant with established standards in an adopted plan.
Folks, please.
It's not your time to speak.
Thank you, George.
I appreciate that, and I want to clarify I certainly do not mean to question the knowledge of the traffic engineer.
I'm trained as an engineer.
I'm not a traffic engineer.
I will defer such things to the experts.
My question was about this question, so I appreciate that.
Is there anything that in state law that you would interpret or the city attorney would interpret as limiting our discretion on this point? I'm not sure if I can speak to that specifically, actually.
It sounds, from what I just heard from Jordan, it sounds like there was a specific plan that was adopted, and there's some indication that we don't want to impose conditions that are inconsistent with that.
Is that sort of what the..
I haven't personally studied that document closely, so I'm not prepared right now as we speak, as we sit here, to kind of opine on that in an ad hoc way, but I can take a look at it and come back.
Understood.
Thank you so much.
Okay.
Other comments? Council Member Bartlett, did you have a comment? I know you can't raise your hand on the phone.
Go ahead.
Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor.
And so those are really the crux of my question here, too, is also, I guess, the city attorney in the plan.
So is the Adeline Corridor plan trump our discretionary public safety? Because having spent much time right here, I walk by here every day, right, there's a new building with a driveway on right there on Derby, and there's now this larger building with a driveway across the street from it, in the middle of this bike path, the school in my district, we have bike to work days once a year, and bike school days, and we have to keep people safe, and it just seems incomprehensible that we would subject that many bicyclists and kids to that on flow of cars and deliveries and onward and onward.
It seems completely unreasonable, and we know there was a basis for this because we did a study for this years ago, and that's why it's on Shattuck.
And by the way, that driveway on Shattuck is being used by the city right now as a loading area for its repair of sewage stuff across the street.
And the guys, when I talked to them, said it's a perfect location for this because the way it's set up, you can load here and unload quite easily, quite safely.
So it just seems like I'm not convinced that we don't have the powers to maintain a safe condition when our residents are at stake, specifically when we have specifically dedicated energy and legislation and litigation to protect bicycles and pedestrians in this district.
So I think in keeping with that spirit and that trajectory of safety, I think we're in bad form to go against it now.
Council Member Chaplin.
Thank you.
I do want to point out that we did adopt this plan in 2020.
It was a council-adopted plan.
It's not quite clear to me why these concerns weren't raised then if they weren't.
But I do have questions about the traffic mitigations that the project is proposing, if someone could speak to that.
Do you have a specific mitigation that you're required that you'd like to explore? I'm not requiring.
I'm just wondering what mitigations were being contemplated for the project.
So the project would be subject to the standard transportation demand management program as part of the project review and ultimate sign-off at the time of certificate of occupancy.
That's kind of the only thing there that helps to manage the trip generation and the management on-site.
So TDM.
TDM.
Thank you.
Council Member.
Yeah, let me continue.
So I mean, I guess to the architect here, I don't know if you have the capacity to make decisions.
You know, I'm wondering a couple of points here.
One, would you voluntarily consider keeping the driveway where it is so you can be merciful and safe to the pedestrians and bicyclists in this district, this neighborhood? And I'll follow up as well.
Sorry, you have a question for KDA.
Is that what you're saying? Yeah.
Come on up to answer the question.
This SB 330 project doesn't allow for rules to be changed after the application has been submitted.
We played by the rules that were in place at the time of our application, which is to place it upon Derby as evidenced by specific plans and as evidenced by the rules that were in place at the time of our application, which is to place it upon Derby as evidenced by specific plans and as confirmed by the traffic engineer.
We don't want, and the reason why the Adeline Civic Plan was drawn, we don't want an 18-foot-wide driveway and garage and gate on Shattuck.
And we don't want, we think it's the majority of people and bicycles are on Shattuck, not on Derby.
And the apartment buildings across the street also exit on the side streets.
We're doing what the other apartment buildings are in that locality.
So, repeating, we played by the rules that were in place at the time of our application.
I think you've answered the question.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Council Member Bartlett, are you finished with your comments? No.
So, regarding the, another one, and again, I guess we're going to voluntary territory here.
This is a huge request, a huge request.
But I think, again, it's a one of mercy, not just to the neighbors, but again, to people who will likely be struck by these cars as they bike and walk up that street.
Would you forego the parking, since we really don't want parking? And I assure you, you don't need it.
Your residents, whether they're condo owners or renters, will not need cars.
So, would you ameliorate some of the concerns by eliminating some or all the parking on site? The answer would be no.
It was a reasonable developer who has experience in this area, felt that that was the best combination for that project.
It's under the maximum allowed.
And 30 years ago, when that original entry was there, it wasn't providing enough parking.
That's an irony.
So, that's the desire of this applicant at the time that the application was made.
Thank you.
Anything else? Those are all my comments.
Okay.
That's it.
Sorry, there's a little bit of a lag, so I apologize for cutting you off.
Okay.
Council Member Casarwani.
Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
Thank you, planning staff, for your presentation.
Thank you to everyone who gave public comments.
You know, I want to say that, you know, I am sympathetic to the concerns expressed by neighbors related to traffic.
And, you know, I think it's been made clear that we do not have the authority to make a shift of the driveway, a condition of approval.
I understand there's going to be transportation demand management strategies that are used.
I was curious, you know, with the driveway proposed on Derby, did our transportation staff consider any sort of improvements to the street to encourage people to exit the driveway towards Shattuck and away from the neighborhood? I know that's sometimes a strategy that's used.
I think of the Trader Joe's building that actually has the diverter so that people cannot take the shortcut from the neighborhood.
I was wondering if you could speak to whether any of those strategies had been considered.
You know, that's not something that we're able to speak to now.
However, it's something that I think transportation staff absolutely would take a look at during the post-entitlement phase.
If the project is, like, once what the project is actually looking at construction, transportation staff would consider, for example, a right turn requirement out of the driveway or other mitigation measures or investments in the street to mitigate any potential impacts.
Okay, so obviously we cannot tie that to the vote tonight, but we are hearing that the transportation staff in their regular course of doing business related to this project will look at that.
And so I just want to express my support to make sure that we consider how we direct the traffic flow from that driveway.
You know, we didn't hear neighbors request that, but I think that that would be preferred if those cars were sort of directed to Shattuck and away from the neighborhood.
So if they want to go into the neighborhood, of course they can go around.
And then I don't know if there's anything else we can do in the street.
You know, I'm thinking of the intersection at Sacramento and Virginia where we have all of those improvements and trying to direct traffic flow in certain ways.
So that's what I'm hoping we would we could consider for this area.
The other issue I just wanted to mention, somebody asked about the money, you know, where is the money going, what's going on.
So, you know, I just want to clarify.
So when this site is redeveloped, the property tax resets, correct, to a much higher level based on the assessed value of this new property.
So that would likely be, do you have any estimate of what that annual property tax bill would be? I imagine the new valuation would be in the in the tens of millions, and so the new property tax bill might be in the hundreds of thousands, low hundreds of thousands would be my guess.
Okay, so low hundreds of thousands for property tax.
I also just wanted to note that this development would have 10 very low income units, but our requirement is higher.
We actually were asked for 20 percent.
So my understanding is in addition to those 10 very low income units on site, they would also have to pay the affordable housing inclusionary fee.
Do you have an estimate of how much they would need to pay? Because I see it's an 84, roughly 85,000 square foot building.
I know we give a discount on the first 5,000 square feet, so that would also be a very high figure.
If you're able to give us that number, I'll give you a bit of time.
I also, while you calculate that, there is the Berkeley Unified School District fee that this project would also be subject to, correct? That's correct.
And that's roughly five dollars per square foot.
This is roughly 85,000 square feet, so by my math that's 422,000 going to the school district to support our public schools.
There's also an arts fee.
Those are the major fees that I know of.
Are there other fees that this project would be required to pay? I think you've covered that, Council Member.
Okay, so I do want to get that figure of what's going into the affordable housing trust fund to develop 100% affordable housing elsewhere.
So they're providing 15% affordable.
The requirement is 20% BMR, and that's calculated based on the residential floor area, which is roughly 84,000 square feet, and that would be 5% of that.
And I think roughly the fee, which was recently updated, is approximately $62 per square foot, so we're looking at something like 260,000.
Okay, okay.
So I got it wrong.
It's 15% is the 10 units that are very low income, so that's why it's only 5% more for the fee.
So I think the biggest thing is the property tax revenue resetting.
And that's not to mention the 97 dwelling units that are going to have new residents in this neighborhood.
Some of them will be ownership units, correct? How many condos are proposed? Do you know? Don't quote me.
It's like 15.
Okay, so those are 15 ownership units, and then the balance are rental units.
Those residents, you know, my expectation is they are going to eat, shop, play in this downtown area, and there will be a multiplier effect in terms of the sales tax revenue.

Segment 8

I know that the city gets the economic stimulus to our downtown and small businesses.
I just don't want us to lose sight of that, and I do recognize that I didn't hear anybody say that they were against this project.
I do recognize you have some specific concerns related to certain things.
The way that these, and I'm going to wrap up, the way that these state laws are structured, I think it's clear we don't have the authority to change the proposal.
We cannot add any conditions of approval to this.
But having said that, I do want to recognize that the bulk of the massing is on Shattuck.
They didn't have to do that, correct? You could have done eight stories right up against that home on Derby, correct, if you wanted to? And we could have said nothing to that because we don't have the authority to change the design.
So I do appreciate, I think you have been largely sensitive to the built environment, that there is greater height and commercial activity on Shattuck, so therefore you've put the bulk of the massing there and have less on Derby.
And I hope that we can address some of the traffic issues post-entitlement.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thanks, Council Member.
Council Member Humbert, please, excuse me, folks.
Come on.
That's very inappropriate.
Excuse me.
I'm sorry.
You're welcome to write a letter afterwards, but it's completely inappropriate for you to speak out during this meeting.
Council Member Humbert.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Apologies to the applicants and appellants.
My comments will be really pretty brief on this.
With respect to issues one and two, the number of parking spaces and the driveway location, and the provision and massing of the retail space, the project appears to be meeting all the objective standards in place at the time the application was submitted.
We've heard that.
I am completely sympathetic to the neighbors' concerns about traffic, and I'm hoping, consistent with the comments of Council Member Casarwani, that our Public Works Transportation Division really bears down and really tries to do some work here to make sure that the exit is as safe as possible, the exit and entrance for cars.
But consistent with staff's finding in state law, the city really can't require anything different.
With respect to issue three, relating to shadows, we don't have the discretion to do anything about that.
Regarding issue number four, I don't see any evidence the project was improperly noticed or lacked legally required public hearings, and this notion of a separate base project hearing strikes me as legal fiction.
The base project is a mathematical calculation.
On issue number five, I see no convincing evidence staff incorrectly calculated the applicable inclusionary percentage or in-lieu fee, and I appreciate Council Member Casarwani kind of going into how that works in some level of detail.
I feel like I have no choice but to vote to reject the appeal and affirm the ZAB's decision regarding the proposed 2655 Shattuck project.
Thanks.
Thank you.
I have a couple questions.
I'm curious if there are loading zones around this building, just so I have a sense of that.
No.
Will there be? Most likely will be the bulb out on Shattuck.
On Shattuck.
Okay.
I just want to make sure because that is something that I think does help in terms of providing a safe space for passengers to get in and out and also deliveries to be made as well.
Thank you.
That's good to know.
And then I also just want folks to know I hear your concerns about the safety piece, and I've also heard what is my understanding is that it's safer actually to go out on a quieter street.
I heard you say that.
I heard our staff say that.
And so I want to clarify for folks.
I don't think that we're prevented from making the decision of whether to move it on to Shattuck or on to Derby, but I do want us to recognize that there are studies that are done around what is safe and what is not.
I understand sometimes that's contradictory to how we might see an issue, and I think that that's what makes this really complicated and hard.
But, I mean, we have staff that are professionals that advise us on this, and I am inclined to follow our staff's recommendation on this to do what they believe is safe and what our information tells us is safe.
I will, however, commit to following up on this right turn only piece.
I think that that's really important.
And, again, I hear folks' concerns, and I know that this can get very confusing, so I just want to acknowledge that with these things.
There's a lot of pieces to it.
And so I thank you all for your comments and for staff's presentation.
And with that, I think there are no more comments, so I will see if there is a motion.
I have a quick comment.
Oh, okay, Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you.
So, neighbors, I want you to know I hear you, and, you know, I really understand where you're coming from.
Unfortunately, the objective design standards won't come back to us until 2026, but they're underway.
So I understand this is going to impact your economic utility of your solar panels, and anyone who goes there to visit this will see the driveways crossing each other will create a dangerous condition.
And so it's unfortunate that we can't make any conditions to mitigate that risk, that danger there.
But I suspect we'll be back here at your court through liability anyway.
It hasn't happened multiple times since I've been in office.
That being said, I have no legal choice.
I have no legal option to vote against this project on a real legal basis, but I understand that the mitigations will come sooner or later.
Okay.
Is there a motion? Yes, I motion to adopt a resolution denying the appeal and affirming the Zoning Adjustment Board decision to approve use permit number ZP 2024-0057 to demolish a one-story, 8,185-square-foot non-residential building and construct an eight-story, 84,399-square-foot mixed-use residential building, et cetera, as it's stated in the staff report.
Second.
Clerk, can you take the roll, please? Council Member Keserwani? Yes.
Taplin? Aye.
Bartlett? Yes.
Trageb? Aye.
O'Keefe is absent.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Thank you.
Is there a motion to adjourn? Second.
To adjourn, Keserwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Trageb? Aye.
O'Keefe is absent.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
Mayor Ishii? Yes.
All right.
Meeting is adjourned.
Thank you all very much.