Court OKs large home on steep hill in Berkeley

A state appeals court has approved plans by a prominent Berkeley couple to build a large home on a steep hill over environmentalists’ objections. The ruling may signal an end to a long legal battle over California laws that exempt single-family homes and construction in already-settled residential areas from environmental review except in “unusual” circumstances.

Entrepreneurs Mitchell Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corp., and his wife, Freada Kapor-Klein, want to build a nearly 10,000-square-foot home and 10-car garage on a Rose Street lot where the hill has a 50 percent slope.

After conflicting testimony from engineers about the risk of a landslide,

the Berkeley City Council approved the plan in 2010 without an environmental impact report, which would have allowed public input and required the couple to make any changes needed to prevent environmental damage.

In 2012, the First District Court of Appeal ordered an environmental study of the Berkeley home, saying its size and location were “unusual” aspects that could have an environmental impact.

But in March, the state Supreme Court reversed that decision and said a potential impact isn’t enough to trigger environmental review.

That ruling strengthened local agencies’ authority to exempt singlefamily homes and urban residential construction from environmental review. It didn’t end the Berkeley case, because the court told the appellate panel to reconsider the couple’s plans and order the city to conduct a study if there was something so unconventional about the project that it would have a significant environmental impact.

But the high court also said judges should be “relatively deferential” to local agencies, like the Berkeley City Council, that have studied the project.

It was advice that proved to be the keynote of Wednesday’s appellate ruling.

“Sufficient evidence supports the city’s conclusion” that the project would not have a significant environmental impact, said Justice Jon Streeter in the 3-0 ruling.

Although the home would be one of the largest in Berkeley, other large houses are nearby, and the project’s size and scale “do not present unusual circumstances” as the Supreme Court defined them, Streeter said.

And while the site is in an earthquake fault zone, he said, the city endorsed an engineer’s report that found no unusual danger of landslides.

Berkeley Hillside Preservation, which has opposed the construction, could ask the state’s high court to take another look at the case. Susan Brandt Hawley, the group’s lawyer, said her clients were reviewing the ruling.

The couple’s lawyer, Amrit Kulkarni, said his clients, after “years of unnecessary litigation,” were gratified that the court “finally came to the right conclusion and brought this saga to an end.”