for valentine's day, an announcement of big greasy love: the shipyard
is reopening. partially, and in stages, but we are finally able to
start doing things here again.

as of this month, the city is allowing our existence again, and
progressively re-blessing the particulars of our facility. the fiery,
9 month long bureaucratic tango seems to be ending with a big wet
smooch. no tongue, mind you. but is a willing smooch on the lips,
nonetheless . . .

this survival over treacherous bureaucratic waters has been made
possible by the volcanic eruption of outrage, financial help, and
generally mushy sentiments in the realm of "come on guys, this is art
and alt energy, how can this be illegal in berkeley". the city got
hundreds of emails, letters, media, tv, blog, etc. last spring/summer
about our situation, ultimately forcing the mayor, city council, city
manager and city attorney to take notice. this political and media
pressure, in combination with the deep skills of les young the
architect and ragi the lawyer, gathered into a lethal mysterious
force, one which ultimately succeeded in doing the impossible--
turning around a building department.

about three weeks ago the city reaffirmed our use permit for half of
the facility (the alt energy part), as well as agreed to return grid
power (yes, grid power coming right out of the walls). the remaining
space (the north side, the murray side, the original shipyard space)
should be clear within a month or so. following that is an already
agreed to threshold for use of the shipping containers for temporary
art related uses on site. this gets us back up and operating for the
forseable interim. the permanent building projects are following in
parallel. the city now seems willing to hear and contend the shipping
container building scenarios in a less hostile manner, as well as
other regular prefab building types.

all this comes after a long internal political battle between the
mayor, city council, city depts, and ultimately bringing in the ragi
legal ram to push hard from our side. this pressure from many sides
turned the shipyard issue into a larger city discussion of the
difficulties moving art/innovation spaces and recycled building
materials through the realities of use permit and bldg code processes.
activities and values clearly prioritized in the city, and enshrined
in city legislation as goals and mandates, do not find enabling (or
tolerant) treatment when they interact with the reality of city bldg
regulators.

added to this is the fact of near zero internal check or public
oversight of the discretionary decisions and interpretations of bldg
officials. they are the police of the built world, but without any
ajoining court to check and review their decisions. well actually,
they are the judicial review of themselves, which is the problem. you
are assumed guilty, and have no recourse other than an offensive legal
action, which is costly, which is why most just roll over and pay
whatever to comply with this racket.

our project has brought these contradictions to public light in a
manner which is unpleasant for them. the result is now a near
complete turn around with zoning and bldg staff. also, the fire
marshal who drove this mess, david orth, retired in december (not as a
result of us mind you, but it is a nice coincidence anyway).

everyone has now returned to the table with renewed "enthusiasm" to
make this work, and with sudden reasonable and doable paths to restore
use to the legacy bldgs on our site and the containers afterwards.
while things are far from done and many hurdles remain, especially on
the financial side, i do feel confident that the basic existence
battles are now over and we have finally turned the corner into
details that are surmountable.


the mission and focus of the facility is going to change slightly on
reopening. we are going to add a formal "alt power engineering"
front, with the intention of creating a combined center for "art and
energy". a facility, information resource and gathering of people
engaged broadly in the endeavor of creative diy power hacking. a
place to experiment with power generation and conversion as an idiom
and medium of art- in all its social, sensual, conceptual and
existential dimensions.

i think art/energy is going to be the next art/tech like mashup. such
has already been going on informally in the yard for years. the
reopening will formalize this in name, program and facility
particulars. more on this to come in a later note.


in the meantime, thank you again for the support of many types all of
you provided to help us through this. your generosity is most deeply
appreciated and remembered. and soon, it will be repaid with more
interesting stuff and general pleasure across the hacking arts.

with gratitude,

jim