WEBAIC  West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies

working together for a sustainable future

The History and Future of Industry in West Berkeley

Founding in 1853

West Berkeley has had an industrial character for 150 years. The town's founding traditionally dates from 1853, when a small cargo ship began docking in the mouth of Strawberry Creek, near the ancient Ohlone Indian shellmound. It hauled shipments brought by wagon on San Pablo road, bound across the bay to San Francisco. The first manufacturing plant, the Pioneer Starch and Grist Mill, opened in 1855 to mill grain from the local farmers. The following year the Heywood Lumber Yard opened for business.

Ocean View
In 1854 a wharf called Jacob's Landing was built, soon followed by Bowen's Inn and General Store, which became the nucleus of a small town, Ocean View. It housed mainly workers and their families and was a focal point for small farms that spread along the bay shore. Industry thrived and quickly expanded. The first school opened in 1856. In the 1860 census, the town's population was 69. Ocean View's ethnic diversity mirrored the Gold Rush population, which included significant numbers of immigrants and minorities.

Industries continued to open, including the Niehaus and Schuster Planing Mill, the Cornell Watch Company, and the Standard Soap Company (which later became Colgate and stayed for over a century). The Southern Pacific Railroad built its transcontinental mainline along the shore in 1877.

The University of California Arrives
In 1873 the University of California started a civic center a mile upstream from Ocean View on Strawberry Creek, and its residential community became South Campus.

The two communities immediately interacted. Ocean View workers found blue collar jobs at the campus, while university people became customers at the mills, farms, and shops. A stagecoach began making four trips a day between the two communities on the road alongside the creek, which came to be called University Avenue. Conflicts also developed. Ocean View said the campus polluted the creek, and the university said the town corrupted the youth.

Ocean View Becomes West Berkeley
But in 1874 Oakland was expanding north, threatening to engulf both communities, since neither was incorporated. Representatives from Ocean View and the university community met and jointly petitioned the state for a charter, which in 1878 established the City of Berkeley, named for an English philosopher.

In the first election, with over 300 voters, West Berkeley and the university community put up opposing slates: the Workingmen's Party vs. the Citizen's Ticket. The Workingmen's Party won, and the West Berkeley group became the first city administration. In subsequent elections the university began to dominate. Political conflicts continued, reflecting the diverging interests of the two communities.

West Berkeley remained industrial and multicultural. In the late 19th century its residents' mix of ethnic heritages included Irish, Scandinavian, Canadian, Mexican, Chilean, Italian, Portuguese, African, German, Chinese, and Finnish.

In those early years the West Berkeley neighborhoods took on the outlines that remain today. The heavy industrial area was west of Fourth Street. Between Fourth and Sixth Streets north of Dwight, industry and homes were mixed together. East of Sixth between Gilman and Dwight was residential.

Industrial expansion continued through the turn of the century, with Manasse Tannery, Cutter Labs (now Bayer), and Cal Ink (later Flint). In 1900 West Berkeley had 12% of city populaton.

The Post-Earthquake Boom
The aftermath of the 1906 earthquake brought on West Berkeley's first industrial boom, with 37 new factories opening in the first four months, including Macauley Foundry. Manufacturers flooded in, displacing farms. Many products manufactured here in the following years went to rebuilding San Francisco. By 1909 West Berkeley had 84 factories. Colgate, Heinz, Durkee Foods moved operations here. In 1913 the Kawneer factory opened, which became today's arts and crafts Sawtooth Building.

In 1916 the city was zoned for the first time, and most of West Berkeley was designated "Manufacturing," including parts that were actually mixed with housing. The result was that some homes were demolished and replaced by industrial plants. The area west of 7th between Dwight and Heinz (today the Bayer site), was developed as an industrial park.

In 1923 Berkeley diked off part of the bay and began filling it with regional refuse. While the landfill was eventually stopped and made into Cesar Chavez Park, the practice established the city as a regional disposal hub, leading to today's solid waste transfer station, recycling, and material recovery enterprises.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, manufacturing shrank in Berkeley, while New Deal projects built Aquatic Park and Eastshore Highway (now I-80).

West Berkeley's mix of uses continued in a shaky harmony until the end of World War II, when the area became a major battleground over issues of development.

Post-War Debates Over Development

World War II sparked a boom that created an unbroken industrial belt from East Oakland to Richmond. This resulted in the development of last undeveloped areas of West Berkeley, north of Gilman and around lower Ashby. There were 187 plants in 1947. The job boom also established West Berkeley's large black community which by the end of the decade comprised over 30% of the district's population. Camp Ashby, at 9th Street was a training site for Black soldiers (in segretated units).

The Proposed Industrial Mega-Park
In the 1950s, developers began lobbying to expand the manufacturing zone to the east. They painted West Berkeley as blighted and in need of redevelopment. There were no more undeveloped areas to expand into, and manufacturing was the growth industry of the moment. All the Bay Area cities were competing for the revenue. This sparked a political battle over which parts of West Berkeley would be industrial and which parts residential.

Some developers proposed bulldozing the entire residential zone up to San Pablo for a huge industrial park. By this time Berkeley was run largely by people connected with the university and downtown business communities, who saw West Berkeley as primarily a revenue source, not as a successful community in its own right. As a start, in 1955 the City Council created a Special Industrial (SI) Zone between Fourth and Sixth streets, stretching from Camelia (near Gilman) down to Dwight. All homes in this area were flagged for replacement by manufacturing.

But due to strong neighborhood objections, the process stalled. In 1963 the area was narrowed further, to eight square blocks between Cedar and University, which in 1967 was made into a Redevelopment Zone for a project dubbed the West Berkeley Industrial Park. All residential use in the zone was prohibited. The closure of Delaware below Sixth Street is a legacy of that project.

Years of debate followed. The Council set up the Redevelopment Agency as an independent body, removing all decision-making from any elected officials. Public hearings were not required for demolitions. The agency could do pretty much as it pleased, and it set about planning to demolish 66 residential units and evicting 229 low-income people. In response, the affected residents and others in the adjacent community formed the Ocean View Committee, launched an active opposition, and made the project a citywide issue. The struggle went on for a decade.

Meanwhile the manufacturing boom faded. In 1979 the council modified the Redevelopment Plan to permit housing, and soon the remaining historic houses were being rehabilitated and new low-income housing was being planned. The Industrial Park never came to pass.

Conversions to Offices and Retail
As large manufacturers left the area, the primary land use issue became how to re-use vacant industrial sites.

In the late 1970s and 1980s heavy industries were leaving the Bay Area. Several of Berkeley's industrial buildings were subdivided for light industries, artisans, and arts and crafts studios, including the Durkee building, the Kawneer Sawtooth building, and the Nexus building.

The new environment of artisans, arts, and crafts made the area increasingly attractive to developers, who saw in the creative atmosphere a marketing advantage for office and retail conversions, which generate higher rents. The Fourth street commercial corridor sprang up by leaps and bounds. West Berkeley started to become known as a good place to live.

Rapid changes swept through West Berkeley. In 1983 the City closed its landfill and opened its new transfer station, which attracted reuse and recycling companies. By 1993 the six largest recycling companies, including the City itself, generated nearly $9 million in annual revenue and employed more than 80 people.

Other industries, artisans, and artists, however, left town as building conversions drove rents beyond their reach. When the Durkee owners moved to convert their building to offices and labs, their artist and industrial tenants staged a public fight against eviction. Other residents and occupants dissatisfied with the rapid unguided change called for an area plan. The City responded.

The West Berkeley Plan

The City Council set up an open-membership community process to write the area plan, with guidance from the Planning Commission. Over the following ten years, participants in the West Berkeley Plan Committee included representatives of all the stakeholders. Manufacturers, artisans, and craftspeople worked closely with artists, residents, merchants, developers, environmentalists, property owners, employers, unions, and black clergy. One of the Committee's first proposals was the Arts and Crafts Ordinance of 1989, which protected all existing arts and crafts spaces in West Berkeley. Shortly afterward the City Council directed the Committee to review the concept of industrial sanctuaries.

Goals and Ideals
In earlier decades residents had been threatened by the expansion of manufacturing, but now many residents defended the idea of retaining light industry as a stabilizing force to prevent overdevelopment of offices and retail. The West Berkeley Plan Committee saw the goal as a diverse balanced economy, and keeping industries was key to continuing the environment in which the other uses could continue and thrive.

It took the Committee years to hash out the Plan based on the premise that "West Berkeley's uniqueness and dynamism grow largely out of its wide variety of land uses. Preserving and supporting all the elements of this vital mix of land uses is the central policy of the West Berkeley Plan." The concept was to find a place for every existing use without dislocation, leaving opportunities for compatible new development at appropriate sites. The Plan divided the area into several districts, each promoting the uses that already predominated: light industries, residences, arts and crafts, commercial, and heavy industry.

In 1993 the City Council, with the leadership of Mayor Loni Hancock, passed the Plan unanimously, and it became City policy. After five years, in 1998 the City finally rezoned West Berkeley to fit its plan.

Implementation and Reality
The ink was hardly dry before some developers and property owners began lobbying to end industrial protections. In the following years, the City's implementation of the Plan's protections was spotty. Developers found loopholes in the provisions, and several industrial buildings were converted into offices.

The dot-com explosion triggered a boom in offices around the Bay. Many building owners in West Berkeley wanted to cash in but were limited by the Plan. One developer wanted to convert the entire old Colgate plant into a huge office park, but the Plan would not permit it. Today the old Colgate plant is still industrial as part of Bayer.

When the dot-com bubble burst, acres of empty office buildings littered some parts of the Bay Area, but not in Berkeley. The Plan's industrial protections kept Berkeley's diverse economy comparatively stable.

 

Green Valley Industrial Future

The Green Dream
The West Berkeley Plan has built in exciting opportunities to enrich the city culturally as well as economically. One major opportunity is to develop the industries that will be the basis of tomorrow's sustainable economy. The Plan calls for West Berkeley to become a Green Valley, similar to the Silicon Valley but for green industries.

Berkeley has solar-oriented businesses, a bicycle-powered messenger service, and the City's green business certification program. Potential green industries are limited only by entrepreneurial creativity. These small companies generate more jobs per capital dollar than large companies, and a diversity of them provides a stable economic base.

International resource pressures are generating widespread zero-waste policies, including Alameda County's goal of diverting 75% of discarded resources from landfill. The recycling industry is already as large as the auto industry. The increasing supply of recyclable urban resources is generating new artisan manufacturing industries. One Berkeley company makes high-end countertops from recycled glass, a second makes tiles from glass and other materials, and a third makes high-end furniture from old wood. Another company distributes relatively nontoxic diesel fuel made from restaurants' used fryer oil. Recycling and garbage collection trucks for the Ecology Center and the City use this kind of fuel.

First Step: Protect the Land
Industrial zoning protections need to be reaffirmed. Without industrial space, visionary entrepreneurs would be forced to some other city.

Protecting industrial properties for the highest and best industrial use is key. If vacancies arise in large properties dedicated to heavy industry, and if no new large industrial occupant can be found, those properties should be subdivided and nudged down to light industry, artisan manufacturing, craftspeople, and artists. Large industry properties must not be given over to retail, residences, or offices just because a large industrial occupant is unavailable. This adaptation is what the West Berkelely Plan envisions. The Plan considers arts and crafts to be light industry. This perspective has been stymied by inadequacies in the zoning regulations, which puts arts and crafts into a different category and prevents industrial buildings from being subdivided for light industries and arts and crafts. Such technical difficultIes have kept several industrial buildings empty unnecessarily.

Gentrification Spiral - No:
Continued Diversity and Dynamism - Yes
Whereas the Green Valley industries are being developed, some developers are increasing pressure to convert industrial spaces to retail, particularly regional retail, and residences. These directions appeal to some City officials looking for fast revenue in hard times. Some developers are focusing on the industrial neighborhoods on lower Gilman, Ashby, and University. They want to rezone Gilman and Ashby below San Pablo to commercial, and replace industries with shops. They would also put residences on the back streets off Gilman. At Ashby and Ninth they want to build a West Berkeley Bowl that was scaled up dramatically from its original proposal to attract regional sales. The Bowl project would become a de facto anchor for further retail and residential development, increasing pressure on the industrial properties in the neighborhood. At the foot of University Avenue, developers are pushing forward a large residential project to replace Brennan's. No industrial land would be lost directly, but the juxtaposition of residences with industry would apply pressure to nearby industrial spaces and would raise rents. This has already happened with the Drayage Building artisans. The Nexus arts and artisan building is also at risk.

WeBAIC will resist these pressures. They are contrary to the City's vision of diversified industrial development, do not build long-term economic stability as well as industry would, and are not in harmony with the citizens' vision expressed in the West Berkeley Plan.

How to reuse large vacant industrial buildings remains a central issue in the present and future.

The main force blocking excessive development and an accompanying gentrification spiral is the West Berkeley Plan. WeBAIC supports the Plan, which calls for development sensitive to type and scale that does not harm existing uses or replace them, and which adds to the historically dynamic West Berkeley mix.