City of Berkeley and Bayer Corporation - Bayer Healthcare ...

IntRoDuCtIon
“ [Bayer] is engaged in the business of developing, manufacturing and distributing
human health care products and has been conducting this business for more than
70 years . . . within the City. . . . Typically, this requires a development process
with an average time frame of 10–12 years and an average investment of in
excess of $200 million. As a consequence, long range planning is mandatory for
business, financial, and competitive reasons.”
—Development Agreement, 1992, pAge 4
In 1992, the City of Berkeley and Bayer (then Miles, Inc.) signed an historic 30-year
Development Agreement (DA) that provided the company consistent and streamlined
site development permit processes in return for a broad array of mitigations for the
benefit of the City.
The DA was the culmination of over a year of negotiations, with the City recognizing
the value Bayer could bring as employer, economic engine, scientific innovator, and
community leader—and understanding that this international company could contemplate
such a major investment only if it could secure the reliable “long range planning
mandatory for business, financial, and competitive reasons.”
The Bayer facility has been core to Berkeley’s economy for over a century. The Development
Agreement was instrumental in making Bayer core to the community as well. In
this 17th year of the 30-year agreement, we can appreciate the mutual benefits the DA
has brought:
• Today’s 45-acre site stands at the hub of the Bay Area’s expanding green
economy, exemplifying the clean, streamlined look of high-tech industry in the
21st century. In 1992, the original site comprised 30 acres with the former Cutter
Laboratories at the center of a collection of antiquated factories.
• Bayer today is the largest for-profit employer in Berkeley, with more than 1,250
permanent employees including eminent scientists, biomanufacturing professionals,
engineers, administrators, and members of the International Longshore and
Warehouse Union, Local 6. Our employees come from over sixty countries, speaking
35 languages. On a typical day the Berkeley site also employs an average of about
300 short-term contractors.
• Bayer is the second-largest biotechnology employer in the Bay Area, and our
Berkeley site is the center of biotech research and development for Bayer worldwide.
Bayer’s biotech protein drug portfolio is currently among the world’s top ten in size.
• “Mitigation payments” that began with the DA have evolved into a vibrant
program of local Corporate Social Responsibility which includes philanthropy,
employee volunteerism, and environmental stewardship. Bayer has emerged as a good
neighbor and local leader on issues of shared importance including economic and
workforce development, environmental protection, and public education (see “Beyond
the Development Agreement, p. 53).
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