Thousand Oaks Park Society TOPS.
TOPS is an official City of Berkeley Adopt a Park group. Its members are people who care about the park and want to work together on park-related projects. TOPS' first meeting will be on September 27 at 7 pm in the library of the Thousand Oaks Baptist Church (Enter on Catalina above Colusa)
The group's first major goal is to raise the $20,000 plus needed to buy and install equipment for a new tot lot, as the equipment from the old tot lot was not reusable. TOPS will also be organizing volunteers who would like to work on the tot lot and other park amenities. All donations to TOPS are tax-deductible. For more information, call 528-8345 or 526-5888.
Do you know of other Berkeley organizations which would like to be linked to the Thousand Oaks page? Let us know their web address! We can even set up web pages for other neighborhood or community organizations such as the school park project or local architectural history groups.
Call 526-6668 for details or send us Email!
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Our preferred e-mail address is Realtor@home-buy-sell.com, but you can also reach us at BerkeleyRE@AOL.COM or 72062,474 on Compuserve. It's easiest if you provide the information on 3.5" disk or via email.
TONA Web Page Address:
http://www.home-buy-sell.com/Realtor/1000oaks/tona.html
Thousand Oaks Web Page Address:
http://www.home-buy-sell.com/Realtor/1000oaks/1000oaks.html
Thousand Oaks School Status and CEQA
In our last issue, we told of the then pending request by TONA to the Landmark Commission to reconsider its 1993 decision to give local landmark status to Thousand Oaks School. Even though neighbors had collected over 400 signatures in support of TONA's position and significant evidence that the building's merit was overstated and its current condition made it uneconomical to rehabilitate, the LPC refused to reconsider because there was no express provision in the ordinance allowing for reconsideration of landmarking. Ironically, the ordinance allows for buildings. which have been rejected for landmarking by the LPC, to be reconsidered for designation after two years.
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires that at least an initial Environmental Impact Study be conducted by the School District before the building can be replaced or rehabilitated. This is do largely to the school's landmark status The CEQA process has significantly delayed and increased the cost of the school's improvement. Initially, at least $65,000 must be spent on CEQA consultants and additional architectÕs fee as part of this process.
As part of the initial study, the architects must "site" (locate) and "mass" (draw a three dimensional structure) the proposed school building. The architects want community input prior to beginning this initial design phase. A series of community meetings will be scheduled for this fall, beginning with a public Site Committee meeting on September 18, at 7:30 pm at the Thousand Oaks School library (Tacoma entrance). The only other currently scheduled meeting for public input will be at TONA's October 5th meeting. We hope that you will join us then to learn more about the school project and share your thoughts with the architect and the schools project manager.
With some luck, the initial CEQA study will be completed late this year. After a one month public comment period, the School Board can either make a negative declaration (a statement to the effect that there is no adverse environmental impact to proceeding with a new building) or the School Board may proceed with the full CEQA report process. Given the building's landmark status, it is very likely that a full study will be required. This could prolong the completion of the CEQA process until late spring and effectively delay any construction activity until at least late 1996. TONA continues to support the complete replacement of the present buildings. We feel that the existing facility is not only educationally obsolete and structurally hazardous but the cost of rehabilitation and expansion of the existing structure is simply not cost effective (at least $1 million over the cost of a new structure).
TONA Board of Directors
G.J. Stillson MacDonnell 525-6874 73651.3450@compuserve.com President Jim Bonsey 526-8969 Vice President Elizabeth Sklut 527-5512 Treasurer Zelda Bronstein 528-8345 Secretary Helen Burke 527-0176 Cynthia Campbell 527-8639 Lu Charlotte 525-6495 Mark Gorrell 525-3048 Warren Keller 524-0571 Linda Tong 524-5544 Heinz Weber 526-4741TONA Membership Form Dues per year: $2 Senior, $3 Single, $5 Family Send dues to: TONA P.O. Box 7572, Berkeley, CA 94707 Name:_____________________________________________ Address:___________________________________________ Interests:__________________________________________
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The TONA Web Page, part of the Thousand Oaks Web Site, is maintained by residents and neighborhood Realtors Ira & Carol Serkes.
Send Email to Realtor@home-buy-sell.com if you'd like to have your Thousand Oaks ideas, reminisces, stories, or articles on the history and architecture published on the World Wide Web.