Tonight, the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Sports Basement project to restructure Berkeley Iceland as a giant sporting goods store goes before the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB). The purpose of an EIR is to identify all the impacts a project will make on a specific set of environmental measures. The EIR prepared for this project is far from complete and should not be certified at this meeting. 

The impacts and mitigations which need to be addressed include:

• The aesthetics of the site impacted by the removal of the berms for the creation of the parking lots on the North and South sides of the buildings. The California Environmental Quality Act includes the consideration of the impact of the proposed plan on the visual and aesthetic nature of the site - the Environmental Review Checklist under the Aesthetics section specifically asks: "[Would the project] Substantially degrade the existing visual character or quality of the site and its surroundings?" Amazingly, the initial study says that exposing a 25+ foot wall over 200 feet long in a residential neighborhood without mitigation will have no impact. Arguments that it increases the setback and the project would clean up the building, which is the responsibility of the current owners regardless of the project, are insufficient and do not address the significant impact it will have when the mass of the building is exposed.

The efforts to collect signatures for the petition for the City of Berkeley to Adopt Policies for the Restoration of Berkeley Iceland as a Recreation and Community Center will kick off on Saturday, March 31. By coincidence, this is the same date FIVE YEARS AGO that the current owners closed the doors.

 A quick note about the status of the Petition to set Policies for the Restoration of Berkeley Iceland. We are in a waiting period while our petition is reviewed by the Berkeley City Attorney who creates the official Title and Summary. This action must be done within 15 days of the notice we delivered to the City Clerk, meaning this should be ready by the end of this week. We will send out a note with the official wording when we have it.

For too long those of us working to get Berkeley Iceland back as a community recreation center have had to fight against actions which would work against this goal. Since Berkeley Iceland closed almost 5 (!) years ago we have fought against:

 The US Figure Skating Championships are back in the Bay Area. Saturday was the rehearsal for the Opening Ceremony, which takes place on Thursday, 25 January. It was fun to watch dozens of skaters of all ages going through the program with Rudy Galindo. The theme of the program honors history-making skaters with links to the Bay Area - Rudy, Kristi Yamaguchi (represented by her extremely cute daughter, Emma), Brian Boitano, Debi Thomas, and Peggy Fleming. All deserve to be honored for their accomplishments, both as athletes and beyond. It would be good to also remember the historic place which played a big role in developing skating on the West Coast - Berkeley Iceland.

Today is the last day for comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) submitted for Sports Basement's inappropriate project to convert Berkeley Iceland, a site specifically built and used for more than 67 years to provide recreation skating to the Berkeley community, to one of the largest retail operations in the City of Berkeley. The purpose of the EIR process is to:

...provide analysis and public disclosure of environmental impacts of proposed projects and adopt all feasible measures to mitigate those impacts...

SBI and others provided comments on the DEIR submitted for this project, some available here. There are seven reasons I believe the DEIR, as it currently exists, cannot be accepted: