Berkeley City Council considers changes to landmark designation requirements | City Government

The Berkeley City Council will consider amendments to the Berkeley Municipal Code addressing landmarks and historical designations at its Nov. 10 meeting. 

The proposed amendments, authored by Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani and cosponsored by Councilmember Mark Humbert, seek to “discourage frivolous designations.” The agenda item argues that such designations often impact city sites that are intended to be redeveloped to address the housing shortage.

Currently, a landmark or historical district designation requires 50 city resident signatures to back the application. According to Berkeley Architecture Heritage Association, or BAHA, president Leila Moncharsh, city residents, council members or a commissioner on the landmarks preservation committee can begin the designation process. The amendment would change this to a 200-signature requirement. 

In residential zoning districts, an application would require signatures from 51% of residents within a 300-foot radius of the property. 

BAHA’s board of directors penned a letter to the council expressing its firm opposition to the amendment. They argued that the amendment would “deeply undermine public participation in historic preservation.”

“Public participation in preservation has been at the core of protecting historically significant properties in the city,” said BAHA board member Isaac Warshauer. “By setting the bar many, many times higher for public participation … it really muzzles public engagement.”

In the item, Kesarwani and Humbert voiced their concern about residents misusing the code by applying for historical landmark status to block development on certain properties. According to the agenda item, the current guidelines may violate SB 330, or the Housing Crisis Act of 2019. This act is intended to protect housing projects from potential changes to local law while their development is carried out. 

The agenda lays out two case studies in which Kesarwani and Humbert believe the current code was abused to block housing developments. It also includes two case studies in which landmarking attempts were deemed “in tension” with SB 330. 

In the former two case studies, BAHA attempted to file applications for landmark status for properties that were already approved for housing projects. The properties were designated landmark status — a decision that was later appealed by the City Council. 

Warshauer, an architect who works in San Francisco, said he is familiar with the struggle between preservation and development that the city council is attempting to address with this amendment.However, he argued, there’s a better way to prevent “frivolous” landmark applications, which he says are very few and far between, given the complexity of the application process.  

BAHA and Warshauer advocate for the city to deny applications to designate properties that already have an SB 330 application completed, deeming them in the process of development. 

Moncharsh, another land use attorney, said there is a common misconception that if a property is landmarked, it can’t be torn down. In fact, she said, a landmarked property requires an alterations permit that allows tear-downs and development — as long as the developer can show how they plan to mitigate the loss. This plan can consist of a record of what was there and proposed changes. 

“It’s been frustrating that there’s been so much polarization, and it seems to be that people are either in favor of housing, or they’re in favor of preservation,” Warshauer said. “I fully believe that it’s possible to be in favor of both — and in fact we need to (be) — for the sake of coming generations.”

Warshauer said his biggest concern with the proposed amendment is the requirement of signatures from 51% of residents within a 300-foot radius of the property. He said this could cause inequity in the landmark designation system. For example, it would be much simpler for residents in the Berkeley Hills, a low-density neighborhood, to collect signatures from their neighbors, than it would be for residents on the Southside, a higher-density neighborhood. 

BAHA conducted a study of two of their landmarked properties in these neighborhoods, 10 Greenwood Common and David Brower House. They found that at 10 Greenwood Common in the Berkeley Hills, the designation application would only require signatures from 35 residents in the 68 dwelling units within 300 feet of the property. However, at David Brower House on the Southside,the latter would require signatures from 274 residents in the 536 dwelling units within 300 feet of the property. This study demonstrates the disparities in landmarking difficulty in the two neighborhoods.

Warshauer added that neighbors are not the only people with vested interest in preservation. Specific communities in the city might be interested in achieving landmark status for properties that are culturally or historically significant to them, though they may not live next door. 

“Why would the people who are living within 300 feet of (a) landmark have some sort of special privilege?” Warshauer said. “It perpetuates this idea that landmarking is only done for a cynical purpose, when it actually does some genuine good.”