Alameda lofts face challenge

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Sep 14, 2004 | by Susan McDonough, STAFF WRITER

ALAMEDA -- Matthew Murphy couldn't convince the City Council that a plan to build artist studios in the city's industrial northern waterfront area violated Alameda building ordinances.

So, keeping with an earlier promise, he will challenge the controversial project in court.

Murphy filed a compliant Friday in Alameda County Superior Court, alleging the lofts violate the city's hotly debated Measure A rule, which limits new residential construction here to nothing larger than a duplex.

Murphy promised the City Council in July that he would file the lawsuit, challenging its decision to allow artist Janet Koike to convert a vacant warehouse on Blanding Avenue into seven so-called work/live lofts.

A representative for the city and the Blanding Avenue project were not available for comment.

The city is loath to call the dwellings live/work spaces -- what they are popularly called -- because it insists the use is primarily work-oriented and therefore not subject to Measure A.

Murphy disagrees and filed an earlier complaint in June alleging that a 1998 ordinance that excuses work/live units from Measure A is invalid.

His attorney, Joseph Wood, said he is likely to combine the two complaints before the two related issues go to trial sometime next year.

Wood said his client is not opposed to Kioke's plan to convert the 74-year-old warehouse into artist studios per se, but he is against the project as a matter of principle.

Murphy, who was prevented from adding units to his family's property because of Measure A, believes the city is playing "fast and loose" with what the people here voted for when they approved Measure A in 1973 as an amendment to the city charter.

Murphy and his father have asked the city more than once to take the question of amending Measure A -- including whether work/live spaces violate the spirit of the measure -- to voters, Wood said.

"They won't do it," he said.

The city called for a moratorium on similar projects after it approved the Blanding Avenue studios in July because of the lingering legal confusion.

The city maintains that its work/live ordinance is consistent with the state's definition, which views the lofts as primarily for work purposes with living uses as ancillary.

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