Posted on 08/20/2009 7:50:50 AM PDT by SmithL
Opponents of a downtown Berkeley development plan were still on the streets Wednesday gathering the 5,558 signatures needed by Thursday to put the plan to a citywide vote.
City Councilman Jesse Arreguin, 25, who is behind the campaign to overturn the Downtown Area Plan, which allows for taller buildings, more housing density, more open space and which imposes green building requirements, said he is "cautiously optimistic" his group has enough signatures to go forward.
Arreguin was at the Downtown Berkeley BART station Wednesday gathering signatures.
Shadowing Arreguin and holding a sign that said "Don't Sign The Petition," was 27-year-old Salvan Hauser, an architect who favors the plan passed by the City Council and which was vetted in 125 public meetings that cost $1 million in public funds over four years.
"We're a city of protesters and I feel for that, but it's not always productive," said Hauser.
"I came to protect the community process that has gone on so far to create this plan. I want to see more sustainable development in the downtown. I want to see a walkable community." Arreguin and his 130 or so signature gatherers, some who are getting paid about $2 a signature, believe the downtown plan did not go far enough in requiring developers of future buildings to include affordable housing in their projects.
"The plan when it went to the City Council said the downtown should have more than 20 percent of affordable housing in all new development," Arreguin said. "But the council added language suggesting that people consider that. The City Council watered it down from a very strongly worded plan."
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
This is what happens when you have children running the joint.
“for taller buildings, more housing density, more open space”
The first environmentalist I ever met told me it was his goal to put humans in cages and let the animals and plants be free.
Guess this is part of the plan.
One can only hope that these people continue to segregate themselves from the rest of us.
I don’t know if you or how many people, have ever been to Berkley but it is one of those cities that needs a fence around it and cut off from the rest of society. It just about has the highest crime rate in the country.
Such NEANDERTHALS - is this “progressive”?
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