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Why is this subject in the Neighborhood Forum Section of the eNews?

BNC publishes articles in this Section that are written either by a neighborhood representative without editing or is summarized from material which has been submitted to us.  In this instance, BNC received an inquiry about yet another piece of State Legislation authored by our State Senator Nancy Skinner that raised concerns over and above the bill itself that we put it here with the intent of encouraging all of you to tell us what you think.

When did BNC first hear heard about SB 1227?

April 30, 2018 in an e-mail from Charlene Woodcock as follows:

I don’t much like Berkeley Considers, since it doesn’t reach most Berkeley voters and thus you get disproportionate responses from those who sit in front of a computer too much.

My quick reading of the recent Berkeley Considers email raised serious questions in my mind, although I support the University providing more student housing and certainly support efforts to terminate facilitation of internal combustion engine vehicle use (replace them with electric vehicles fueled by solar carports and roofs!).

But the Skinner bill seems to be based on the assumption that these buildings for students would be privately owned rather than publicly-owned dormitories.  If the university builds a dormitory, they don’t have to abide by city building and zoning codes, do they?  If so, then this is really another bill for developers, like Skinner & Wiener’s SB 827 was.

I would certainly hope the Berkeley City Council would not support any effort to further privatize our university.  The Administration should be lobbying the state legislature for money to build dormitories, not engaging in more public-private developments that are for-profit and will not provide enough affordable housing most students need. This is a road to privatization and corrupt practices—not what we want from our great public university system.

And before making car ownership more costly and difficult, there should be a survey and assessment of car-owning students. It could be that some of the poorest students rely on a car for family visits, e.g., to the Central Valley, where some might have family obligations and which isn’t served adequately by public transportation.

Ms. Woodcock also included in her e-mail comments posted by a resident who objected to the bill for the following reasons:

• The Berkeley Considers item is misleading. The bill does must more than increase student housing and restrict parking.
• It prevents the City from legislating against overcrowding, by requiring no limits on occupational density.
• By making full time enrollment a housing requirement, the bill allows evicting students who must enroll less than full time in the middle of their academic program.
• It rewards private landlords for creating housing that discriminates on the basis of age and family structure and pits student needs against the needs of other vulnerable communities in competition for potential development sites and resources.

Do YOU and Your Neighbors Know About “Berkeley Considers”?

It’s a city of Berkeley (COB) “online forum intended to broaden civic discourse in a constructive and civil manner.”  Go to the COB website, enter in the search box, “Berkeley Considers”, click on that and enter your e-mail address and you will be sent notices about the topics that are or will be included.  If you wish to comment on a topic, you will need to further register your name and address and set up a password.  However, when you make a comment your name is not disclosed unless you want it to be.

How was the Question Posted on Berkeley Considers?

“Should the City Council support SB 1227, introduced by Senator Nancy Skinner, which seeks to increase student housing and remove vehicular parking ratio requirements in developments consisting of full-time university/college students?”

No details about the bill were stated, nor how one might find those details.  The question is now closed, but states that on this question, it had “138 visitors, with 56 responses @3 minutes per response, that’s 2.8 hours of public comment.” And 32 of the responders said yes (57.1%), 22 said no (29.3%), 2 had other comments.

What is SB 1227 All About?

It’s an amendment to current State Density Bonus law.  It provides that a developer who agrees:  1) to build 5 or more units of housing; 2) where all units are required to be rented to students who are enrolled full-time in an accredited institution of higher-learning; and 3) will set aside 20% of all of the units for lower-income students will be entitled to a Density Bonus.

A “unit” is defined as one “rental bed” that must remain affordable for 55 years.  This Density Bonus would allow the developer to increase the total number of units in the development by 35%.  This means such a development could  be of a greater height or lot coverage than allowed, or a similar type of action that would allow a greater number of units than would be allowed under the zoning allowance for that parcel.

Lower-income is defined as a student whose income and asset level does not exceed Cal Grant A or B, as proven by an affidavit from the institution he/she is enrolled in.  Students “experiencing homelessness” will receive priority as evidenced by a homeless service provider.

Senator Nancy Skinner is listed as the sole author.  The bill was introduced in March, and is currently in the committee process.

What did the City Council Do?

On May 1, 2018, the City Council voted to support SB 1227 and to ask Senator Skinner to consider including two amendments:  1) Ask the universities/colleges to be responsible for vetting eligible students and providing a list to the City; and 2) include the units built in Berkeley to be counted in the City’s housing goals as determined by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).

The item was introduced by Council Member Worthington and Mayor Arreguin.  At the meeting, Council Members Harrison and Droste asked to be added as co-sponsors.  The motion to approve with the requests indicated above were:

Let’s now hear from you!!!

Breaking News about student housing!

On April 27, 2018, Phil Bokovoy, President of Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation “organized to provide education and advocacy to improve the quality of life, protect the environment and implement best planning practices in Berkeley,” filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court against UC President Janet Napolitano, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ, and 20 un-identified others.  The lawsuit asks the court to compel the Berkeley campus to conduct a CEQA review to assess the impacts of the increase in enrollment and how those impacts might be mitigated.

First, a little history:  In January 2017, the Housing Master Plan Task Force, chaired by then-to-be Chancellor Carol Christ, issued a report identifying 9 sites they felt were appropriate for new student housing.  The goal was to provide university housing for 2 years of entering freshmen, 1 year for entering transfers, 1 year for graduate students, plus up to 3 years for new untenured ladder faculty.  The “best candidate sites” were identified as the parking garage and tennis courts at Channing Way and Ellsworth (200-400 beds in residence halls) and the College of Natural Resources’ Oxford Tract (1,000 – 3,000 in traditional and apartment style residence halls).  Some other sites on the list were: the Upper Hearst Parking Garage (75-100 market rate units plus replacement parking), the People’s Park 2.8 acre site (200-350 undergraduates with a food service facility), Albany Village (150-200 apartments) and part of the Richmond Field Station (units to be determined).  That list caused a lot of controversy, particularly around the People’s Park and Oxford Tract sites. Then the controversy grew when CAL announced it would accept 1,000 new students, each year, for the next five years.

What’s CEQA?  The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is a state law that requires an environmental impact review for some plans and some projects.  CEQA has come under fire in recent years as being an impediment to building new housing.  In response, some developers and/or cities label their projects as “infill” or claim that their development plans do not involve any sensitive issues or land areas in the hopes they will be allowed to skip the CEQA process altogether.

In filing the lawsuit, Mr. Bokovoy stated that Chancellor Christ did not respond substantively to their prior requests to discuss the problems that neighborhoods

were experiencing so they had little other choice except to sue.  The problems mentioned are that the extra students displace low-income renters, increase homelessness, cause traffic congestion and place additional burdens on police, fire and emergency services for calls that involve trash, noise, and excessive drinking all of which have been well documented over the years.

In a highly controversial move in 2005, then-Mayor Tom Bates, (with the City Council following afterward), gave approval to Cal’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) without first disclosing its provisions to the public.  In that Plan, Cal said it would add 1,650 students and 2,500 beds for students.  However, on October 30, 2017, in response to a request from the city of Berkeley, Cal indicated there were actually 8,302 students, a five-fold increase compared to the 1,650 projected in the LRDP and the campus had built fewer than 1,000 beds.

Other problems include whether Cal has sufficient classroom, lecture hall, lab facilities, etc. to accommodate all these new students.  BNC doesn’t have a clue how this lawsuit will work out, but it’s a pretty bold step!

Another Complicating Factor:  Cal is taking several hundred beds off the private housing market through the use of master leases that include parts of or entire buildings.  It’s unclear how the units that are included in these master leases are counted toward the different levels of income goals set by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) for our City.  Since the State Legislature is moving toward setting fines for cities that don’t meet these housing goals which range from very-low to luxury, we’d like to know how the Cal student and faculty housing will be counted. Will the units reserved for students be based on  their own income, or that of their parents and who will make these calculations?  We don’t know, but this is important because if they aren’t counted at all because a State entity owns the lease, it could mean increasing future density in our City that is already one of the most dense cities in the State.

We’ll try and find out and let you know about what happens. In the meantime, check out the Neighborhood Forum Section in this eNews issue for some further information.

On another note involving the campus, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted on April 5 to landmark the Campanile Way Corridor and specifically stated that the westward view toward the Golden Gate was a significant contributing factor to the historic Campanile Way.

At the LPC hearing, speaker after speaker spoke in favor of landmarking the view.  Only one speaker spoke in opposition. She identified herself as the attorney for the proposed high rise construction at 2190 Shattuck (the former JC Penny’s store on the corner of Shattuck and Allston Way). She stated that Steve Finacom, Chair of the LPC had a conflict of interest since he authored the Campanile Way Corridor application, even though he absented himself from voting on the landmark question.  She also repeatedly mispronounced the word “Campanile.”  Proponents of 2190 Shattuck say that views shouldn’t be considered as landmarks in any event, and that this building won’t have an effect on the view from the campus anyway.  Opponents say the building will privatize and block the westerly view from the base of the Campanile which is the only place on the ground where thousands come every year that is free and open to the public 24 7, that this view is the very symbol of both the City and the Campus, and that Campanile Way with its view has been an integral part of the Master Plan for the Berkeley campus since its very beginning.

Plans for 2190 Shattuck are before the Design Review Commission and will have to come for public hearing before the Zoning Adjustments Commission.  Given the controversy, it’s pretty certain it will be appealed to the City Council.  BNC will have plenty more to say about it as it goes forward, so we’ll just stop commenting for the time being.

Flash:  The May 2, 2018, San Francisco Chronicle reported that Chancellor Christ is planning to announce that the campus will build 700 units of student housing plus 100 more to house the homeless on People’s Park. Mayor Arreguin is said to be backing this proposal and that Council Member Worthington who represents that area isn’t opposed to it, although he is focused on larger sites for housing, such as Edwards Field and University and Oxford where more units could be built.

In this issue, we are going to say goodbye to two historic neighborhood food delights, one on the Southside, one on the Northside.  Here, we are just going to give a little history and say a gentle goodbye – we’ll miss you both!

Southside:  The Elmwood Cafe

The Elmwood Cafe, 2900 College Avenue, has been a neighborhood gathering place for close to 100 years on the corner of College and Russell in what’s known as the Elmwood Shopping District.  It first opened in 1921 as the Elmwood Pharmacy, a small local pharmacy with a soda fountain and therein lies its love-affair with the surrounding neighborhood and its reputation as a major player in Berkeley’s political history.

In 1950, Charles Osborne, a World War II ace fighter pilot, purchased the business, renamed it “Ozzie’s” and focused the business around the soda fountain.  Shortly thereafter, it because a meeting place for the people who waged the successful fight against the extension of the 580 freeway down Ashby Avenue from the Claremont Tunnel to South Berkeley.  Folks like Barbara Lubin who went on to found the Middle East Children’s Alliance and Marty Schiffenbauer, sometimes called the Father of Berkeley Rent Control and government by citizen initiative, became regulars.

In 1982, in Ozzie’s Fountain, Berkeley’s then-Mayor Gus Newport and others launched what was said to be the first commercial rent controls in the Nation.  The initiative was approved by Berkeley voters in June 1982 and  provided for the Board of Adjustments (now called the Zoning Adjustments Board) to annually determine a formula that provided for a “fair rate of return.” The Council extended the ordinance to Telegraph Ave. and West Berkeley, but by 1986, amid complaints that commercial rents everywhere were “exploding” because property owners were trying to get ahead of pending controls, the State Legislature stepped in and approved bills prohibiting local commercial rent control.

Ozzie’s soda fountain closed in 2007 and Mr. Osborne died in 2009 in Palo Alto but the soda fountain lived on in the Elmwood.

In January 2015, a waitress saw W. Kamau Bell, an African-American man, standing at an outside table, holding a book in hand, talking to some white people. She thought he was trying to sell them something, so she asked him to leave. No police were involved and it turned out that one of the people at the table was his wife.  The waitress was fired, the owner apologized, and a forum on racism at Willard Middle School was organized during which he promised to eliminate racism in his business, other stores in the Elmwood, in the neighborhood and in Berkeley.

On April 12, 2018, we all learned through national media about the arrest of two black men who refused to leave a Starbucks cafe in Philadelphia.  A few days later, on April 18, 2018, Mr. Bell posted a blog on CNN about the 2015 incident in the Elmwood Cafe titled:  “I know what it’s like to get kicked out for being black.”

On Thursday afternoon, April 19, 2018, people described the Cafe as open and busy.  On April 20, 2018, the windows on the Cafe were covered over with brown paper and a notice that the Cafe was closed along with a story about the incident published by Berkeleyside, was posted on the door.  Since then, people  have been busy putting Post-Its and signs with their comments on the building.

What will happen next? We’ll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, Northside:  Virginia Bakery

The Virginia Bakery, at 1690 Shattuck Avenue, has been the place to buy a premade cake or order a custom made one, along with such items as cookies, bear claws and dinner rolls.

The current owners, John and Anne Erdmann, have run the business for 64 years since they purchased it in 1954 from a family who had owned it since 1925.  That’s a 93 year history, but some say there has been a bakery in that same location years before 1925!  So, Virginia Bakery, is probably Berkeley’s oldest mom-and-pop food establishment.

Among their customers were Davey Lopes, an Oakland A’s second baseman who ordered a 50th birthday cake in the shape of a baseball glove.  Others ordered cakes that looked like bowling balls, college diplomas or ruby red lips or even a blood-red Halloween cake, covered with black spider webs. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panthers was a prominent customer who interestingly enough ordered conventional cakes. Martin Snapp wrote in the April 13, 2018 edition of The Journal that Al Hart, a news anchor with KCBS regularly ordered cinnamon nut bread even years after he moved away from Berkeley.  We know a former Berkeley Mayor who over 30 or so years, always ordered an angel food cake with raspberry swirl icing for her son’s birthday and a well-known neighborhood activist, who arranged for the bakery to produce a special cookie that he gave to Berkeley cops when he wanted to say thank you.

In early April, the Erdmans posted on Facebook their intention to close on April 28, 2018 to spend more time with their grand children.  Long time customers are lining up at 7:30 am every morning to say goodbye and get their last taste of their favorite goodies.

We’ll miss you both of you, Virginia Bakery and The Elmwood Café

Please Note:  This Section will include almost anything that might be of interest to Berkeley Foodies — reviews of neighborhood food businesses, news about food products or services, even a recipe from time to time.  Our motto is You never know what you’ll learn in the BNC eNEWS!“

So, please send us some food news.  If your news is a restaurant review, we won’t pay for the cost of your meal, but your review will provide you with a great excuse that it really was your high civic duty to check out that place you’ve always wanted to try so you can tell all your friends and neighbors about your experience! Send your food news, along with your name and contact information to bnc50@berkeleyneighborhoodscouncil.com.  We promise that our reviewers and food news contributors will always be anonymous, unless you absolutely insist that your name be published.

The nomination for inclusion in this Section of the BNC eNews issue is neither a person nor an organization.  It’s a sacred place – one of the 425 Ohlone Indian Shellmound sites found around San Francisco Bay.

In October 2000, the three blocks bounded by University Avenue, Hearst Avenue, the I-80 freeway and Fourth Street was designated Berkeley Landmark Number 228.  In that area, Spenger’s Parking Lot, 1900 Fourth Street, is currently the subject of a hotly contested development proposal that has gained fame, not only because it’s in an Indian Shellmound area, but also it’s the first housing development in the State requesting an over-the-counter permit under SB-35.

Information presented in 2000 was that the West Berkeley Shellmound, located at the mouth of Strawberry Creek, was once 30 feet high and hundreds of yards long. The Ohlone people lived there for 4,500 years, from 3,700 BC to 800 AD, making it probably the biggest and earliest inhabited place in the Bay Area. The landmark applicant’s author maintained the site was older than the Pyramids in Egypt!  Not only did families live here, raise their children and thrive off of the abundant shell fish from the Bay, it was also a burial ground.  In the 50’s UC students excavated a small area and were said to have found some 95 human remains.  Artifacts from the area are also said to be stored on the Berkeley campus.

In March of 2015, the Rhoades Planning Group on behalf of West Berkeley Investors, LLC, Danville, CA, filed an application to build two separate buildings, one 3 stories tall, the other 5 stories.  The buildings were to be commercial and retail on the ground floor with 135 dwelling units above, 11 of which were to be “affordable.”  Over 300 parking spaces were included to serve both residents and existing development on Fourth St. and more than 200 spaces for bikes.

This graphic depicts the northwest corner of the proposed project at University Ave. and Fourth St.  The elevated University Overpass is on the left.

The application, filed by former Berkeley Planning Staff member Mark Rhoades, touted that the proposed project provided needed housing but was not seeking all of the density bonus to which it was entitled, provided needed parking for the highly successful Fourth Street shopping district along with lots of bike spaces, sheltered residents from the noise of the neighboring railroad tracks by putting the parking between the tracks and residences, and included a public paseo. (In case you’re wondering, paseo is a Spanish word that refers to a leisurely stroll, especially in the evening.)

Between January and March 2014, Dr. Allen Pastron, of Archeo-Tec, Inc., Oakland, under the observation of Andy Galvan, described as an Ohlone Indian and Cultural Resource Management Consultant, investigated the parking lot grounds, confirmed an earlier examination and wrote:

“…investigators found no historically significant remnants of the West Berkeley Shellmound within the parking lot grounds and have concluded that it is highly unlikely that such remnants exist within the property.”

 By 2016, the proposed project had shifted to 155 units with 12.5 to be “affordable” and added that a community room would be available for the purpose of cultural activities, including a display space for art work and artifacts. In November, an Environmental Impact Report further stated that the applicant would pay $75,000 toward “maintaining, with appropriate dignity”  the Ohlone Indian Cemetery in the city of San Jose, plus fund information for the city of Berkeley to use identifying areas of archeological sensitivity, and build a permanent display within the boundary of the Shellmound area that would describe the archeological and cultural significance of the site.  In addition, several intersections were found to be negatively impacted by the project, but these impacts were listed as “Significant but Unavoidable.”

In March of 2018, a new project application was submitted – now with 260 units, with 50% of them to be for households with 80% of average medianincome (that’s $80.400/ year for a family of 4), somewhat reduced ground floor commercial space and fewer parking and bike spaces. Note: this is same view as the previous graphic with the elevated University Ave. Over-pass to the left.

And as stated previously, the applicant is now seeking approval under SB-35.  This bill, authored by Senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco allows over-the-counter issuance of permits.  It was introduced in January of 2017, and was approved by the Legislature and signed by Governor Brown in September of that same year. Both of Berkeley’s representatives, Assembly Member Tony Thurmond and Senator Nancy Skinner voted to approve the bill.

Opposition to the project has grown substantially with archeologists vigorously debating both sides.  To learn more about this and other shellmounds and how they have been systematically destroyed over the years, go to the Indian People Organizing for Change (IPOC) website which was formed around the spirited advocacy of Corrina Gould.  You can also find ways to contact Ms. Gould there, even a phone number.   Another website with a great amount of information is the website of the The California Institute of Community, Art, and Nature which is associated with Malcolm Margolin, publisher of Heyday Books.

As we understand it, this project still faces votes from various City bodies. BNC will keep you informed, so sign up at bnc50@berkeleyneighborhoodscouncil.com to receive all future e-NEWS issues and notices about this important matter.