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Major Development Sought for Berkeley's Aquatic Park Site

Toni Mester
Friday May 20, 2016 - 09:06:00 AM

A community meeting will be held on Tuesday May 24 concerning the application for a master use permit to develop the 8.5 acre site at Addison and Bolivar Drive on Aquatic Park. The public is invited to attend from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at the Frances Albrier Community Center, 2800 Park St. in San Pablo Park. 

An application with a project address of 600 Addison Street has been submitted to create a campus of four to six buildings mostly devoted to research and development using the master use permit section (23B.36) of the Berkeley Zoning Code. In 2012 the City attempted to expand the height and other allowances under the master use permit section as Measure T, which was narrowly defeated citywide but highly unpopular in the neighborhoods closest to the park. 

Concern about maintaining the views of the hills from the pedestrian bridge and the park was a factor in the defeat of Measure T, prompting Citizens for Eastshore Parks (CESP) to commission a height study which shows the effects of various buildings heights on views from the park, the pedestrian bridge, and the brickyard across the freeway, an area of McLaughlin State Park now in the initial stages of development. Even building heights of 45’ would block views from the Aquatic Park, less so from the pedestrian bridge. The alignment and placement of the proposed buildings would impact the views, especially since the project site is sloped from Fourth Street to Bolivar Drive along the lagoon, which once formed the eastern edge of San Francisco Bay. 

Traffic is also studied in an analysis by Fehr and Peers that shows impacts from the R & D as well as a residential alternative. It is unclear if the latter possibility has been rejected or who would occupy the R&D alternative. The traffic study reveals increased trips at several intersections for the R&D project, especially at Addison and 2nd and 4th ; Bancroft, University, and along Sixth, a residential street that is already jam packed at rush hour as well as Dwight Way and San Pablo Avenues. Hopefully the meeting will look at mitigations including an expanded BART shuttle service in West Berkeley. 

The community has become increasingly concerned that new projects, both commercial and residential, are not paying their fair share of impact fees. An appropriate community benefit for this development would be repair of the tide tubes that are deteriorating. The cost is currently estimated about $1 million by the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department in a recent report on park needs citywide. The ecology of the lagoons is already suffering due to the reduction in tidal flow, with reduced oxygen to support the plants, fish, and birds who rely on circulation of Bay water for their survival. 

The project application is worth reading for the history of the site, including old assessor maps, geography, background on dilapidated buildings and their previous uses, and other information unique to this location. 


Toni Mester is a resident of West Berkeley