Site Walk

Notes from "Site Walk" Discussions

by Fred Dodsworth

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Three days. Three meetings. One proposed pedestrian mall. No agreement.

Saturday, November 25, at 11 A.M., approximately one dozen denizens of North Berkeley delivered themselves unto the sidewalk in front of Saul's Delicatessen to perambulate the district and view and discuss the locus for David Stoloffs "Grand Designs for a Great Plaza" in our little neighborhood. Among the walkers was at least one avowed supporter of Stoloff's Grand Vision and at least one (or two) fierce opponents of Mr. Stoloff's "Devious Schemes."

After pacing the district, marking the street with white spray paint to indicate distances and substantial discourse on numerous unrelated matters, the group overwhelmingly agreed that the area's residents should have a voice in mediating Stoloff's proposal to further protect and benefit local merchants and residents. No specific mediations were proposed that enjoyed unanimous assent or even a substantial majority assent.

The proposed modification offered by Margot Smith, which would increase the width of the sidewalk and allow al fresco dining while maintain diagonal parking all along Shattuck Avenue from Vine to Rose Streets was generally favorably viewed. For those who don't know the Stoloff plan (North Berkeley Plaza, Inc.) removes all diagonal parking in front of the stores and replaces those parking spaces with a parking lot at Rose Street. College Avenue and Fourth Street have similar satellite parking lots.

Concerns voiced by the small group of area residents assembled included the "Problem of the Homeless Inhabiting Our Great Plaza," "Who's Going to Keep this Attractive Nuisance Clean and Tidy," "The Devastating Impact of Relentless and Unending Construction on Area Merchants," "The Mall-ification of North Berkeley into Walnut Creek" with a subset of "Why Don't We Spend This Enormous Sum of Money Addressing Social Ills Rather than Elitist Landscaping," and lastly,"Don't Fix What Ain't Broken."

Possible improvements embraced by most of the attendees to the November 25 citizen's gathering were increased opportunities for "Greening North Berkeley," "A Better Farmer's Market," and "More Convivial Sidewalk Socialization."

That group retired after deciding to host a community wide meeting addressing these and other issues on Wednesday, January 17 in the Crafts room at the Live Oak Recreation Center in Live Oak Park. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7:30 P.M. The Rec Center must be clean and closed at 10 P.M. All are invited.

A few days later, at 10:30 A.M. on Thursday, November 30, the North Shattuck Association (a business benefit group funded by a tax on commercial property in the district) hosted a gathering for merchants, commercial property owners and Berkeley city staff at a nearby office building owned by David Stoloff. The meeting began with approximately a dozen attendees including several landlords, and several merchants, three city employees, the president of the North Shattuck Association and at least three members of North Berkeley Plaza, Inc. Most non-chain merchants were unable to attend a meeting held in the middle of their work day. The Farmer's Market was represented by a young man who was very, very quiet.

One of the city staff persons in attendance was Peter Hillier, Asst. City Manager for Transportation. Mr. Hillier noted that creation of public space improvements in that location, of any sort, would allow the city to engineer traffic improvements that could effectively improve traffic safety in the area, including slowing vehicle speeds.

Landlords in attendance included: Ruegg and Ellsworth (Long's Drugs, Coldwell Banker, Black Oak Books, Pacific Cotton/Bryn Walker, Riki, Vintage Berkeley ). Dana Ellsworth stated that her family's firm has no current intention of building multi-story buildings on its property and that Longs had just signed a long term lease extention, Henry and Mary Wong (Toyo, Bing Wong Cleaners, Masses Pastry), The owner of Earth Goods was represented by his bookkeeper Also in attendance was Soheyl Modarressi, of Epicurious Garden.

At the meeting the landlords and merchants were asked to choose between one of two options for the proposed parking lot at Shattuck and Rose Streets so that the planning could proceed. One schematic drawing detailed 72 parking places, while the other identified 82 parking places. According to the presenter, there are currently 78 parking places in the district.

Mr. Stoloff insisted the parking had to be net neutral, meaning no increase in the number of parking places. He volubly favored the reduced parking plan.

Unfortunately for those interested in fast-tracking the proposed plaza the few merchants in attendance were not uniformly in favor of the proposal. Their concerns were identical to the concerns expressed by area residents the prior Saturday.

Coldwell Banker's representative noted that she originally had been quite enthusiastic when the plaza was announced but upon reflection she was very concerned about creating a homeless encampment in front of her office, dissatisfied with the current level of hygiene in the public space surrounding her building, and adverse to months of construction noise and disruption for such a questionable benefit.

Like the area residents, the merchants and landlords were in favor of some beautification and increased public space but very concerned about the potential negative impacts.

Especially vehement in their opposition to spending $3 to 4 million on a 50 foot wide by 600 foot long public plaza were the representatives of Earthly Goods (currently circulating a petition to halt the project) and Mr. Modarressi, who wanted the North Shattuck Business Improvement District to spend its time and money improving the "blight" he sees around Andronico's Market and Safeway.

And then on Saturday, December 2, a very small group of substantially less than a dozen area residents assembled in front of Saul's (again) to pace the street and discuss the options. (A tip of the hat to Sylvia McLaughlin, neighbor and founder of Save the Bay, who attended and expressed grave reservations about the plan.) Once again the consensus was deeply divided regarding the proposed plaza. After nearly an hour of discussion most attendees were in favor of a modest, less intrusive, improvement to the public space. The meeting adjourned with promises from everyone to attend the meeting scheduled for January 17.