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The Berkeley Zoning Adjustment Board faced fierce organized neighborhood opposition at its June 9 hearing to consider Berkeley Honda’s and developer Ali Kashani’s proposal to shoehorn a “full service auto dealership” into the old Berkeley Bowl building, a site half the size of its former home. The proposal would also take over the triangle parking lot at the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Adeline Street.  

Honda would cut a new driveway for auto repair customers in the middle of a traffic-congested block, between 2 popular restaurants, abutting a tightly knit residential neighborhood, smack in the middle of Berkeley’s Safe Routes to Schools. (SR2S is a grant-funded program meant to encourage and facilitate walking and biking by Willard Middle School and LeConte Elementary School students.) The Honda project would festoon the Adeline Street gateway to Downtown with monument signs, banners, & display vehicles. The current proposal contains 14 service bays, and situates 2 air compressors near a wall abutting a residential duplex with no setback whatsoever. The proposal provides only half the already-generous parking requirement for a change of use, and even purports to meet much of its parking obligation with queueing space and work areas inside the repair shop. And it would be open for business 7 days a week from 7 am to 10pm.  

ZAB heard a coordinated presentation Thursday from neighbors detailing a long list of detriments, in addition to complaints about deceptive supporting documentation from Honda. ZAB is also under pressure to protect Berkeley’s auto sales tax revenue and a few dozen jobs, including about 14 union jobs. Board members’ sympathies appeared divided. But ZAB’s decision may ultimately hinge on defining the nature of Honda’s business at the proposed location. ZAB struggled with zoning code definitions of the “primary” and “ancillary” uses of a building, and with contradictory values in the zoning ordinance. 

No decision was made, and the issue was continued to a future ZAB meeting.