Different kind of protest at UC Berkeley: the campus needs to grow, but the city says 'no'.

University of California Berkeley is a gem in the UC system. This campus, which is home to 31,000 students, is already big. And expansion plans call for it to get even bigger. But Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates is fighting the UC system. He has even threatened a lawsuit, depending upon how UC planners respond to his concerns.

Known as the 2020 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP), the document envisions a Berkeley that is 2.2 million square feet bigger, according to Julie Sinai, senior aide to Bates. This square footage is equivalent to that of the Empire State Building, she emphasizes. The city of Berkeley is going to have a hard time adjusting.

Of course, UC Berkeley isn't about to build one great skyscraper. What it wants to do is expand the core of the campus to other buildings and land throughout the city. Trouble is, say Bates and Sinai, UC Berkeley is a land-grant university that does not pay property taxes to the city. More UC buildings will mean less property tax revenue for Berkeley.

The LRDP is a standard document required by UC campuses every 15 years. Bates and Sinai complain, though, that the new plan does not allow for more community involvement. If UC Berkeley is allowed to expand there will be more stress on the city's fire and emergency medical services, says Sinai. She estimates that it costs $2.1 million annually to provide fire and EMS services to the UC campus, but the university pays only $50,000 for them. More growth will certainly drive up costs, she says. When contacted, UC Berkeley officials did not respond to any specific complaints, but encouraged visits to the website www.berkeley.edu/lrdp. A statement there counters that UE Berkeley is not as big a strain on Berkeley's fire and EMS services as claimed. Further, UC Berkeley benefits the city with $70 million in annual sales of goods and services.

Expansion plans can draw heat from communities. Just ask University of Arizona President Peter Likins, who learned in mid-February that proposed plans to expand UA into a five-university system would be scrapped. Public out cry against the plan was intense. At one point higher ed leaders envisioned Arizona State University West breaking away from the state university system and expanding on its own. This--and other proposals--drew repeated vocal and written criticism from residents and faculty.