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To the Editor: 

Smart growth in city planning is intended to introduce and sustain a number of innovations. One of these is increased and facilitated public transportation, along with walkable destinations. Work and leisure activity would not, in theory, require automobile use or ownership for persons residing in large mixed-use buildings in the Berkeley downtown and on transit corridors. The Daily Planet (Oct. 26-27), has developer John DeClerq saying he would open his Library Gardens parking lot to the public on the assumption that residents would drive to work for the day. This statement contradicts smart growth intentions in regard to automobile use. It seems that ideology and practice in this case of development are not aligned. Opportunity and profit for the developer, usually disguised by claims of smart growth planning, are here revealed as the real motives for building big in Berkeley. 

Marc Mathieu 

Berkeley