GREEN LIGHT FOR BERKELEY DOWNTOWN ECO-PLAZA

At close to midnight Wednesday, March 23, Berkeley City Council voted (8-1) to endorse the Hood proposal for Center Street and directed city staff to work with nonprofit and community partners, Ecocity Builders and Citizens for a Strawberry Creek Plaza, to move the project forward and apply for upcoming funding opportunities. Following a decade of citizen-led advocacy and numerous public processes, the downtown Berkeley project can move forward beyond concept and into planning for implementation.

The project is located at a prime opportunity site along the main pedestrian thoroughfare from the Downtown Berkeley BART station and the UC Berkeley campus, and is likely to attract funding for its myriad social, environmental, economic and infrastructure benefits to residents and visitors.  "This is a key victory in this project's history. Deadlines are coming down the pipeline in the next month, for millions of dollars of potential funding for this project," says Kirstin Miller, executive director of Ecocity Builders. 

The project has gone through numerous rounds of public and planning processes, since it was first proposed to the city in 1997 and is consistent with official City of Berkeley planning and policy documents. The City Council has previously adopted policies in reference to the plaza in the 2001 Berkeley General Plan, 2004 Downtown Task Force recommendations, 2007 Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee recommendations, and the 2009 Downtown Area Plan. 

Award-winning landscape architect, Walter Hood, in 2007 was commissioned to design the plaza, located on Center Street between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley. Hood was responsible for designing the gardens at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park. 

The Hood design calls for closing off this block of Center Street except for emergency and delivery vehicle to create a pedestrian-oriented gathering space tied to the upcoming Berkeley Art Museum/hotel and conference center complex. Strawberry Creek will be partially "daylighted," or dug up from underground storm drains where it is currently buried in the downtown area, for residents and visitors to enjoy and learn about creek ecology and the regional watershed.  The Hood design elements and more project information can be viewed here.

Can I just say, I Heart NY?

"Did you go see the High Line?" Liz and I, wide-eyed, chorused - demanded - Ming, fellow architect and urban design enthusiast. Our faces fell when Ming indicated the negative.

I'm dreaming of my next trip to New York. I dreamily let jagged and dead-straight lines take me up and down Manhattan's brand new floating linear park, the High Line. If it can be called a park. It's a disused elevated rail line. It's a runway. It's a tourist destination. It's a vista point. It's an incubator for creative energies and kick-ass high-profile youth art classes. It's some sort of symbol of grassroots idealism materialized decades - and tons of argumentative breath - later.

Every time I visit, the city's grime, blare, and in-your-face energy scrape me raw, then wrap me up in a coat of adrenaline. I get high. The mad rush of train-takers and taxi-wavers push me through the day no matter my literal and figurative baggage. Granted, I don't have to live it 365 days a year and this is probably a romanticized, visitor's view of New York. The visitor's privileged view.

The visitor's privilege will also have me wander the halls of the natural history museum and space center. I really wanted to go but did not get to the last time, Sep 2007.

This month's Landscape Architecture magazine then served on a silver platter another reason to go, the new West Harlem riverfront park, 2.4 acres of green along the Hudson River, where "geometric shapes and tilted lawns are in dynamic tension with one another."

I'm inspired by this urban participatory policy project with street vendors. I think I've just found my new hero, Candy Chang. What awesome projects!

And I will leave you with this lovely installment of Maira Kalman's NY Times "And the Pursuit of Happiness.

Help get kids outdoors - resurrect No Child left Inside Act

Action Alert: Goal is 51 Senate co-sponsors

I need your help to shore up support for the No Child Left Inside Act by securing as many Senate co-sponsors as possible before Congress takes its August recess.

The Senate version of the No Child Left Inside Act (S.866) was introduced by Senator Jack Reed on Earth Day, April 22, 2009. Already, this bill has 15 bi-partisan co-sponsors—a great start, but still a long way from the goal of 51 co-sponsors. Please help us emailing your Senator today and urge him or her to become a co-sponsor (for a list of co-sponsors, click here). Visit your Senator’s website for their contact info; we have provided a model letter below.

As our leaders in Washington are focused on health care and climate change legislation, we have the opportunity to highlight the value of high quality environmental education in fostering good health and long-term stewardship of our planet.

A strong show of bipartisan support for programs that get children outside to learn and foster environmental literacy and stewardship will greatly aid our chances of swift passage of Senate Bill 866, the No Child Left Inside Act.

Please take a moment to personalize an email letter to your Senator today.

Abby Ybarra and Lucas Johnson
Grassroots Coordinators
No Child Left Inside Coalition
>
>
>
>
> DATE
>
> The Honorable MEMBER FIRST AND LAST NAME
> United States Senate
> __________ Senate Office Building
> Washington, DC 20510
>
> Dear Senator LAST NAME,
>
> We are writing to you today to urge you to become a co-sponsor of
> the No Child Left Inside Act of 2009 (S. 866). In doing so, you will
> take a leadership role in advancing our shared goals of achieving a
> clean environment, healthy and academically successful students, and
> a thriving 21st century workforce, for STATE NAME and the nation.
>
> Introduced this year by Senator Jack Reed, the No Child Left Inside
> Act will help to ensure that students across the country graduate
> from high school as environmentally literate citizens who are
> prepared to care for our natural resources and compete in a green
> economy. This bipartisan bill would provide funding to states for
> implementation of preK-12 environmental literacy plans, and expand
> opportunities for schools and school systems to integrate high
> quality environmental and outdoor education programs across the
> curriculum at all grade levels. Specifically, the bill provides:
>
> Incentives for states to create and implement State Environmental
> Literacy Plans to ensure their students are environmentally literate
> when they graduate.
>
> Grants to states to improve teacher quality and professional
> development to support implementation of environmental literacy
> plans in schools and school systems.
>
> Increased national capacity through grants to state education
> agencies, local education agencies, institutions of higher education
> or nonprofit organizations for dissemination of proven environmental
> education models and studies of national significance.
>
> The benefits of environmental and outdoor education are substantial.
> Use of the environment as a context for learning is proven to
> increase student achievement in core subjects, as well as improve
> engagement and reduce disciplinary problems. Outdoor learning and
> play are critical to early childhood development, both cognitively
> and emotionally. Early engagement in environmental studies fosters
> an interest in and aptitude for more complex science and technology
> as education progresses. Further, an understanding of the fragility
> and complexity of the natural world, and the role of individuals and
> communities in protecting it, is key to developing a long-term sense
> of civic engagement and environmental stewardship.
>
> ADD A PARAGRAPH HERE ABOUT YOU, WHY YOU THINK IT'S IMPORTANT TO EDUCATE KIDS ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT, LOCAL ORGS DOING AWESOME ENV EDUCATION WORK, ETC. IT IS IMPORTANT TO SHOW LOCAL CONNECTIONS.
>
> Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of an issue that is so
> critical to our children and to the future of STATE’S treasured
> natural resources.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> NAME
> TITLE