Extra

So much is happening, late again.

As I mentioned in a previous Diary, I receive the donation asks from Mayor Arreguin. That does not mean there is any money going from my wallet to the campaign, I am just on the mass email mailing list like so many of you. My support will be for whoever shines as the real environmentalist.

The article that keeps coming to mind on the biodiversity crisis and looking toward the future is “Addressing Climate Change Will Not ‘Save the Planet’” by Christopher Ketcham. https://theintercept.com/2022/12/03/climate-biodiversity-green-energy/

I’ve been listening to Ketcham’s book, This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West published in 2019. It is not a happy book, telling the story of how our public lands are exploited, ecosystems destroyed and governmental misconduct in failing to rein it in.

All the State Senate candidates have records in elected office. I am not going to fall for empty rhetoric this time around. The candidate with the long history of environmental work is Dan Kalb with the Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists. I am especially interested in checking his votes and work as a member of the Oakland City Council.

We are in an environmental crisis. Just adding density to cities and stopping urban sprawl will not solve the biodiversity crisis, nor will a singular focus on transportation. We need an environmentalist in that California Senate seat. I wish I could see that in either Arreguin or Beckles. 

The person whose work in office with whom I am most familiar is Mayor Arreguin. Sadly, I don’t see the support for what are going to be the most important actions. Ketcham is correct. Just addressing climate change will not save the planet. Our ecosystems are teetering on the edge of collapse. 

Berkeley’s Bird Safe Ordinance has been weaving its way through the City for five years starting in 2018. The final step is June 6th when the Bird Safe Ordinance passed unanimously by the Planning Commission comes before the City Council. 

Birds are in steep decline through habitat loss, climate and buildings. It is estimated that up to one billion birds die each year from bird glass collisions in the U.S. We can fix this. 

Any glass, transparent or reflective surface greater than 4 inches in any direction is a hazard for birds. If we are going to protect songbirds and tiny birds like humming birds the treatment to glass needs to be 2 inches by 2 inches. 

The Bird Safe Ordinance starts with new construction of the big buildings first and high hazard structures with a phase-in plan over several years for single family homes, small buildings under 10,000 square and replacement windows. 

The ordinance does not require treatment or replacement of windows in existing buildings, but you can choose to treat your existing windows. The American Bird Conservancy website, (an excellent source to learn about bird hazards, bird safe features and treatments) has many examples of how to fix existing buildings to be bird safe. https://abcbirds.org/glass-collisions/ 

If you have ever walked into a closed sparkling clean glass door, that is one example of a glass hazard. We’re bigger and slower so we walk away feeling foolish. Birds aren’t so lucky. 

Windows reflect the sky and trees, and birds collide with glass and reflective surfaces at full speed expecting open sky or a place to land. See-through corner windows, transparent walkways, wind and balcony-transparent barriers are high hazard building features. 

After finding a dead bird in my front yard, I applied the Solyx Frost Dot Bird Safety Film with a rating of 15 to the three windows where the bird collided with a window on my one story house. If I had just ordered the double hung windows that open at the top and the bottom instead of just opening at the bottom, the windows would have come with full external (outside) insect screens that have a rating of 1 in bird safety. The bird would have lived instead of dying in my yard. 

Permanently, fixed (as in don’t remove them) external (outside) insect screens on windows are an option within the Bird Safe Ordinance and the best option for existing windows. 

As for casement windows, which we see in nearly all of the new buildings, they have screens on the inside that keeps bugs out, but they do not protect birds. Curtains, levelers, screens on the inside of windows do not stop the reflections of the sky and trees on the outside.  

The short straight-forward Bird Safe Ordinance passed by the Planning Commission starts with non-residential new construction, big new residential and mixed-use buildings with 10,000 square feet or more and all high hazard features. There is a 2-to-5-year phase-in for smaller projects and replacement windows. The ordinance is written to accept all new products that are tested, rated and receive a score of 30 or less. (The lower the number the better the protection). 

The birds are not harmed and released after the test.:The testing procedure is explained in this video: https://vimeo.com/57158072 

It feels like there are construction cranes everywhere in the downtown as buildings have been approved while the Bird Safe Ordinance languished on to-do lists. We’ve seen over and over during the last five years that it just doesn’t work to add bird safe features as a recommendation in building approvals. It has to be a requirement. 

Between 2018 and 2021, when the Planning Department city staff started working on the Bird Safe Ordinance, the 2019 study on bird decline (2.9 billion birds gone) in North America was published and the American Bird Conservancy developed a model ordinance. 

The American Bird Conservancy lists 14 already passed bird safe ordinances that are NOT recommended and seven of the fourteen are in Northern California. These were the ordinances used by the Planning Department City Staff to propose an ordinance for Berkeley, along with the feature from the Emeryville ordinance that the American Bird Conservancy wrote must be removed (glass size as 12 square feet before treatment is required). 

The Audubon Society submitted an alternative which the Planning Commission approved unanimously, rejecting the Planning Department staff proposal. 

Berkeley has the opportunity to lead, but will we? This is a City Council vote I’ll be watching closely. 

At the Council’s Land Use, Housing & Economic Development Policy Committee, first up was a referral to the City Manager: Tenant Habitability Plan and Amendments to Relocation Ordinance. I missed the meeting; however, the meeting has an audio recording and the presentations and minutes of actions taken are already posted. 

The Habitability Plan is about building renovations and under what renovation conditions tenants are relocated and receive payments from the landlord toward the cost of relocation. This has been in process since October 31, 2022 and there is more work to the ordinance before it will come back to Council for a vote. 

The Habitability Plan, important as it is, does not have anything to do with whether the buildings designed and approved have bedrooms with windows, as described in the April 30 Activist’s Diary. 

There was another project, 2800 Telegraph, from Trachtenberg Architects, approved by the Zoning Adjustment Board, that had five three-bedroom units with a fourth room drawn as a TV room/study room without windows. This is the project David Trachtenberg referenced in a response to me about bedrooms with no windows. The project I named in the April 30 Activist’s Diary was at 2555 College, a building with eleven units and 10 out of 37 bedrooms with no windows. 

Given the high cost of market rate rentals, this fourth room in the units drawn with either desks or a couch will likely turn into a fourth bedroom. 

The second agenda item at the Land Use Committee was from Councilmember Hahn to increase housing in higher-resourced (wealthier) neighborhoods along the commercial avenues of Solano, North Shattuck and College. Jordon Klein, Director, Planning Department, said the funding of $250,000 requested by Councilmember Hahn was not needed in this budget cycle, but it was left in the referral rather than bringing it back in 2025. 

The discussion on ground floor uses with housing in the back and the need for continuous commercial in the front was quite interesting. Long breaks in street front commercial spaces is detrimental to viability. The referral was passed with a positive recommendation as amended by councilmembers Bartlett, Robinson and Humbert.  

More upzoning (big buildings) is Berkeley’s future. 

The agenda for the May 2 City Council Special Meeting on the Hard Hat Ordinance posted on April 28 arrived with including the cost of the new healthcare and apprenticeship requirements on private development as part of the Housing Feasibility Study currently underway, recommending adjustments to impact fees if needed to offset the new requirements, and to consider upzoning the downtown to allow for an increased number of buildings at or above 180 feet to offset the cost of these new labor standards.  

Adding density to the downtown with more taller buildings at or above 180 feet created a bit of a roar. By meeting time on May 2, that section with buildings at or above 180 feet had been replaced with “Explore zoning modifications to allow for additional density as a way to offset the cost of these new labor standards if needed.” [underline in document] 

Basically, builders of projects of 50,000 square feet or larger (includes renovations, not just new construction) and subcontractors (greater than ½ %) are required to either to enter into a labor-management agreement or contribute to healthcare, and either enter into a labor-management apprenticeship program, participate in a State approved apprenticeship program or make contributions to the California Apprenticeship Council. The ordinance states the cost of healthcare cannot not be subtracted from the minimum wage. The full ordinance, of course, contains more details and conditions. https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas 

The first reading of the ordinance passed with seven votes, Taplin, Bartlett, Harrison, Hahn, Robinson, Humbert and Arreguin. Kesarwani abstained and Wengraf was absent for the entire meeting. 

The Housing Feasibility Study relates back to Affordable Housing Mitigation fee. This is the fee developers pay to get out of including affordable housing in the building. 

The City of Berkeley requires in new construction that 10% of the units are affordable to households with very low income and 10% of the units are affordable to households qualifying as low income, or the developer pays an “in lieu mitigation fee” to have no affordable units in the building or some smaller portion of affordable units. 

The State Density Bonus gives the biggest bonus with the fewest affordable units when 10% of the units on the base project are affordable to very low income households. 

What I see in nearly every project is the 10% very low income units and payment of the fee for the rest. The 10% actually works out to a little less, as it is calculated on the base project, not the total project. The density bonus is what allows developers to build bigger, taller, denser projects over what is allowed in the zoning code. It means a 75 foot height limit is now 10 or 12 stories instead of seven. 

On February 14, 2023, City Council passed an ordinance to change the calculation of the in-lieu mitigation fee from the number of units (regardless of size) to square feet of residential living space. Then the council majority reduced the fee to the equivalent of the 2020 in-lieu rate, not the 2022 rate, and voted to have a study done of the in-lieu mitigation fee (the Affordable Housing Mitigation fee). Harrison abstained on the basis of using the 2020 fee instead of the 2022 one. 

With the Hard Hat ordinance, the cost of these new requirements, healthcare and apprenticeship, is to be included in the calculation of what is a financially feasible in-lieu mitigation fee for the developers to pay and still make a profit. 

Mayor Arreguin promised the construction unions in September 2022 that he would have their backs with the Hard Hat Ordinance. It didn’t come in time for workers on 2065 Kittredge, which the unions appealed and lost, missing that the City Council measure passed in September 2022 was a referral, not an ordinance requiring healthcare coverage. 

There were two meetings on the Waterfront Specific Plan. The Monday evening meeting was on design standards for recreation and nature areas, and the Wednesday meeting was on parking and commercial development. 

There was no report out after the Monday, May 1, meeting on the Waterfront Specific Plan Webinar, though discussion in the breakout group I attended supported nature, native plants and open space over organized structured recreation. 

On Wednesday, when the focus was parking and commercial development, there was a report out at the request of attendees. A couple of things that stood out. It was across the spectrum; attendees opposed paid parking seeing it as an equity issue preventing low income individuals and families from using the park. Charging parking was suggested by one for ferry users, though there was no discussion of the ferry. The suggestion from staff of valet parking was approached as inappropriate. One person called it kooky. Also, there was support for expanding the Doubletree Hotel not adding another hotel. Another suggestion from a member of Group 1 was food trucks in the His Lordships lot. 

While the Waterfront meetings were on Zoom and could have easily been recorded, it is the practice of Scott Ferris, Director Parks, Recreation and Waterfront that no meetings are video or audio recorded. And, while the meetings did offer closed captioning, they were also set up to prevent saving the transcript. Instead of any recordings, the city staff take notes. This practice establishes a certain amount of distrust, with the sense that what was is said at meetings is reshaped to fit a desired narrative. 

The Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA) met May 3rd. From the beginning when Mayor Arreguin brought the idea of a ferry to Berkeley, it was that WETA would pay for a new pier and bolster the sinking Marina fund. It is looking more and more like instead of WETA paying for the pier, Berkeley will need to cough up money in the millions year after year to subsidize the ferry and that is over and above Berkeley paying for the pier. 

Once again, the T1 shortfall took up the entire Budget and Finance Committee. All the other agenda items were pushed off to a future meeting which as of this writing is still not scheduled. 

The final adjustments to balance the T1 funding gap ended with removing the installation of solar batteries at the North Berkeley Senior Center $500,000, a reduction in the estimate of the cost of security cameras by $643,899, to continue processing contracts by “sneakernet” (methods instead of the internet – USB, floppies, in this case paper) instead of purchasing a paperless system for $400,000, remove the Fire Station #6 upgrade $666,101, remove the Hopkins Bike/Pedestrian improvements $2,800,000 and borrow from the Worker’s Comp Fund (which is fully funded) $4,050,000 for a total of $9,060,000. 

These changes left the African American Holistic Center in place. The other projects should continue to move forward, but there may be more hiccups along the way. The feasibility of pedestrian safety improvements and placemaking to the Hopkins Corridor were noted by Arreguin as still being considered. 

The Turtle Island Monument is now up to $2,500,000 without the artwork. The artwork is estimated to be in the $500,000 range which will be funded by the Civic Arts and Parks Tax. It was also noted that the Turtle Island project could be reduced by $300,000 if the stonework in the upper plaza was only partially replaced. 

Sunday, I went to the Book Fair in Civic Center Park and imagined how the park might look different with daylighting Strawberry Creek. Years ago, the Outdoor Book Fair was so large it extended for 1 ½ blocks along Mivia and up Allston to Shattuck and ran for two days. This year the Outdoor Fair was one day and all the tents were contained in the park and on Allston between Milvia and MLK. The indoor author presentations were spread across seven sites several blocks away from Civic Center Park. The Slam Poetry was outdoors at the BART Plaza 

Daylighting the creek would mean a different arrangement. It could put that link between BART and the outdoor fair back together. 

Councilmember Kesarwani’s item to increase the funding for street paving passed out of the Facilities, Infrastructure, Transportation, Environment and Sustainability Committee (FITES) with a positive recommendation so it will go into the budget requests for 2024.