The City’s secret sellout to UC

22 February 2006

In February 2005, the City sued the University of California over UCB’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP). The City stated, correctly, that the LRDP and its Environmental Impact Report (EIR) “falls far short of providing adequate information, analysis, or mitigations for the tremendous burden this growth will place on our City.” This growth includes 2.2 million square feet of buildings, 4000 FTE students, over 3500 faculty, staff, and campus visitors, 2600 housing beds, and over 2000 parking spaces. The City’s fiscal analysis shows that the LRDP would add $2 million to the university's existing annual burden on city taxpayers of over $11 million.

The lawsuit was supported by environmental lawyers, city staff, local residents, the Sierra Club, student organizations, and many others concerned about urban environmental degradation and fiscal impacts. The City set aside $250,000 for the lawsuit, less than 1/1000 of one year’s city budget, and about 1/50 of the university’s current financial burden on the City. The suit would have forced UC to consider meaningful mitigations for damages, and alternative plans less damaging to the City. It would also have initiated a more equitable and respectful relationship between the City and the university, saving the City hundreds of millions of dollars in the future.

After filing the lawsuit, the City and UC began negotiating behind closed doors, and then in May 2005 suddenly signed a secret settlement agreement. The Mayor assured concerned citizens that there would be substantial public discussion before any agreement was signed, but in the end there was no public input into a city policy decision as important as any the city will ever make.

Prior to the City’s lawsuit, over 300 people and organizations wrote letters of concern about the LRDP, and 300 people attended public hearings. Over 20,000 Berkeleyans are directly impacted by UC detriments. All those citizens were ignored by the city council. The council also ignored the burden on Berkeley taxpayers imposed by this large, tax-exempt institution, even though Berkeley voters showed in 2004 that they want more fiscal responsibility from the City. Back in 1988, 75% of Berkeley voters enacted a city policy (Measure N) to “use all available lawful means” to require UC to “abide by the rules and laws of the city and . . . pay taxes and fees . . . to support their fair share of city services.” The city council ignored this policy as well.

The secret settlement does nothing to reduce the university’s burden on Berkeley’s residents, environment, or budget. Instead, the City is actually worse off than it would have been with the original LRDP, because the City receives less compensation than we are entitled to under existing law, and gratuitously cedes control over downtown planning to the university! This is why a group of citizens must now reluctantly sue our own city.

The secret settlement contains two major provisions:

1. A new Downtown Area Plan (DAP). This will replace our current Downtown Plan with one created by UC and City staff that requires UC approval and “meets the Regents’ needs.” This provision relinquishes municipal sovereignty to the university, bypasses City planning procedures, and requires that mitigation measures for ANY projects downtown be “acceptable to UC Berkeley”—all illegal. The DAP allows private developers and business partners of UC to evade existing zoning regulations. And the DAP-in-progress cannot be made public without permission of UC (more secrets!). Meanwhile, after the DAP is finished, UC still does not have to abide by the DAP or any other land use regulation.


2. $1.2 million annual payments by UCB to the City, $400,000 of which may be stockpiled by the university and will be spent at the university’s discretion

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