Tom Lochner updates the story of Sala Thai and the restored historic Civic Arts Building…

Restaurant opponents change strategy on development plan
by Tom Lochner

Residents of the Hercules Historic Homes have given up trying to keep a restaurant from opening at tupdatehe adjacent city-owned Civic Arts building.

Now they are talking with representatives of the city and the future Sala Thai Restaurant to resolve some concerns about noise, traffic and light, ending a yearlong struggle that dented some residents’ faith in the city’s land-use decision-making process.

“We have never been against (Sala Thai owner) Kay Sala opening a restaurant in Hercules,” said resident Brian Watson. “In fact, we hope her business will flourish in Hercules. We have felt the Civic Arts Building was just not an appropriate place for it, given the proximity to the neighborhood and park.”

Sala and an associate, Glen Cole, said they want the restaurant to be a good neighbor and are pleased to be talking with the residents.

In July, residents convinced the Hercules Planning Commission to deny Sala a conditional-use permit at Civic Arts.

Two weeks later, the City Council rezoned the building as part of the Waterfront Now Initiative. Under the new “Historic Town Center” zoning, a restaurant is a permitted use and not subject to Planning Commission approval. The rezoning, accomplished in part by redrawing a boundary with a loop around the Civic Arts building, caught many people by surprise, including the city’s planning manager, who said he did not have a copy of the initiative until after the council approved it on July 22.

Waterfront Now started as a ballot initiative sponsored by developer AndersonPacific LLC with general plan and zoning amendments and ratification of a development agreement for more than 1,200 homes and offices, shops, a ferry terminal and train station.

Some residents complained the rezoning of Civic Arts was buried in the initiative and that they should have received separate notice of intent to rezone.

Principals connected to the rezoning have justified it — in essence, that it reflects what the zoning should have been all along. But no one claims to be the author of the idea.

City officials have said the rezoning was the developer’s doing. Yet in August, AndersonPacific’s Ethan Sischo said, “When we were updating the Waterfront District Master Plan (for the initiative), we were asked to include the (historic) buildings.”

“It came from the city,” Sischo said, although he could not say from whom specifically.

Later in August, consultant Tom Koch said it was AndersonPacific President Jim Anderson’s decision “in consultation with the people that are part of his team…. to clean up the strained zoning of those properties.”

Last month, Anderson told the Times it was his and his planners’ decision at the recommendation of Opticos Design.

“It was zoned parkland,” Anderson said. “We were trying to make it more consistent.”

Opticos, of Berkeley, has worked as the consultant town architect for Hercules since about 2003.

“Essentially, we operate as an extension of the city staff,” Opticos principal Stefan Pellegrini said last week.

Opticos joined the AndersonPacific team for the waterfront project. The city, meanwhile, contracted with GL Szabo & Associates to do peer review.

Pellegrini said he believes the rezoning was “not any one individual’s decision, but probably a group discussion between all three parties.”

Watson, the resident, quipped, “It’s the zoning fairy that did it.”

Sala signed a tentative lease in February 2008 with the Hercules Redevelopment Agency starting at $3,465 a month, or $1.65 a square foot. The council has the absolute discretion not to ratify the lease,

City Attorney Mick Cabral has said. But few if any residents believe that is likely given the city’s long involvement with Sala, which goes back at least as far as May 2007 when Sala sought unsuccessfully to rent the city-controlled premises now occupied by the Powder Keg Pub.