Monday, July 02, 2007

SF Chronicle: University offers to scale back renovation plan

But shrinking parking garage, seismic test fail to sway city

Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer

UC Berkeley officials offered Friday to scale back controversial plans to renovate the area around Memorial Stadium in hopes of avoiding a looming court date with the City of Berkeley, neighbors and oak tree activists.  Mayor Tom Bates immediately balked at the concessions, saying they didn't go far enough.   The university also offered to halve the size of the proposed 911-space parking garage next to the stadium. The garage would still be built under Maxwell Family Field but would contain about 500 spaces, the same number that would be lost when smaller parking lots in the area are razed as part of development plans.

The city, California Oak Foundation and Panoramic Hill neighbors filed separate lawsuits in December to block UC's plans to retrofit the 84-year-old stadium and build a $125 million sports training center and parking garage. The plaintiffs argue that more development on the site would endanger public safety because the stadium straddles the Hayward Fault.   The tree advocates, who include about a half-dozen protesters roosting in the trees next to the stadium, are suing to save the few dozen trees that would be removed to make way for the training center. As part of the new offering, the university said it would plant one mature tree for every one that is chopped down, along with two new young trees.  Attorneys for the California Oak Foundation and the Panoramic Hill Association were not available for comment Friday on the university's latest proposals. The case is scheduled to be tried in Alameda County Superior Court on Sept. 19.  "There are far greater uses for the city's, university's and taxpayers' time and money than on this litigation," Athletic Director Sandy Barbour said Friday. "We're very confident, based on seismic testing and all the other information, that we will prevail at trial. But we prefer not to do that."

Delays due to the lawsuits will cost the university at least $4 million, said Assistant Athletic Director Bob Milano.  To address seismic issues related to the project, UC recently paid for another round of trenching and boring around the stadium and concluded that the training center would not be on any traces of the fault, officials said.

But the city isn't biting. Bates said 500 parking spaces next to the stadium is about 450 too many. The university is already building a 1,000-space garage a few blocks away, at College Avenue and Channing Way, he noted.  "I'd be OK with 50 spots next to the stadium for coaches and a few others," he said. "The rest of them can get physical exercise like the rest of us."  The city is particularly interested in parking and traffic as it strives to comply with Measure G, a voter mandate to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Bates said he'd also like to see the athletic training center moved elsewhere and the stadium retrofitted before any other projects are undertaken.  The city wasn't swayed by the university's latest seismic tests, either. After the results were released in late May, City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque called them "defective analysis."  "We do not find the second report any more persuasive (than the first) but will not comment further," she said.   As a concession to the neighbors who live on Panoramic Hill behind the stadium, the university is spending $75,000 on landscaping for Piedmont Avenue and $25,000 on a feasibility study to build a second road to Panoramic Hill, which is nearly impossible to access during home football games due to closed roads. The city is matching the funds.

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