After four years of putting together an ambitious plan to remake Berkeley's downtown with taller buildings to bring in more housing and jobs, the city faced mounting community opposition, and decided to toss the plan altogether. The city council voted unanimously to rescind the plan last month, but that was in order to get a slightly revised plan up and running. It's looking a little more promising now: the Daily Cal reports that 2.0, which still has some room for revision before it hits the ballots in November, is a result of "many compromises" between more development and concerns such as affordable housing and building heights. Sounds a bit like the kind of policy wrestling that goes on on this side of the bay – still, with most issues smoothed away, there are still charges that Berkeley's mayor Tom Bates is only pushing through a plan loaded with "back room concessions" to UC Berkeley and their development plans. C'est la vie.
· City Grapples With Historically Contentious Downtown Plan [Daily Cal]
· Berkeley's Downtown Plan Put to the People
[Wells Fargo Building via Flickr//\/\ichael Patric|{]
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