Tuesday, November 14, 2006

SF Chronicle: City Council votes to sue to stop UC's stadium plan

Upgrade called unsafe because site straddles Hayward Fault

Carolyn Jones

With the Cal football team poised for its first Rose Bowl berth since the Eisenhower administration, the city of Berkeley is planning a lawsuit to derail an extensive stadium complex promised to coach Jeff Tedford.  On the eve of the UC Board of Regents' vote on the plan, the Berkeley City Council on Monday unanimously authorized a suit to stop the project, which it called extremely hazardous because Memorial Stadium straddles the Hayward Fault.  "It's a shame it has to go this route," Mayor Tom Bates said after the closed council session, "but we felt it was our only option."

UC Berkeley has been planning for years to upgrade the 83-year-old stadium, which is not only is seismically hazardous but also considered by the campus to be inadequate to meet the needs of a major university athletic program.  In addition to the safety issue, city opposition centers around a parking structure for more than 900 cars and a large athletic training facility that would be added to the stadium complex.  "Our main concern is not that they're planning to build these facilities, but where they're putting them," said City Councilwoman Linda Maio. "I think it's the wrong idea to intensify development near a major earthquake fault."  UC hopes to break ground Dec. 1 on the first phase of the project, a two-story, 142,000-square-foot athletic training center along the western wall of the stadium.  University officials promised the $120 million facility to Tedford, who took a Cal team that won only one game in 2001 and transformed it into a Pac-10 power. On Saturday, Cal faces USC in Los Angeles for a shot at the Rose Bowl -- an honor that has eluded the Golden Bears since 1959, the longest drought of any team in the Pac-10 or Big 10.

The city would like to see the stadium retrofitted first, the training center moved closer to downtown and the parking garage scrapped because it would add cars to a congested area and undermine the city's alternative transportation goals.  By strange coincidence, the starting tight end on Cal's last Rose Bowl team was Bates, now the Berkeley mayor leading the city's fight against the stadium plan.  Tedford, whose contract runs through 2009, said the school needs the state-of-the-art facility to compete against other schools in the Pac-10, both on the field and in recruiting.

The center would include offices, lockers, training rooms, meeting rooms, medical and nutrition facilities and a 68,000-square-foot rooftop plaza. It will serve 13 varsity sports, including football, but all 900 student-athletes at Cal will have access to it.  UC has raised about $93 million so far for the training center, which would be completed before the 2009 football season.  "We need to provide our student-athletes with the conditions they need to succeed, and right now our facilities aren't large enough," said Athletic Director Sandy Barbour.  The second and third phases of the stadium project include a renovation and retrofit of Memorial Stadium and a 4-level, 911-space underground parking garage, although those plans may change, said athletic department spokesman Herb Benenson.  UC decided to build the training center before the other projects to provide safer facilities for the 450 athletes and employees who now use Memorial Stadium daily and for the other student-athletes on campus, Benenson said.  Memorial Stadium, built in 1923, is made of cement, concrete, rocks and steel. Underneath it lies the Hayward Fault, which UC Berkeley's Seismology Laboratory calls a "prime candidate" for a magnitude 7 earthquake within the next 30 years.  Football games, which can attract up to 75,000 fans for six or seven home games a year, are staffed by UC and city police and fire departments in case of emergency.  "It's scary," said Julie Sinai, senior aide to Bates. "How many of us would have predicted a major earthquake during a Giants-A's World Series? That's the point -- you can't predict."

If there is an earthquake or fire, residents on Panoramic Hill above the stadium could be stranded and the two-lane roads leading from the stadium likely would be clogged with cars, blocking emergency vehicles and leaving thousands trapped.  The city's suit would ask that the environmental impact report (EIR) be redone, with greater attention to seismic and safety issues.  Barbour said the safety concerns will be settled eventually.

"We certainly are required by the EIR process to address those things, and I believe that all those issues will be worked out," she said.

 

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