The Regents of the University of California are scheduled to vote Wednesday on the Upper Hearst Development project to create campus housing, a parking garage and a new academic building for the Goldman School of Public Policy on the north side of UC Berkeley.
The vote is part of the board’s agenda for its May 14-16 meeting at the Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF. The board is slated to consider whether to approve the project design for Upper Hearst and certify its final Supplemental Environmental Impact Report (SEIR).
According to the latest designs, from architecture firm Solomon Cordwell Buenz, the project includes a five-story, 150-unit residential building over a three-story “mostly subterranean” parking structure, as well as a four-story academic building over one basement level. The project also includes “a Minor Amendment (#4) to UC Berkeley’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan to accommodate the proposed housing land use on the project site.”
The city of Berkeley has taken issue with campus population estimates included in the project documents and recently said it might sue the university if the two sides can’t find a way to see eye to eye.
According to UC Berkeley, faculty members will be the primary target audience for the residential units, which also will be available to visiting scholars and postdoctoral students if there is room. The bulk of the garage, 90 spaces, will be reserved for building residents.
Monday, the city sent a 29-page letter to the regents, calling the final SEIR “inadequate” and saying the document “does little to address the concerns raised in the City’s comments, especially concerns related to the Project’s impacts on City services.”
The city of Berkeley has said the university’s annual fiscal impact on the city “has increased from an estimated $11 million in 2003 to over $21 million in 2018.” In response to that claim, the city argues, “the University asserted simply that it is exempt from ‘local regulations and local taxes.’ But this assertion does nothing to undermine the City’s calculations. Moreover, it fails to address the significant environmental impacts associated with this new burden on public services, including the need for new facilities.”
The university says it paid the city of Berkeley $1,770,698 in 2018-19. Those payments are set to continue for at least two more years.
Mayor Jesse Arreguín and Berkeley Councilwoman Susan Wengraf are expected to address the regents during public comment Wednesday morning.
In early May, the university released new designs for the Upper Hearst Development. Some of them appear below.
Note: The Upper Hearst Development is primarily aimed at faculty members, according to UC Berkeley. Berkeleyside corrected the story Tuesday night to reflect this.
Hmm, the city of Berkeley suing UC? Which side would you like to bet on?.
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no clue –
tell us what you are driving at
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OMG, I hope the architect will rework the proposed building’s bulky institutional front on LaLoma and Ridge!
A lot of cisnormative behavior in that final architectural drawing. This is unacceptable.
I suggest you never visit campus. It is chock-a-block with cisnormative behavior.
It also seems rather judgemental to assign gender based on back-of-the-head hairstyle biases.
Go for it, Cal. That looks great, could be taller though. Undergrounding parking is the way to go.
It might be a building technology cost question. 5 story buildings can generally be built with wood studs, which is much cheaper.
This looks ginormous!!!! The scale and character are not fitting… and The resources from the berkeley city budget need to be considered… really. The UC system and each of their host cities should get the ’services provided’ cost documented and covered.
The scale is not fitting? There is a 5 story building directly across the street from it.
Yep, Cory Hall & Sutardja Dai Hall. The argument “that’s too big for this neighborhood!” is often deployed by those without the slightest bit of familiarity with the neighborhood.
The scale is fine and would fit into the neighborhood. The design is ugly and that is what makes it look bigger than it really is. It is unfortunate that architects have gone back to favoring “brutalist” styles that make buildings look imposing and alien rather than fitting into the existing environment.
FYI: The regents finance committee unanimously approved the project shortly before noon. It will go to the full board of regents tomorrow.
The city of Berkeley has shown it will be doing anything to stop housing development by making last minute design comments at the permit stage and by threatening to sue. Too tall, too big, not dense enough, more parking, less parking, spice it up, too boring, etc…
The city of Berkeley and the neighborhood groups all support the housing on this site. The objections are too UC’s attempt to avoid mitigating the impacts of more than 11,000 additional students.
Actually, many neighbors think the housing complex is too big and does not fit in with the architecture of the nieghborhood.
If you read the submissions on the DSEIR, there were very few submissions against the housing component of the project. There we objections to the design and massing, but not to at least some housing on the site.
I attended a public meeting in which a number of people objected to the design, including the Landmarks Preservation Commission. You are correct, though. The objection was to the design not the actual housing.
When was the last time neighbors in this town lauded the design of a new development? It’s always too big or too ugly or the corners too round or not round enough or whatever else kind of amateur nonsense people come up with. Gosh. Give it a rest already.
It is painfully ugly though.
The university provides substantial benefits to the city: employment opportunities, a qualified workforce for off-campus businesses, a huge customer base for everything from restaurants to entertainment venues to rental properties, and the associated tax revenue of this economic activity. The City of Berkeley without the university would be an entirely different place, mostly for the worse. The addition of dorm space is a benefit to the city’s housing shortage. Yes, it’s a big building like everything else on that corner. Finally, the increasing number of students fits in with the values of educational equity that are so dear in Berkeley.
Said the Orinda resident……. between 2010 and 2018, Berkeley added more than 8000 nonresident students, and the number of resident students fell by 270. In addition, according to the state auditor’s report, those nonresident students not only had lower grades, but they crowded California residents out of the most lucrative majors. This violates all principles of educational equity. You can read the state auditor’s report here https://auditor.ca.gov/reports/2015-107/index.html You might also want to see how UC has been grossly mismanaged by reading the reports found here https://auditor.ca.gov/reports/agency/97 The giant UCOP unreported slush fund is fascinating reading https://auditor.ca.gov/reports/2016-130/summary.html
Ofcourse they approved it as the regents don’t give a crap about the burden they put on this city.
As UC continues to swallow Berkeley.
How did the Regents’ vote go at the May 14-16 meeting? I can’t find a follow-up/update to this (May 14) story…
Our UCB contact didn’t have that information and the minutes are not posted. I have asked UCOP how to find out.
Thanks for the update, Emilie!
It appears it was unanimously in favor: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/aar/mayf.pdf