Planning Commission Proposals: Remove Protections from Wholesale Trade & Warehouse: Jobs & At Risk Allow Housing (& Retail) In Industrial Zones - Staff Admits Proposal Violates WB Plan

On July 28th the Planning Commission moved several proposals forward to be voted upon by the Commission at their proposed September 22 West Berkeley Project final Public Hearing. This hearing will address all issues large and small that have found their way into Planning staff proposals over the last three years. Many of these proposals will greatly affect West Berkeley's future, but two proposals relating to the Master Use Permits and industrial protections pose serious long-term threats to the future of industry and arts as well as to the West Berkeley residential community in the Mixed Use Residential (MUR) and R1A Core Residential Zones. To help positively shape the future of our neighborhood, community, and City, Please Attend the Sept 22 Hearing.

❍ Proposal to Remove Protections from Wholesale Trade & Warehouse Uses ❍

Illegal Proposal? The West Berkeley Plan protects industrial uses (including Wholesale Trade & Warehouse) because of the good jobs, important goods & services, and stable revenue they provide. The Commission's proposal to remove Wholesale Trade & Warehouse protections violates the West Berkeley Plan and wasn't studied in the West Berkeley Project Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) as legally required to determine its potential environmental impacts.

Destructive of Equity & Diversity: Beyond the illegalities of violating the Plan and instituting policies without studying their impacts, this is a revenue, company, and jobs-destroying initiative (approx 50 Wholesale Trade/Warehouse Companies w/ 1000+ jobs in W. Berkeley) proposed in a recession, targeting those working people & jobs already hit hardest not only by this downturn but by national economic policies over the last 30 years. This proposal can be clearly seen as a continuation of those policies actualizing the transfer of wealth in our country from the large majority in the middle and bottom to a tiny minority in the top few percentage points, to the extent that inequality is now at its greatest level in the U.S since the 1920's.

Why blue/green collar jobs? The West Berkeley Plan waxes eloquent and factual about the importance of keeping industrial, working class blue collar jobs (green collar jobs weren't described then but these did and do exist in Wholesale Trade/Warehouse companies) in West Berkeley. This was done in service of maintaining the integrity of the fabric of the interwoven industrial/arts economy, providing good paying jobs to people without college and to disadvantaged populations, providing needed goods and services to the populace, providing a stable source or revenue to the City, and to maintain the economic and ethnic diversity of West Berkeley and Berkeley as a whole.

Equity & Diversity in the Plan: Following are West Berkeley Plan & Berkeley General Plan statements on equity and diversity: "WB Plan Land Use: ...Purposes of the Plan: 2. "Maintain the ethnic and economic diversity of West Berkeley's resident population." WB Plan Economic Element: 7. "Increase social and economic equity in land use decisions." Berkeley General Plan Goal 2: Rationale: "To maintain Berkeley’s unique character and quality of life, Berkeley must strive to maintain the cultural, social, and economic diversity that is such an important aspect of the character of Berkeley. If Berkeley is to remain a diverse community with a wide range of races, incomes, cultures, and ideas, Berkeley must take steps to maintain an adequate supply of decent, affordable housing, a range of jobs, and a variety of local goods and services.Policy:PromoteaStrongIndustrialBaseandLiving-WageJobs".BerkeleyEconomy:"...skyrocketing property values and rents..bring(ing) prosperity to some but also threaten(ing) the economic, social, and cultural diversity that distinguishes Berkeley life." Land Use - Summary: "The Plan celebrates and strives to maintain both the diversity ofresidents and...business activity in West Berkeley, in the face of forces which might sharply reduce that diversity." Berkeley General Plan: "One major threat to Berkeley’s character and to its diversity is gentrification." General Plan: Land Use Objective: Maintain the character of Berkeley as a...diverse...place to live and work.

West Berkeley Industry - The Key to Equity & Diversity: The above quotes aren't statements of opinion. They form the basisoftheGoalsandPoliciesofthetwoPlanswithlegaljurisdictionoverWestBerkeleyLandUsepolicy. Theproposed removal of the Wholesale Trade & Warehouse protections, instituted specifically for the purposes of ensuring Berkeley's equity and diversity through the maintainance of blue collar jobs for those of modest means and education, violates not only the relevant Plans, but the spirit of social justice and fairness our City is supposed to be famous for and claims as its legacy. The Plan makes it real.

Since the West Berkeley industrial economy is the only place in Berkeley providing a significant amount of family-wage jobs for people without college (1/3 of Berkeley's population doesn't have a 4 year degree), the preservation and expansion of these sectors and jobs is key to the ethnic and economic diversity of Berkeley and the region, especially since the percentage of the African American, Hispanic, and Asian populations with a college degree is significantly less than that of the "white" population. The Plans details these populations as being significantly employed in these jobs and sectors.

WB Plan: "Vigilance is needed to maintain a balance among...uses." Once industrial space (and its jobs) are gone, it's gone, forever. This results from the same economic forces claiming productive farmland for subdivisions and virgin forest for resorts-land value profitability. West Berkeley's industrial & arts protections weren't instituted for recessions when vacancy rates rise in all sectors and land value and rental pressures temporarily recede. Protections are instituted to buffer industrial & arts uses from economic pressures typically existing in West Berkeley, pressures that would force them out, impoverishing our community in numerous fundamental ways. Just as the forecast capacity of land to produce crops isn't based on temporary drought conditions, neither should West Berkeley's future be determined by aberrant economic conditions.

Inthisatypicaleconomicmoment,theseprotectionsmayappearunnecessary,butthisviewignoreshistory. Withitscentral Bay Area location, name cache, access to freeways, and UC Berkeley presence, , intense pressure on West Berkeley land value consistently returns (West Berkeley historically - and now - has the highest industrial rents of all East Bay cities). In many ways the protections are similar to constitutional rights, in that they exist not for those times when rights aren't challenged or pressures for displacement aren't present, but precisely for those times when these challenges and pressures do exist, pressures that in this case would have hugely negative economic, environmental, and social consequences for our City, should they be allowed to prevail unmitigated by the protections.

❍ Proposal Allowing Housing In M Zones and Regional Retail in M & MUR Zones on MUPs ❍

In a violation of the West Berkeley Plan that even Planning Manger Sanderson acknowledges, staff is moving forward with a proposal to allow residences in the industrial zones on Master Use Permit properties. The West Berkeley Plan & Berkeley General Plan are unequivocal in their prohibitions against housing in the industrial zones: WB Plan: "In Manufacturing, Mixed Manufacturing, and Mixed Use Light Industrial, residential uses are not permitted. No new dwelling units may be constructed or created in any of these districts." This is one of many clear prohibitions in the Plan.

The West Berkeley Project Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), tasked with describing the Project's proposals and studying their environmental impacts, states: "revisions to permitted uses would not include allowing housing", "The West Berkeley Project does not change the regulations for residential uses", "uses that might lead to conflicts with existing uses, such as housing, are not proposed to be allowed under the West Berkeley Project." "No new residential uses will be permitted in the district (MULI)." What more is there to say? What can staff be thinking?

The above restrictions would make it appear that pursuing housing in the M Zones is a waste of time unless staff is prepared to redo the West Berkeley DEIR, amend the West Berkeley Plan, and amend Berkeley General Plan, all extremely expensive and time consuming. So why are we here? This quixotic exercise on staff's part appears to be an effort to satisfy Rich RobbinsofWarehamCorporationandDougHerst,ownerofthePeerless(fullyoccupied)industrialfactorysite. Bothwantto put housing in the industrial zones on their projected Master Use Permit (MUP) sites even though they're already allowed to build housing on their Mixed Use Residential (MUR) and Commercial (CW) Zone property on those very MUP properties.

The West Berkeley Plan committee drew zone boundaries meticulously so as not to create future conflicts. That almost no conflicts have arisen due to those lines attests to their efficacy. Now, to satisfy developers already allowed to build housing in appropriate zones on their property, but don't want to, the City is jumping through tortured semantic hoops to make these developers' dreams come true, no matter how destructive they are to the existing and future industrial economy & jobs.

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Volumes have been devoted to this subject, but suffice it to say that placing housing next to industry is a violation of Planning 101, not to mention a violation of the principles of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, Pratt Institute's Center for Community and Environmental Development Report: “New York City Manufacturing Land Use and Zoning Initiative: Making it in New York”, etc., etc. To ignore this gold standard wisdom is to ignore history and accepted planning practice, and to opt for irate residents, lost companies and jobs, diminished economic activity, and lawsuits between conflicting uses.

Staff's two proposal options before the Commission on Housing & Retail in the M/MM/MULI/MUR Zones:

Option 2C would "allow the uses (residential & retail) to float within the proposed site", essentially allowing the developer to put the uses wherever they want, with the caveat that they should be "compatible with the surrounding land uses, both within and outside the site", whatever that means and whoever determines it? The staff report continues that under this option "Developers would have more flexibility in designing a “campus” atmosphere for the overall site, but might allow residential uses to intrude into industrial areas over time, which would conflict with the West Berkeley Plan." (be illegal).

Option 2A. "would anchor the CW/MUR uses and development standards to the underlying zone." Staff's reference to the illegality of 2C would seem to indicate their preference for this option. Staff's description is worth quoting in its entirety: "This second option would prevent further intrusion of residential uses into industrial areas, thereby providing no new impetus for Berkeley’s industrial lands to morph into commercial or residential properties. However, this option might allow too little flexibility in site planning and might preclude some opportunities to improve the separation between existing residential and industrial land uses." How allowing residential uses (anchored or not) into the industrial zones would "prevent further intrusion of residential uses into industrial areas" and "improve the separation between existing residential and industrial land uses." has not been revealed. Planning staff may not have yet completed the "Magic for Land Use Planners" workshop making this possible. Although we hope the rabbit won't be hurt in the process, it seems inevitable.

As staff admits that 2C is illegal (No new dwelling units may be constructed or created in any of these districts" the Plan), how the stipulation of "anchoring" housing in M zones to housing in MUR/CW wondrously renders industrial zone housing legal requires semantic contortionism (see advanced yoga manual) and conclusions heretofore only found in Lewis Carroll.

ProposalsAllowRegionalRetailinMUR&MZones. Beyondhouseig,staffproposesallowingfull-scaleregionalretail(as allowed on University, San Pablo, & Ashby) to locate in the M Zones (where it's prohibited) and the MUR zones, where retail is now appropriately limited to "neighborhood-serving". With none of the MUR zones more than a few blocks from a commercial corridor, access to goods and services is easily facilitated while attendant traffic is appropriately focused on the commercial corridors and kept out of the neighborhoods. In service to developers wanting "flexibility to design a campus atmosphere", it appears staff have determined that productive economic activity, jobs, and neighborhood livability must pay the price and that violating Plan policy prioritizing retail on Commercial corridors is a minor inconvenience.

Proposals allow Big-box residential in the MUR: Staff's proposal additionaly permits Commercial corridor residential densities to be built in both the M Zones and the Mixed Use Residential Zone. These densities (i.e. 2700 San Pablo), are about 33% greater than now allowed in the MUR, which on many blocks are single family homes. The MUR already is one of the only non-Commercial zones allowinging large, multi-unit buildings in the middle of single family neighborhoods, but this proposal goes much further by installing the much greater Commercial zone heights & densities into the MUR.

Please Attend the September 22 Planning Commission Public Hearing- This time It's For Keeps: WEBAIC has been criticized for describing many of the West Berkeley Project meetings as "critical". Rightly or wrongly, this word was used because we've always been aware this process was never just about one or two final hearings- it was always about an ongoing community effort to bring common sense, facts, and experience-grounded passion to a decision-making process that would affect the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people and enterprises for many years. Though the upcoming meetings are truly "critically" important, if at any step in the process you wouldn't have shown up and we would have collectively faltered, we would not now be in a position of entering these final hearings with the possibility of a positive result for our communities.

As can be seen, much is at stake for West Berkeley's future on the 22nd. WEBAIC, in coalition with MUR & R Zone neighbors, has accomplished a lot so far within the West Berkeley Project to maintain the finely balanced workability and livabilityofoursharedWestBerkeleyhome,butthesefinalHearingswilltellthetale. Ifyou'veshownupbefore,pleasedoit again, as anything can happen at these meetings. If you haven't shown up because you've been waiting for when it would really "count", this is it.After the 22nd the decision goes to the Council Public Hearing, but their decision will be greatly affected by the turnout & what's decided on the 22nd. Thanks so much all your efforts thus far - let's take it home together.

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