The University of California at Berkeley has come up with a mammoth long-range development plan which envisages expanding its academic and research facilities by 2.2 million square feet over 15 years -- more space than in the Empire State Building.
How to carry out that expansion in a densely populated urban area will be a tall order -- which is why, ideally, the city and the university would agree on the best way to do it.
But remember, Cal isn’t Stanford, which owns thousands of open acres around it. Where and how the campus expands will have an impact on the city with its population of nearly 100,000.
UC Berkeley is one of the great universities in the world. Berkeley is one of the most livable communities in the Bay Area, perhaps in the United States. But that is not necessarily a permanent state. The delicate balance that exists between the city and university, between people versus cars, and between reasonable growth while preserving neighborhoods, could easily be upset.
In contrast to many cities that are home to great universities, Berkeley and the University of California have had a relatively untroubled relationship.
The campus issued the final version of its final long-range plan -- a 1, 300-page tome -- on Jan. 3. This week ,the UC Board of Regents is being asked to vote to approve it. City of Berkeley officials -- backed up by 21 state legislators -- are asking the university for more time to examine the document, which only spells out one 110,000-square-foot project (a new library named after the late Chancellor Chang Lin-Tien) in any detail. "UC is asking us to sign a blank check allowing them to build whatever and wherever they want, without any guarantee that local residents or city officials will have meaningful input," Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said in his "state of the city" speech last week.
The university has responded by haughtily telling the city, and the legislators, that this process has gone on long enough and it is time to adopt the plan.
But when someone like Bates raises deep concerns, the university should respond. Bates is a Cal alumnus and one of the university’s enthusiastic boosters. He was a starting member of Cal’s 1959 Rose Bowl team. In his mayoral campaign, he pledged to end the bickering that has gone on for years between the city and the university.
UC has the upper hand in all its negotiations with the city, because state law gives it virtually autonomous powers, allowing it to bypass the zoning and other approval processes normal businesses or individual property owners would be subjected to. The university owns as much as one third of the city’s land -- but is exempt from paying any property taxes. At the same time, the city provides fire services to the entire campus for almost no charge. That’s only one reason the university should respond with acute sensitivity to the city’s concerns.
When both sides came in to talk to us last week, we were struck by the degree to which each side acknowledged and respected the other’s concerns. Unlike many Berkeley residents, city officials aren’t against UC’s expansion - - they just want the university to be more transparent about its plans.
That’s why we urge the regents to postpone adopting the plan this week. A two-month delay would not disrupt a long-range plan that is vague about many details. Berkeley and UC Berkeley need each other for their survival and long- term health. Divorce is not an option. |
