While Berkeley City Council District 2 representative Daryl Moore says his aide, Ryan Lau, made a mistake in replacing an old funky garage with a larger living structure without obtaining permits or zoning approval, it appears the mistake is much bigger, more expensive and more problematic than simply paying a higher fee. Lau was ordered to cease construction on Monday, March 15, 2010, by Building Inspector Greg Heidenreich.
Berkeley’s building code specifically sets out ‘Development Standards for Accessory Dwelling Units’ that appear to prohibitively restrict the type of development Lau has already built. Deputy Planning Director Wendy Cosin was not optimistic that the city would be able to approve Lau’s project without a variance and in the city of Berkeley obtaining a variance is nearly impossible she acknowledged.
The first obstacle to issuing a permit is the size of Lau’s ‘Accessory Dwelling Unit. The estimated size of Lau’s nearly finished project is 432 square feet. According to the code (Section 23D.16.040), such structures are restricted to 300 square feet or less. The specific language of the code states: “No more than 25% of the gross floor area of the main dwelling in existence prior to the construction of the Accessory Dwelling Unit,” with an exemption that allows a building up to 300 square foot if the main house is smaller than 1,200 square feet. Lau’s main dwelling is less than 1,200 square feet but the building he has nearly completed is almost 44% over the upper limit.
Additionally the code specifically excludes building less than four feet from the property line. Apparently Lau has built the entire structure on the side property line
“In no case can zoning approve this if the setbacks are less than four feet,” said Deputy Director Cosin. “If he doesn’t meet the standards he’ll need a variance and it is very, very difficult to get a variance.”
Ironically, any person seeking a variance from local building codes has to get approval from the Zoning Adjustment Board. Ryan Lau is Councilman Darryl Moore’s appointee to that board.
While one local reporter stated that in attempting to resolve this issue promptly Berkeley’s Planning Department was expediting Lau’s permit, Cosin insisted that wasn’t the case.
“We’re handling this the same way we would handle any other violation,” Cosin said.
Any other treatment would be preferential and ethically improper. It is possible for Lau to pay an extra fee to expedite the permit process, which is available to any applicant, but Cosin said that Lau is “not at the building permit stage.”
As of Wednesday, March 17, 2010, Lau has not applied for zoning clearance which he must do before he can turn in a building permit application.
If Lau does not get a variance, the council-aide would have to tear the structure down, Cosin said.
While neither Lau, nor District One Councilman Darryl Moore, nor Mayor Tom Bates, nor City Manager Phil Kamlarz, nor Deputy City Manager Christine Daniel (formerly of the city attorney’s office) returned this reporter’s phone calls on Wednesday, other city staff expressed concern about the underlying issues this violation has exposed.
“I’m confused about how that can be allowed without him resigning his aide position. He’s a city employee. Seems like a conflict of interest,” said one Berkeley staffer by email. That person requested I not use their name. “In light of your discovery, it seems the only reasonable action is to remove him from ZAB (credibility shot and not fit to rule on similar situations) and he should be fired as an employee (violated the oath we take to uphold all rules and regulations).”
Another city employee, who also did not offer his name, suggested Berkeley City Auditor Ann Marie Hogan’s office should investigate Lau’s ethical lapses.
Hogan said all city staff except the mayor, council members, and their staff and appointees, are required to sign and abide by a code of ethical standards crafted by her office and the office of the City Manager that specifically requires they adhere to the laws and regulations of the city. The city manager administratively adopted that code of ethical standards for all city staff. Compliance with that code of ethics is not enforceable with the Mayor, the city council or their staff and appointees.
The mayor and council members, as elected legislative officers, do not report to the city manager’s office, nor do their aides or commission appointees, Hogan said.
“City council staff are hired and fired only by the City Council,” Hogan said. “They are ‘at-will’ employees.”
Similarly commission appointees only refer matters back to the city council, they actually don’t have any ‘authority,’ Hogan said. The mayor and city council must approve all commission actions.
“It’s never a bad idea to adopt a code of ethics,” Hogan said.
Regarding Lau’s lapses and his continued presence on the Zoning Adjustment Board, neither Cosin nor Hogan was willing to comment.
Councilwoman Linda Maio (her aide is Nicole Drake, Lau’s tenant and partner) was more forth coming.
“No,”Maio responded bluntly when asked if Lau should remain on the Zoning Adjustment Board. “I think not!”
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Rules are for Fools: ZAB Commish Ryan Lau builds without permits
Dear Reader.
There are two types of people in Berkeley: rubes like you and me, and there are the elite. The normal rules that rubes live, bleed, and die by don’t apply to the elite. The elite needn’t follow the well-established required procedures nor abide by municipal regulations. They’re special and they know what’s best for us, and what’s best for them.
One of Berkeley’s most onerous departments of rules and regulations is its Building Department. If the average citizen rube wants to replace a water heater, stove or even a light switch, the law says he has to pull a building permit. If the rube want to repair his front porch, he has to turn in working drawings and a lot map, and pay hundreds of dollars to get said building permit. I know from personal experience.
Heaven forbid after buying your 1,145 square-foot house for $435,000 less than a year ago, as Ryan Lau did, you should want to tear down your miniscule old and decrepit garage built in the 1920s and replace it with a lovely residential structure twice as large and located far less than the required four feet from the property line. If a rube wanted to build too close to his neighbor’s property he would have to get a ‘Use Permit,’ which would likely require a public hearing and cost the rube thousands and thousands of dollars. He might even end up in front of the Zoning Adjustment Board!
Of course if the person who wants to do such a thing is named Ryan Lau, Councilman Darryl Moore’s long-time aide and appointed Commissioner to the Zoning Adjustments Board, rules mean nothing.
Zoning Adjustment Board Commissioner Ryan simply tore down (without a demolition permit) all but the front of his funky old 10x20 foot garage and replaced it on the property line with an elegant residential-style structure more than twice as large (roughly 12x36 feet). Mr Lau left one wall of the teetering temporary front façade of the old garage still standing precariously, the better to hide the massive construction project in-process behind it. The new building is lovely and substantial: taller, wider, nearly twice as long. It offers the proud owner lovely wide windows and double French doors in front, and what looks like a bathroom, rear entrance and bedroom in the back.
Mr Lau, the well-paid Aide to Councilman Darryl Moore from District 2, didn’t apply for a use permit for such a magnificent project according to Aaron Sage, Senior Planner at City of Berkeley. Mr Sage was manning the Zoning Department desk when I submitted my request for information. After researching the issue Mr Sage looked quite uncomfortable saying that no Use Permit, nor any other zoning permit had been issued.
It seems Mr Lau didn’t bother to apply for a building permit either according to two different Building Department employees who researched the question for me when I submitted my official written request at the building department’s information counter. Normally a building permit would require zoning approval, site plans, building plans, neighborhood meetings, and probably a zoning adjustment hearing (in front of Mr Lau and/or his friends on the board)!
When I went to Mr Lau’s house to speak with the owner and see and photograph this extravagant violation of the city’s building and zoning codes, a woman, who I assumed was Nicole Drake, Mr Lau’s significant other, came out of the house and screamed threats at me repeatedly and claimed she called the police. Unfortunately she refused to identify herself or to speak to me about the construction project. There was no work-card/permit posted anywhere in sight, as is required by regulation. Ironically enough Ms Drake is also employed by the city of Berkeley. She is District 1 Councilwoman Linda Maio’s well-paid Aide.
Like many in Berkeley, over the years I have become more than a little familiar with the workings of code enforcement. I have been red-tagged (an immediate work-stop-order) by the city numerous times, typically for doing minor repairs to my home, and once for work I wasn’t doing!
My son, Asa Dodsworth, has had Gregory Daniel, Berkeley’s chief code enforcer, and Maurice Norrise, Mr Daniel’s subordinate, at his home so frequently he wonders whether he could legally charge them rent. Through much effort Asa has managed to get the city to reduce the fines imposed against him for planting vegetables in his median strip and similar such extravagances reduced to only several thousand dollars from a much, much higher figure, but the city continues to bagger and harass him relentlessly.
Many years ago Berkeley’s building department cited me personally for most of the entire Uniform Building Code (according to Court Commissioner Jon Rantzman). All for naught, Commissioner Rantzman dismissed every citation. When this mayor’s wife was our mayor, I was again cited for new laws they were making up almost as quickly as they were writing the citations. Again for naught, the city promptly rewrote its new laws several times before deleting them entirely.
I attempted to contact Mayor Tom Bates regarding Mr Lau’s violations, especially in light of his position as a city council aide and a zoning adjustment board commission member. One of the Mayor’s Aides spoke with me, and then with the mayor, and then came back and took my phone number. I heard nothing more. I also attempted to speak with both Councilman Moore and Councilwoman Maio regarding their Aides’ involvement in this violation of the public trust. Neither called me back but I wasn’t surprised. The voice on Ms Maio’s telephone answering machine seemed to belong to Ms Drake.
I also spoke with Gregory Daniel of Code Enforcement. He insured me he would treat this matter with the same professionalism he gave to every other code violation in Berkeley. Mr Norrise said ‘Hi.’
It’s a real shame I’m not an important person in Berkeley. If I was important I’m sure the city would treat me and my son as cavalierly as the city treats Zoning Adjustment Board Commissioner Lau. It would be fun to just do whatever I liked without regard to the laws and regulations of our community. Much more likely because of this little report I expect someone from the city will soon be knocking on my door or my son’s door looking for forbidden flowers and vegetables or evidence of new paint and repairs. Berkeley’s that kind of place.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
The Berkeley Downtown Plan
The Berkeley Downtown Plan — the City Council/Planning Commission sell-out of Berkeley’s downtown — has been temporarily delayed, not stopped. While a direct vote on the plan would probably fail, a negotiated settlement between Mayor Tom Bates and the referendum organizers Patti Dacy and Jesse Arreguín could lead to badly compromised plan that improves a few inconsequential social amenities in exchange for giving developers carté blanche to build numerous enormous buildings, some likely to be over 20 stories tall. Alternatively the city come back with a substantially revised, but not necessarily improved, plan. I think it’s way past time to ask why are we here?
Is it to cure our downtown’s ills?
If we're trying to cure downtown’s ills is the reasonable prescription injecting a dozen or more 20 story buildings into the mix in hopes of bringing vitality back by the sheer number of bodies? OR is our downtown ill because the rents are just too high for anything but women’s clothing shops and fast food restaurants? At $3.50 a square foot, most of the retail shops that would bring vitality to the downtown can’t survive. Yet $3.50 a square foot is what Berkeley’s most visible retail Realtor/Developer, John Gordon, is telling landlords their property is worth. And yet there’s vacant retail property everywhere you look.
The 20,000 sq ft Tower Records Store on Durant off Telegraph has been vacant for almost ten years!
Radston’s Office Supply was driven out by increased rents after more than 60 years in Berkeley. We lost as much as $400,000 a year in sales tax from Radstons, and a dozen jobs, yet the building hasn’t been rented in two years.
Black Oak Books was paying $17,000 a month in rent to one of Berkeley biggest landlords (who also owns the Tower Records building on Durant) and now that space which was once a beacon is now a blight in my neighborhood, collecting graffiti and housing the homeless in it’s protected doorway.
Or maybe we’re trying to appease the University.
I ran into Mark McLeod on Shattuck Ave. last week. Mark used to own the now-closed restaurant that went by the name of Downtown. I’ve been told he lives in the city of San Pablo but he’s still president of the Downtown Business Improvement District board and he’s still a big proponent of more development in Berkeley’s downtown. As we walked down Shattuck, McLeod told me with a straight face that if we didn’t give the University what it wanted –a million square feet of development rights in our downtown – the University might pull up stakes and leave the city of Berkeley. PLEEEEEEEASE.
Just another developer/property-owner give-away.
I think we’re actually trying to appease property owners and developers and their enablers on the city payroll who would like to see those privately held lands hit the all-time jackpot, a once in a lifetime-payday as they turn our low-rise, people-friendly landscape into canyons of steel (allegedly ‘green’ steel, but theft none the less).
When I first came to California, in the very early 70s, there was a citizen’s effort to control high-rise development in San Francisco. The catch phrase was ‘Stop the Manhattanization of San Francisco.’ At that time the TransAmerica Pyramid was a skyline icon you could see for miles, from everywhere. Those people failed and today, you can barely see the once enormous, once iconic pyramid building now buried underneath San Francisco’s newer bigger, taller, less-human skyscape. This is where Berkeley’s headed if we don’t stand firm for the values that make Berkeley a beautiful, world-class town, a place you want to live.
Do you know WHAT is the most profitable crop in California? It’s not marijuana. It’s not strawberries. It’s not fancy arugula for restaurants like Chez Panisse. The most valuable crop in California, or any other place, is enormous buildings. I didn’t make that up, that’s a quote from Gray Brechin’s book Imperial San Francisco — like Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities — it’s a highly recommended read on urbanization.
I’ve spent nearly 30 years tracking development in the Bay Area. Trust me, if we allow one landowner, one developer to build a 20 story building on their property in the city of Berkeley, every landowner downtown will want the enormous monetary sums they can get for a building site that allows buildings 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 stories tall. The nature of development is to ask for more. If we give them 20 stories, they’ll want 30. If we give 30, they’ll ask for 40. The scales of economies will force them to ask for more. That’s why I say we have to Downzone the Whole Damn Downtown to four stories. That won’t stop developers from building 5 or 6 or even 8 story buildings, but it will slow them down and it will give us some control over our environment.
Plain and simple lies.
I’m not going to call anyone a liar, but it’s reasonable to challenge a lie.
If the University doesn’t get carte blanche to build a million square feet of in our downtown, Cal isn’t going to pull up roots and roll down the road to Fremont. Remember, it’s not just in the downtown that Cal is expanding. Cal has an on-campus building program scheduled to add nearly a million square feet the next ten years. And that’s not all. The National Laboratory — which has already added hundreds of thousands of square feet to their facilities in the recent past – also plans to add about a million square feet of development in the next ten years. Between just those two programs that’s another 6,000 cars minimum, parking, speeding, in a hurry to get through your neighborhoods because they’re late for work, late for picking up the kids, late for a very important date. Like it? If we shoehorn more oversized office buildings into our downtown and that’s what you in the surrounding neighborhoods like this one are going to see.
We’re also been told by ABAG (the Association of Bay Area Governments) that we have a moral obligation to add housing in Berkeley to absorb California’s ever-increasing population.
Of course, Albany, Walnut Creek, Palo Alto and many of the other surrounding communities ignore ABAG. Of course the affordable housing we’ve added is anything but affordable. But ABAG threatens to restrict some federal funding options if Berkeley does not add approximately 387 new units of housing PER YEAR!!!!! Put in perspective, the enormous oversized, inappropriate, sore-thumb in our downtown known as the Gaia Building has only 91 apartments. ABAG is saying that we need to add MORE THAN FOUR Gaia Buildings a year –each year -- for the indefinite future! And that would still be 23 units short of ABAG's mandated ANNUAL minimum! There’s another thousand new bodies every year and an approximate equal number of vehicles. Like that picture?
Please note that at this time, California is actually losing population because there aren’t enough decent paying jobs in California and living expenses are just too high. In other words ABAG’s rationale for insisting on more housing has disappeared but it’s mandate hasn’t.
While we’re talking about resources we need to acknowledge that most of California is basically an arid desert. Look at pictures of Berkeley before the Great Earthquake and you’ll see scrub brush and grasslands because that’s all that could naturally grow here. We’re using far more water in California, than we have. Our current 37 million population is drinking and flushing the toilet because we’re stealing water from neighboring states and Mexico and from the Native People of California who have rights to water by treaty that we have ignored to this point in time. That party is over. Recent Congressional and judicial actions have affirmed those Native rights and the cost of flushing your toilet, the cost of boiling your tea, is going to skyrocket just like the cost of gasoline and power have because there isn’t enough water for the people who are here now, let alone millions more who are allegedly coming in the future.
Don’t get me started on how we’re going to take care of those additional people in our already over crowded schools and hospitals, with our over extended fire and police and social services. AND DON’T tell how the new development is going to pay for these necessary service increases because every case study I’m aware of says the exact opposite.
Threatening our way of life
The political and financial pressures being brought to bear on our community are powerful, well-connected, well-financed, relentless, and ruthless. If we don’t say NO to the Manhattanization of Berkeley, if we allow our city council to give away that which makes this a wonderful place to raise children and grow old, we will have given away the best of Berkeley for nothing. Somewhere in Berkeley at some point in the near future, the people of this wonderful community are going to draw a line in the sand and say that enough is enough, that we’re not willing to surrender the quality of life we love for some developer’s second or third home. The town we love is under attack and it will not survive in anything like it’s current form if we don’t defend it. It’s time for the citizens of Berkeley to talk to their neighbors about more traffic, more speeding cars, more people, and more giant ugly buildings. Write letters and make phone calls: Tell your council member to Downzone the whole damn Downtown. Let San Franciso or Oakland be Manhattan. Let Berkeley be Paris.
Is it to cure our downtown’s ills?
If we're trying to cure downtown’s ills is the reasonable prescription injecting a dozen or more 20 story buildings into the mix in hopes of bringing vitality back by the sheer number of bodies? OR is our downtown ill because the rents are just too high for anything but women’s clothing shops and fast food restaurants? At $3.50 a square foot, most of the retail shops that would bring vitality to the downtown can’t survive. Yet $3.50 a square foot is what Berkeley’s most visible retail Realtor/Developer, John Gordon, is telling landlords their property is worth. And yet there’s vacant retail property everywhere you look.
The 20,000 sq ft Tower Records Store on Durant off Telegraph has been vacant for almost ten years!
Radston’s Office Supply was driven out by increased rents after more than 60 years in Berkeley. We lost as much as $400,000 a year in sales tax from Radstons, and a dozen jobs, yet the building hasn’t been rented in two years.
Black Oak Books was paying $17,000 a month in rent to one of Berkeley biggest landlords (who also owns the Tower Records building on Durant) and now that space which was once a beacon is now a blight in my neighborhood, collecting graffiti and housing the homeless in it’s protected doorway.
Or maybe we’re trying to appease the University.
I ran into Mark McLeod on Shattuck Ave. last week. Mark used to own the now-closed restaurant that went by the name of Downtown. I’ve been told he lives in the city of San Pablo but he’s still president of the Downtown Business Improvement District board and he’s still a big proponent of more development in Berkeley’s downtown. As we walked down Shattuck, McLeod told me with a straight face that if we didn’t give the University what it wanted –a million square feet of development rights in our downtown – the University might pull up stakes and leave the city of Berkeley. PLEEEEEEEASE.
Just another developer/property-owner give-away.
I think we’re actually trying to appease property owners and developers and their enablers on the city payroll who would like to see those privately held lands hit the all-time jackpot, a once in a lifetime-payday as they turn our low-rise, people-friendly landscape into canyons of steel (allegedly ‘green’ steel, but theft none the less).
When I first came to California, in the very early 70s, there was a citizen’s effort to control high-rise development in San Francisco. The catch phrase was ‘Stop the Manhattanization of San Francisco.’ At that time the TransAmerica Pyramid was a skyline icon you could see for miles, from everywhere. Those people failed and today, you can barely see the once enormous, once iconic pyramid building now buried underneath San Francisco’s newer bigger, taller, less-human skyscape. This is where Berkeley’s headed if we don’t stand firm for the values that make Berkeley a beautiful, world-class town, a place you want to live.
Do you know WHAT is the most profitable crop in California? It’s not marijuana. It’s not strawberries. It’s not fancy arugula for restaurants like Chez Panisse. The most valuable crop in California, or any other place, is enormous buildings. I didn’t make that up, that’s a quote from Gray Brechin’s book Imperial San Francisco — like Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities — it’s a highly recommended read on urbanization.
I’ve spent nearly 30 years tracking development in the Bay Area. Trust me, if we allow one landowner, one developer to build a 20 story building on their property in the city of Berkeley, every landowner downtown will want the enormous monetary sums they can get for a building site that allows buildings 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 stories tall. The nature of development is to ask for more. If we give them 20 stories, they’ll want 30. If we give 30, they’ll ask for 40. The scales of economies will force them to ask for more. That’s why I say we have to Downzone the Whole Damn Downtown to four stories. That won’t stop developers from building 5 or 6 or even 8 story buildings, but it will slow them down and it will give us some control over our environment.
Plain and simple lies.
I’m not going to call anyone a liar, but it’s reasonable to challenge a lie.
If the University doesn’t get carte blanche to build a million square feet of in our downtown, Cal isn’t going to pull up roots and roll down the road to Fremont. Remember, it’s not just in the downtown that Cal is expanding. Cal has an on-campus building program scheduled to add nearly a million square feet the next ten years. And that’s not all. The National Laboratory — which has already added hundreds of thousands of square feet to their facilities in the recent past – also plans to add about a million square feet of development in the next ten years. Between just those two programs that’s another 6,000 cars minimum, parking, speeding, in a hurry to get through your neighborhoods because they’re late for work, late for picking up the kids, late for a very important date. Like it? If we shoehorn more oversized office buildings into our downtown and that’s what you in the surrounding neighborhoods like this one are going to see.
We’re also been told by ABAG (the Association of Bay Area Governments) that we have a moral obligation to add housing in Berkeley to absorb California’s ever-increasing population.
Of course, Albany, Walnut Creek, Palo Alto and many of the other surrounding communities ignore ABAG. Of course the affordable housing we’ve added is anything but affordable. But ABAG threatens to restrict some federal funding options if Berkeley does not add approximately 387 new units of housing PER YEAR!!!!! Put in perspective, the enormous oversized, inappropriate, sore-thumb in our downtown known as the Gaia Building has only 91 apartments. ABAG is saying that we need to add MORE THAN FOUR Gaia Buildings a year –each year -- for the indefinite future! And that would still be 23 units short of ABAG's mandated ANNUAL minimum! There’s another thousand new bodies every year and an approximate equal number of vehicles. Like that picture?
Please note that at this time, California is actually losing population because there aren’t enough decent paying jobs in California and living expenses are just too high. In other words ABAG’s rationale for insisting on more housing has disappeared but it’s mandate hasn’t.
While we’re talking about resources we need to acknowledge that most of California is basically an arid desert. Look at pictures of Berkeley before the Great Earthquake and you’ll see scrub brush and grasslands because that’s all that could naturally grow here. We’re using far more water in California, than we have. Our current 37 million population is drinking and flushing the toilet because we’re stealing water from neighboring states and Mexico and from the Native People of California who have rights to water by treaty that we have ignored to this point in time. That party is over. Recent Congressional and judicial actions have affirmed those Native rights and the cost of flushing your toilet, the cost of boiling your tea, is going to skyrocket just like the cost of gasoline and power have because there isn’t enough water for the people who are here now, let alone millions more who are allegedly coming in the future.
Don’t get me started on how we’re going to take care of those additional people in our already over crowded schools and hospitals, with our over extended fire and police and social services. AND DON’T tell how the new development is going to pay for these necessary service increases because every case study I’m aware of says the exact opposite.
Threatening our way of life
The political and financial pressures being brought to bear on our community are powerful, well-connected, well-financed, relentless, and ruthless. If we don’t say NO to the Manhattanization of Berkeley, if we allow our city council to give away that which makes this a wonderful place to raise children and grow old, we will have given away the best of Berkeley for nothing. Somewhere in Berkeley at some point in the near future, the people of this wonderful community are going to draw a line in the sand and say that enough is enough, that we’re not willing to surrender the quality of life we love for some developer’s second or third home. The town we love is under attack and it will not survive in anything like it’s current form if we don’t defend it. It’s time for the citizens of Berkeley to talk to their neighbors about more traffic, more speeding cars, more people, and more giant ugly buildings. Write letters and make phone calls: Tell your council member to Downzone the whole damn Downtown. Let San Franciso or Oakland be Manhattan. Let Berkeley be Paris.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Berkeley Bureacrats Bully Frontyard Gardeners
Fellow Neighbors, Friends, and travelers,
The City of Berkeley Code enforcement has decided my front yard fruit trees and garden beds are an "unpermitted violation" and must be removed. They have fined me $4,500- already and threatened daily additional fines of the same. That's $135,000 per month!
In conversation they tell me that I'm supposed to have a lawn just like all the other houses, they say that the front yards is for recreation. But they don't put those crazy statements on paper, on paper they write citations for
* vegetation over six foot tall, a five hundred dollar a day fine, now cited twice in a two week period
* Unpermitted Trees, a five hundred dollar a day fine, cited twice
* Unpermitted Garden Beds, a five hundred dollar a day fine, cited twice
* two counts of obstruction of the right of way, at five hundred dollar a day each.
* And a we already told you so citation, a five hundred dollar a day fine
* and to further damage me, they mailed copies of this mayhem to my Bank
In recent walking surveys of our Berkeley yardscape: 25% of Berkeley Properties have a fruit tree in the right of way, 80% have vegetation obstructing the sidewalk, or egress for cars, and 90% have vegetation over 6ft tall. These numbers establish a clear community standard of appreciation and support of front yard gardens. And that community standard is defensible position in a court of law.
And I will fight these citations all the way, Code enforcement Officers Maurice Norrise and Gregory Daniels have selectively enforced these laws, as a tool of harassment, against myself and every community garden, and activist household I know of in Berkeley. Its time to turn this tide. Its time for an investigation into the questionable practices of Berkeley's code enforcement department.
Step in for a fellow neighbor, and Stand up for your right to plant you own Victory Garden, for your right to choose the trees that you are responsible for pruning and sweeping up after.
Don't let them take away this valuable tool in the fight against global warming.
We need you to call these important local decision makers and tell them how you feel, call and leave a message now
Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna, (510) 981-7600
Neighborhood Services Officer Angela Gallegos-Castillo (510)981-2491
City Manager Phil Kamlarz (510)981-7000
And to email your local advocates and secure their support
"Mayor Tom Bates",
Council Members, choose the one for you district
"Jesse Arreguin L.",
"Darryl Moore",
"Susan Wengraf",
"Laurie Capitelli",
"Linda Maio",
"Max Anderson",
"Worthington, Kriss",
"Gordon Wozniak",
Talking Points
* We need urban gardens to reduce our Ecological Impact, to Preserve Wilderness from cultivation, decrease our dependency on foreign oil, and reduce our carbon footprint,
* Asa's Garden Beds and Fruit Trees
* All the fruit trees are carefully maintained, sidewalks swept, and branches pruned off the sidewalks and to 18 inches from the curb face.
* The street side garden beds are separated with walkways every car length to allow for easy street side access, unlike most juniper hedges in Berkeley
* Berkeley Approved Measure G, to curb greenhouse gasses.
* The Obama's have a frontyard garden at the White House
and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom has one in front of city hall
Why doesn't The City Berkeley have one???
if you wanna see pictures of the Garden, visit www.berkeleyvictorygardens.tk
If you want to help us organize events,email fruit-jam-renegades@googlegroups.com
if you want to stay in touch, or come to a garden building party,
check out http://groups.google.com/group/food-not-lawns-eastbay-events
Sincerely,
Asa Dodsworth,
moped45@gmail.com
oh, and don't forget to forward this message to your friends
The City of Berkeley Code enforcement has decided my front yard fruit trees and garden beds are an "unpermitted violation" and must be removed. They have fined me $4,500- already and threatened daily additional fines of the same. That's $135,000 per month!
In conversation they tell me that I'm supposed to have a lawn just like all the other houses, they say that the front yards is for recreation. But they don't put those crazy statements on paper, on paper they write citations for
* vegetation over six foot tall, a five hundred dollar a day fine, now cited twice in a two week period
* Unpermitted Trees, a five hundred dollar a day fine, cited twice
* Unpermitted Garden Beds, a five hundred dollar a day fine, cited twice
* two counts of obstruction of the right of way, at five hundred dollar a day each.
* And a we already told you so citation, a five hundred dollar a day fine
* and to further damage me, they mailed copies of this mayhem to my Bank
In recent walking surveys of our Berkeley yardscape: 25% of Berkeley Properties have a fruit tree in the right of way, 80% have vegetation obstructing the sidewalk, or egress for cars, and 90% have vegetation over 6ft tall. These numbers establish a clear community standard of appreciation and support of front yard gardens. And that community standard is defensible position in a court of law.
And I will fight these citations all the way, Code enforcement Officers Maurice Norrise and Gregory Daniels have selectively enforced these laws, as a tool of harassment, against myself and every community garden, and activist household I know of in Berkeley. Its time to turn this tide. Its time for an investigation into the questionable practices of Berkeley's code enforcement department.
Step in for a fellow neighbor, and Stand up for your right to plant you own Victory Garden, for your right to choose the trees that you are responsible for pruning and sweeping up after.
Don't let them take away this valuable tool in the fight against global warming.
We need you to call these important local decision makers and tell them how you feel, call and leave a message now
Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna, (510) 981-7600
Neighborhood Services Officer Angela Gallegos-Castillo (510)981-2491
City Manager Phil Kamlarz (510)981-7000
And to email your local advocates and secure their support
"Mayor Tom Bates"
Council Members, choose the one for you district
"Jesse Arreguin L."
"Darryl Moore"
"Susan Wengraf"
"Laurie Capitelli"
"Linda Maio"
"Max Anderson"
"Worthington, Kriss"
"Gordon Wozniak"
Talking Points
* We need urban gardens to reduce our Ecological Impact, to Preserve Wilderness from cultivation, decrease our dependency on foreign oil, and reduce our carbon footprint,
* Asa's Garden Beds and Fruit Trees
* All the fruit trees are carefully maintained, sidewalks swept, and branches pruned off the sidewalks and to 18 inches from the curb face.
* The street side garden beds are separated with walkways every car length to allow for easy street side access, unlike most juniper hedges in Berkeley
* Berkeley Approved Measure G, to curb greenhouse gasses.
* The Obama's have a frontyard garden at the White House
and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom has one in front of city hall
Why doesn't The City Berkeley have one???
if you wanna see pictures of the Garden, visit www.berkeleyvictorygardens.tk
If you want to help us organize events,email fruit-jam-renegades@googlegroups.com
if you want to stay in touch, or come to a garden building party,
check out http://groups.google.com/group/food-not-lawns-eastbay-events
Sincerely,
Asa Dodsworth,
moped45@gmail.com
oh, and don't forget to forward this message to your friends
Monday, December 15, 2008
Blight in Berkeley
One of the unacknowledged sources of blight and despair in any community (quickly becoming epidemic in Berkeley) is the blight of empty storefronts all over the city's commercial districts.
For every thousand square feet of unoccupied industrial/commercial/retail space, three persons are not employed!
Increased vandalism, crime, homelessness and environmental degradation are a direct result.
Empty storefronts are a response to the obscenely high, unaffordable rents currently being charged by too many of Berkeley's too few landlords.
It's time for Berkeley to start billing the landlords (many of who have monopolized too many buildings) for the additional municipal costs and for the additional substantial social burdens vacant properties inflict on our communities.
The fees (not taxes but direct user fees) should be both substantial and punitive.
When it's too expensive to keep these properties vacant, rents will drop to reflect their actual value, rather than monopolized, values.
Call you representatives today and demand that the city charge landlords and property owners for these social costs.
To join in a discussion of blight in our community check out the blog http://wefightblight.blogspot.com/
For every thousand square feet of unoccupied industrial/commercial/retail space, three persons are not employed!
Increased vandalism, crime, homelessness and environmental degradation are a direct result.
Empty storefronts are a response to the obscenely high, unaffordable rents currently being charged by too many of Berkeley's too few landlords.
It's time for Berkeley to start billing the landlords (many of who have monopolized too many buildings) for the additional municipal costs and for the additional substantial social burdens vacant properties inflict on our communities.
The fees (not taxes but direct user fees) should be both substantial and punitive.
When it's too expensive to keep these properties vacant, rents will drop to reflect their actual value, rather than monopolized, values.
Call you representatives today and demand that the city charge landlords and property owners for these social costs.
To join in a discussion of blight in our community check out the blog http://wefightblight.blogspot.com/
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Safeway has plans, many plans.....
Picturing the future on Solano Avenue.
Safeway sees leased retail along Solano Avenue, in addition to its own much larger, two-story store covering the entire lot, with an entrance at Curtis Street and Solano Avenue.
Safeway isn't just working on doubling the size of its story on North Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, they want to substantially increase the size of all their stores in our community.
The locally-based mega-Corporation has plans for a 58,000 square foot project, which will include almost 10,000 square feet of for-lease retail space along Solano Avenue.
This proposed project will entirely encompass the corporation's Albany property from Curtis to Neilson streets, with parking entrances on those two residential streets rather than reducing the company's valuable for-lease real estate along Solano Avenue.
There are also plans in development for its store on College Avenue in North Oakland.
If you're interested in hearing what this grocery chain has in store for us in Albany, there's information available at: http://www.safewayonsolano.com/
A community "Albany Planning & Zoning Study Session" is scheduled for next week, June 24, 2008 at 7:30 pm at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany CA
For more information, call Barbara Ellis at (510) 849-4811
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Safeway's latest proposal for North Shattuck
There will be a community forum to view Safeway's proposed plans to rebuild their store on Shattuck Avenue held on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 from 6:30 to 8:00 pm at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St, in North Berkeley.
Come view the plans and renderings and share your comments.
You may view the plans before the meeting by going to
www.safewayonshattuck.com
For more information call or email
Elisabeth Jewel
(510) 849-4811
elisabeth@ajepartners.com
Aroner, Jewel and Ellis Partners
a public relations and political lobbying firm.
From the Safeway website:
Dear Berkeley Safeway Neighbors:
Our team is excited and pleased to finally post to this website the proposed plans for redeveloping your Safeway at 1444 Shattuck Avenue. Over the last year, our team of architects, consultants and store designers worked diligently to incorporate your ideas and suggestions into a plan for a new exciting, upscale, and more dynamic shopping experience for you, your family, and the community.
We believe you will find that the proposed design complements the style and scale of the neighborhood and unique urban setting. We strived to be mindful of enlivening and enhancing the area with outdoor seating, retail shops, and walkable sidewalks to promote increased pedestrian activity and community pride. The unique design includes multiple retail spaces on the street level to enhance the flow and energy of the area and encourage shoppers to visit the store via foot or bike. The proposed Safeway, occupying the second floor, overlooks the street with lots of glass to maintain a visual connection between customer activity inside and the pedestrian enhanced activity outside. Parking has been designed to be mostly hidden from pedestrian view. The interior parking will provide safe, light–filled, and easily accessible parking.
The store design accommodates a roomy, comfortable layout, with a world class produce, bakery, service deli, meat, and seafood, pharmacy and many other goods and services not possible in the current configuration. Delivery trucks will be screened behind roll up doors, mechanical equipment will be moved away from residences, and outside recycling removed.
This is just the beginning! There will be many more meetings and opportunity for community input as the plan evolves and is eventually submitted to the city. We continue to welcome your comments and suggestions. We would be honored if you would utilize this website to provide your thoughts and look forward seeing you at the upcoming community meeting.
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