Extra

Berkeley planning commissioners are scheduled for lots of talk and no action this week. 

The most unusual item on the agenda for the commission's Wednesday, June 10, meeting is a presentation by landscape architect Walter Hood, who will present his vision for a Center Street plaza. 

While members of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee had called for a pedestrian plaza on Center Street between Shattuck Avenue and Oxford Street, the commission was less enthusiastic. 

City councilmembers will have the final say when they decide on the final shape of the new downtown plan in a vote scheduled for next month. 

Hood, a UC Berkeley faculty member and one of the nation’s better-known terrain-shapers, was commissioned by EcoCity Builders, a local nonprofit, to come up with his own vision for the proposed plaza, and that’s what commissioners will see Wednesday. 

The panel will also consider their deliberations about proposed zoning changes for West Berkeley, designed to ease the development process for multi-use projects on larger sites. 

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave.