The Solution

Rehabilitation Plan for Piedmont Way in Berkeley, California, PGAdesign, Inc. 2007

With an award from National Trust for Historic Preservation FPW initiated a Current Conditions Study of the surviving landscape in February 2006. The study serves two needs; as a pilot project to test standards adopted by the Historic American Landscape Survey (HALS) www.nps.gov/hdp/ and as a critical first step in FPW’s rehabilitation effort for the beleaguered parkway.

In September 2006, FPW hired landscape architect Cathy Garrett of PGAdesign, Inc., www.pgadesign.com to draft a Rehabilitation Plan with funds awarded by the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund. Garrett’s deftly considered Plan, drafted with the assistance of Kirsten Johnson, a UC Berkeley graduate student in Landscape Architecture, had duel tasks: to take into consideration the identified period of significance of the streetscape (1865-1930) and to balance those parameters with present day needs. The final Rehabilitation Plan recaptures Olmsted’s notion of an inviting shady street within the context of a thriving population of students and community members.

In July 2007, the City of Berkeley budgeted $75,000 for Contract Documents and UC Berkeley’s Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund acknowledged the importance of the project for the second consecutive year; awarding FPW $75,000 towards replanting. It is anticipated that Contract Documents will be finalized in December 2007 and replanting will commence as the necessary funds are raised. The target date for a Community Planting Day is set for autumn 2008.