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The members of the zoning board have a very large responsibility as you consider the proposal to demolish Berkeley’s last downtown movie theater in favor of more housing, predominantly priced at market rate rather than the middle- and low-income housing we need. Building for that level of pricing does not suit developers’ drive for as much profit as possible. But we’ve already built more than our quota of above-middle-income housing.

Anyone who considers the promises of the president-elect can anticipate a huge impact on the construction industry, since it is dependent upon many low-paid workers who now are under threat of deportation. As appears with our now-demolished treasure the Shattuck Cinemas, the developer may be unwilling to go forward because the anticipated profits are turning into liabilities in this suddenly unpredictable economy.

What I have treasured most about living in Berkeley for more than 50 years has been its diversity of all sorts—cultural, racial, economic. But beginning in the 80s the greed of real estate investors and developers has relentlessly reduced that diversity, making Berkeley now unaffordable to all but the wealthy, unless they bought homes decades ago. This process has made Berkeley a much less interesting, culturally-rich place to live, too expensive for many former residents—teachers, librarians, artists, food service workers, students, ordinary people. 

Emblematic of this loss of cultural diversity is the city council’s failure to ensure that downtown Berkeley has a public venue for film. In 2015 a group of Berkeley residents began to alert filmgoers that our cultural treasure the Shattuck Cinemas had been targeted by a developer, prepared to destroy it and replace it with an 18-story highrise. At that time the Cinemas were selling 250-300,000 tickets a year, drawing ticket-buyers from across the East Bay and enlivening the downtown economy. We managed to help hold off demolition for five years until the developer refused to address some of the ZAB requirements and sold the property. The new buyer planned on a less ambitious scale and initially assured us he’d protect and build atop the Cinemas instead of demolishing them, and then he broke that promise and demolished our treasure. And the site still lies in rubble months later. The housing bubble may be about to burst, so we may have had our cultural treasure demolished without even seeing its replacement by market-rate housing (NOT what is needed). 

I write now to urge your thoughtful attention to the possibility of saving Berkeley’s one remaining, magnificent venue for film (the California Theatre having been closed if not yet demolished). The 1932 United Artists Theatre opened to great fanfare during the Great Depression by the company founded by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin. Surely this architectural gem, on the California Register of Historical Resources, is worth protecting for current and future generations of Berkeley and East Bay residents. One cannot see great films (or even well-made entertaining films) adequately in our private homes on smaller screens. We need not only more affordable housing but affordable culture and entertainment as well, if we are to be a city loved by its residents. We need a venue where film can be seen on a big screen and in community with others.  

The city can preserve this historic cultural venue by requiring any development to preserve the theater intact and to design a building that can be constructed atop the existing building. 

Sincerely,