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Kudos for your front-page coverage of Rick Young’s sit-and-sleep-in on the University’s Underhill parking lot (Wednesday, May 3). Rick’s dramatic action underscores the University’s unwillingness to listen to and engage the larger Berkeley community beyond a vocal minority of parking-obsessed faculty on the Academic Senate’s Sub-Committee on Parking and Transportation. 

As co-chair of Students for a Livable Southside (SLS), a student-based group advocating for balanced transportation and housing solutions, I fully support Rick’s effort to bring attention to the University’s unbalanced approach to a prime site in the heart of Berkeley’s densest (and most damaged) pedestrian-oriented neighborhood. 

Under current UC policy, parking spaces take precedence over housing when it comes to allocating UC Berkeley’s scarce land resources. At an ASUC housing summit in the fall, Chancellor Berdahl casually dismissed any suggestion that he or his staff should sit down with students to discuss the administration’s much-maligned $22K parking “replacement” policy. The current policy requires student housing to “compensate” parking - at $22K per space - for the privilege of using public land once devoted to surface parking lots. To the best of my knowledge, no student representatives were consulted when drafting this policy. 

The fact that the recently released Underhill EIR dismisses every alternative to adding a three-story parking structure with 1,400-car capacity on the site bounded by College, Channing, Bowditch and Haste is just one more indication of the administration’s “parking-uber alles” approach to neighborhood planning. 

The social and environmental consequences of ignoring the concerns of the greater Southside community are significant. They include a further erosion of town-gown relations, greater auto congestion, increased localized carbon dioxide and particulate pollution, slower and less reliable transit service, and a hostile biking and walking environment. 

Rather than continuing this criticism, SLS has developed a simple list of constructive policy ideas that take the entire Berkeley community’s concerns into account: faculty, staff, students, residents, people who need to drive, those who don’t, those who take the bus or ride a bike and those who walk. Consider the following list a complimentary “cheat sheet” for Chancellor Berdahl if and when he decides to meet with Rick Young. 

Renegotiate the $22K “parking replacement” policy. The current policy discourages housing in favor of parking. Instead of excluding students from policy-making entirely, hold good faith negotiations with representatives from the ASUC and the GA to determine a more equitable and fair approach to sharing UC land. 

Subsidize transportation choices, not parking garages. Instead of providing parking as a subsidized perk, which encourages driving, let individuals decide how to spend their own transportation dollars. Provide a monthly “cost of transportation” benefit to all faculty and staff, linked to inflation, equal to the price of monthly market-rate parking. Those staff and faculty who need (or chose) to drive can devote their monthly fee towards parking, but those who chose other modes (like bikes, buses or BART) are allowed to “cash out” and invest their savings in non-automotive pursuits. Think of this as an auto-free incentive, as opposed to a mandate. 

Reallocate existing parking spaces based on need, not seniority. Existing parking should be allocated based on demonstrated needs, like family obligations or lack of viable alternatives, rather than staff and faculty hierarchies. A single mother who must drop-off and pick up her children from day care in Albany deserves a space closer to campus than a tenured faculty member who lives within walking distance of campus. Under the current system, rigid rules trump social justice. 

Develop realistic alternatives in the Underhill Draft EIR. The current DEIR does not adequately explore alternatives that meet the goals of UC, the students and the larger Berkeley community. Host a series of small “roundtable” discussions with community representatives, hosted by a neutral third party like TAA, to provide constructive feedback on such alternatives. 

Do not build parking for 1,000-1,400 cars on the Underhill Lot. Seriously consider options that dramatically reduce the share of parking on this site, like moving 500-600 cars to a mixed-use office, student services and parking structure on the Tang Center parking lot. Parking on this site could be actually generating income for UC at night, when movie and restaurant patrons need access to Downtown. Merchants would probably support the idea, as would neighborhood groups. 

I hope that the UC administration will take this opportunity to reconsider its current trajectory and begin putting people and places before parking. Until they do, SLS will make sure that Rick Young is comfortable in his new $22,000 home. 

Michael R. Yarne is a graduate student at the Boalt Hall Law School and Department of City and Regional Planning. He is co-chair of Students for a Livable Southside, and a board member of the Telegraph Area Association and Urban Ecology.