UC Long Range Development Plan EIR

Letter to the Editor

by Sharon Hudson

10 December 2004

By mid-February, the City Council will decide whether to sue the University over the adequacy of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the University’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan. The LRDP contains a 20% increase in UC space and facilities, and a 10% increase in campus users, mostly commuting research-related personnel. In a heartwarming—and rare—alliance with the sentiments of Berkeley citizens, the City’s response to the Draft EIR last June was indignant, tough, and unequivocal in charging that the Draft EIR is grossly inadequate on multiple levels. Though such a lawsuit is unlikely to derail the juggernaut of UC expansion entirely, it would probably lead to a moderated and much less damaging expansion of the Berkeley campus.

The EIR is required under the California Environmental Quality Act. The beauty and power of CEQA is that it forces large project sponsors to search in good faith the project “alternative” that meets their goals with the least possible damage to the natural or human environment. It encourages the developer and the community to work together on creative solutions. EIRs rarely stop projects, nor are they intended to; properly done, they always improve them. However, the University 2020 LRDP EIR does not even pretend to search for less damaging means of achieving UC’s goals. And UC working with the community? Yeah, right.

This decision will be one of the first opportunities the new Council will have to show courage in the face of UC bullying, respect for the people of Berkeley, and determination to save the City from a literally unsupportable 2.2 million more square feet of UC expansion. If history is any guide, the Council’s decision will be made behind closed doors, and Council members’ votes will remain unknown; an official vote may never even be taken. This is unacceptable. The citizens have a right to know their council members’ actions on such a monumental issue, so they can be held individually accountable at election time.

Now is the time to let the City Council know your feelings about UC expansion and, even more important, to demand that decisions about UC be made by vote, and that the vote be made public. This will not tell UC anything it does not already know, but it will tell Berkeley citizens something they surely need to know about their elected representatives.

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This letter was originally published in the Berkeley Daily Planet.

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