Save the Berkeley Post Office
  • Home
    • Make a Video
  • Calendar
  • Contact
  • Activist's Guide

Please Attend the Berkeley City Council Meeting at 7 p, Tuesday 9/9/14

9/8/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
CRITICAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER  9, 2014 at 7:00 p.m.
COUNCIL CHAMBERS, OLD CITY HALL
2134 Martin Luther King Jr Way

The Zoning Overlay Ordinance on Berkeley’s existing Historic Civic Center District, including our historic Post Office, has gained national attention. On Tuesday night, September 9, 2014, the City Council will hear public comment, discuss and consider the Ordinance, and then take a vote. If the Zoning Overlay Ordinance is approved by Council it will become law after a second reading. That second reading would likely be a consent calendar item. The Zoning Overlay will save the Post Office, Old City Hall, and our historic Civic Center from commercial development.

On Wednesday, August 27th, Berkeley's Planning Commissioners voted unanimously in approval of the Zoning Overlay.

The Planning Commissioners were responding to a request from the Mayor and Council that cited "strong community support" for the overlay. Our city officials know there's "strong community support" because time and again Berkeley citizens have showed up when it counted. The Council meeting on Tuesday night is an important one.

Show the City Council That We Care.
Bring a Friend. Let's Fill the Room!

Berkeley’s Historic Civic Center District is our Public Commons.  Appropriate zoning will protect the heart of Berkeley now and for years to come.

Read about the Planning Commission meeting on August 27th, 2014.

The Zoning Overlay is Item 60 on the Council agenda.
"Condos at the downtown post office?
Burgers at the Veteran's Building Mall?
A five-star hotel at Old City Hall?
 

"Not likely if the City Council agrees with Wednesday night's unanimous Planning Commission recommendation to adopt a law that would preserve nine historic sites in civic center and guarantee that they serve the public.
"

-Contra Costa Times, on the 8/27/14 Planning Commission Meeting


UPDATE: Zoning Overlay Passes Council as a Consent Item

Picture
(September 9, 2014) The Berkeley City Council passed the Zoning Overlay Tuesday night as a consent item. After a second reading at the next Council meeting, the Zoning Overlay Ordinance will become law. The Zoning Overlay provides protections for the Post Office, Old City Hall, and our historic Civic Center against commercial development.

Thanks to all in the community for your energy and commitment.

The current tax credit system to promote historic preservation is perversely causing our nation's significant historic civic buildings to pass from public ownership into private hands. In Berkeley we're turning the tide.

Thanks to Mayor Tom Bates and all the members of the Berkeley City Council for their hard work and leadership on this issue.
0 Comments

Planning Commission Acts to Protect Berkeley's Historic Civic Center District from Commercial Development

9/3/2014

0 Comments

 

Planning Commissioners Hear Berkeley's Citizens
US Postal Service Remains Unresponsive

(August 27, 2014): In two unanimous votes the Berkeley Planning Commission approved the Civic Center Historic District Zoning Overlay Wednesday night. The District Zoning Overlay protects Berkeley's historic public buildings from commercial development. 

The first vote accepted a finding from the Berkeley Planning Department that the District Zoning Overlay will have no environmental effect. The second vote approved the overlay ordinance as written in the citizen's initiative, Measure R. The District Zoning Overlay will go to Berkeley City Council for discussion and approval at their September 9 meeting.

In November, 2013, the Planning Commissioners approved by majority vote a similar overlay ordinance. When that overlay ordinance stalled at the City Council level, Berkeley voters collected signatures for a ballot initiative to enact the District Zoning Overlay and promote sustainable development in the downtown area that benefits the entire community.

By April, Berkeley voters obtained sufficient signatures to qualify the Overlay and Sustainable Development Initiative for the November ballot, now designated as Measure R. On June 24, 2014, the Mayor and Council moved by consent calendar a request to “the City Manager to draft an ordinance establishing a Civic Center District Overlay Zone and to bring it to the Council for a first reading at the Sept. 9, 2014 meeting. The ordinance should be consistent with the Civic Center District Overlay section of the proposed initiative ordinance.”

When presenting the District Zoning Overlay to the Commission, staff stated that there would be no effect on any of the existing uses of property in the Civic Center Historic District even if those uses are non-conforming.  

Berkeley Planning Department staff said the effect of its declaration of no environmental impact is that the overlay only gives direction to development but does not authorize any project. Any future project will have to go through its own environmental review.  

Attorneys for the United States Postal Service, Clark Morrison of Cox, Castle, Nicholson, submitted a lengthy written protest of the District Zoning Overlay. While the US Postal Service has notoriously ignored public comment, last night their attorneys cried foul alleging that the schedule for the “public comment period forecloses meaningful public participation.”

And while USPS has revised federal regulations to provide itself with an exemption to environmental review on closing facilities, last night the USPS asserted the need for environmental review to assess the potential of urban decay from the District Zoning Overlay.

Furthermore, the cash-strapped postal service was able to hire an additional consultant who wrote that preserving Berkeley’s Main Post Office requires a “new multi-story development within the existing building envelope.” The consultant’s report held that: “It is not likely that reuse of all or part of the approximately 57,000 gross square foot Post Office building space ‘as-is’ would generate value sufficient to assure the necessary preservation and restoration of the historic features of the building.”

Berkeley Planning Department staff advised the Commissioners that in their opinion the USPS legal protests are without merit.

Speakers from the community asked the Commission to work to keep postal services where they are and to recognize the importance of public spaces. One referred to the buildings of Berkeley’s Civic Center as architectural masterpieces that were passed on to us as part of the public commons and must be maintained for future generations.

Harvey Smith, President of the National New Deal Preservation Association, spoke to the one hundred year history of Berkeley’s Civic Center and noted that under the New Deal, development was exclusively for public purposes, but in the last few decades use decisions have been developer-driven.

Steve Finacom of the Berkeley Historical Society, referred to the legacy of Werner Hegemann, Berkeley’s first city planner, whose goal in planning was the proper coordination of all the needs of the public and bringing the civic, business and campus functions of the city into harmony. Mr. Finacom said “Our predecessors worked very hard to build the civic commons we have today. Our downtown will not decay if developers cannot get their hands on the post office. It is not necessary to convert the public space we have inherited to public profit.”

In voting to pass the Civic Center Historic District Zoning Overlay, Commissioner Dan Lindheim said his support for the Overlay was independent of post office issues and was based on the benefits of the Civic Center District Overlay to all of Berkeley's Civic Center. Commission Chairman Jim Novosel added in agreement that his vote was also determined by the benefits to the entire Civic Center from the District Zoning Overlay.

Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting 

Letter from Clark Morrison, attorney
retained by the USPS, and the attached consultant's report

0 Comments
    ABOUT

    The USPS wants to sell Berkeley's historic main post office. Citizens to Save the Berkeley Post Office is a grassroots group that has come together to block the sale of our heritage, stop service cut backs, and preserve living wage postal jobs.

    Our fight is not unique. Thousands of post office closures across the country mean the largest private auction of public history our nation has ever seen.

    Join the movement and spread the word. Our post office is not for sale.

    Picture
    Ten Easy Steps
    to Making a Music Video
    to Save Your Post Office!


    Picture

    Picture
    Jac McCormick in NYC
    Fighting for America's
    Post Offices!
    WATCH THE VIDEO!


    Picture

    Tell Staples the U.S. Mail is Not for Sale!
    Picture
    Sign the petition to stop the sale of historic post office like Berkeley's Downtown Main!

    Picture
    Getting rid of middle class jobs is the end. Privatization is the means. Fox News doesn't keep their agenda a secret. Watch the video.

    [10 on Tuesday] 10 Ways to Fight for Your Local Post Office from PreservationNation

    October 2, 2013 letter from Ralph Nader to Senator Dianne Feinstein

    baha_letter_to_usps.pdf
    File Size: 222 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    sample_letter.docx
    File Size: 15 kb
    File Type: docx
    Download File


    Picture

    Archives

    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    December 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

Proudly powered by Weebly