Public Comment

[This letter was originally sent to the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board and the City Council on April 21, 2015.]

The detriments to the city posed by approval of this project far outweigh any possible benefits.

1.This project contains no units of low income housing, which is obviously the great need in our city. Instead the developer will enjoy the "discount" of $8,000 per unit of the $28,000 in lieu fee. If the city continues to approve market rate and luxury developments, there will be no space left for inclusionary housing for Berkeley residents with moderate or low incomes and no solution to our critical lack of inclusionary and affordable housing. 

2. The 2 to 4-year construction period will inhibit access to our Main Branch Library, our downtown Post Office, the YMCA, and to the 3000-student Berkeley High School a block away. 

3. Construction of this hugely out-of-scale project proposed for Berkeley's historic district will not only disrupt downtown traffic during the years of its construction but the majority of the 302 units will be owned or rented by people who will bring additional cars to Berkeley's already very congested downtown, thus increasing our contribution of greenhouse gases rather than reducing it, as we must do. 

4. The developer of this project would demolish the successful, well-attended Landmark Shattuck Cinemas, that provide thousands of residents of Berkeley and the surrounding area highly-valued programming of independent, foreign, and documentary films not offered elsewhere. Film is a major art form and the Shattuck Cinemas provide our city with a significant cultural benefit. We don't want this enrichment to our lives sacrificed to luxury housing. 

5. The 2211 Harold Way project would also demolish the thriving Habitot, with its convenient location adjacent to the YMCA and the Public Library, all of which provide Berkeley families with ready access to children's programs. Surrounding restaurants and cafes also benefit from the attraction of young families to downtown Berkeley, so they too will lose business if Habitot is forced to move. 

6. Exacerbation of traffic congestion, closed sidewalks and streets, and construction equipment blocking parking will make it greatly more difficult to reach the existing businesses, restaurants and cafes in the Shattuck/Kittredge/Harold Way/Allston Way block and in the adjacent areas. Should the proposed hotel be under construction at the same time, the damage to downtown businesses from the resulting traffic congestion will be dire. 

7. This huge building project is within the school zone of Berkeley High School. The decibel level and pollution emissions during the construction period would quite possibly exceed what the law allows in a school zone. 

8. Adding 302 more units to the downtown area, in addition to the several large buildings built here in recent years, would significantly increase water use and demands on fire and police services, sewage disposal, city streets and aging infra-structure. There is no effort to meet the Zero Net Energy standards California will require of residential buildings in 2020. There is no provision of affordable units, so workers unable to find housing here will be forced to commute into Berkeley. In these ways too, this project would significantly increase production of greenhouse gases rather than reducing it. 

Before any more development projects are approved, it is essential that we examine the cumulative effect of the many large building projects recently completed, under construction, or awaiting approval in the downtown area and throughout Berkeley. To allocate the few available building sites to for-profit developers will radically change the demographics of our city and force city workers to commute longer distances, thus increasing our production of greenhouse gases rather than reducing it. To interject into our city's handsome historic core so obtrusive a building that does not serve our city's need is among the detriments to the community that this project represents.