Berkeley Council OKs Zoning Overhaul, Allows Small Apartments Across Most of City

Amid a generationally divided debate, the Berkeley City Council on Thursday unanimously voted to overturn a more-than-century-old housing policy, allowing small apartment buildings in most of the city.

The Middle Housing ordinance will permit three-story buildings with up to eight units on a typical 5,000-square-foot lot, not including accessory dwelling units. The actual number will vary on lot size. The changes will apply citywide, except in Berkeley’s hills neighborhoods, which were excluded while the city studies evacuation routes in the high fire-risk zone.

The proposal must come back to the council for a second reading in July and is expected to be implemented in November. It comes four years after former Councilmember Lori Droste introduced a resolution to end exclusionary zoning in the city that came in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and a nationwide racial reckoning that followed.

Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani, who has championed the current proposal, said the changes would allow more opportunities for young people, families and middle-income residents to live in Berkeley.

“We are actually trying to create more starter-home opportunities for middle-class workers, for people of color, for people who have historically not had an opportunity to own a home and build multi-generational wealth,” Kesarwani said. “That is actually at the root of what I believe we are striving for with this entire ordinance.”

The unanimous vote, just before midnight, followed a nearly six-hour meeting punctuated by a sometimes raucous crowd. More than 100 people spoke during public comment, with opinions split roughly 60–40 in support.

Supporters included students, renters, parents with small children in tow and millennials, who advocated for more diverse housing options to meet the needs of young people and families trying to gain or keep a toehold in Berkeley.

“Not everyone wants to or can live in a single-family home,” said Nina Ichikawa, who identified herself as a third-generation Cal grad. “By just sticking to one type of housing, we’re limiting what Berkeley has to offer.”

They confronted a group composed largely of homeowners, who had bought into Berkeley decades ago and were worried the proposal would have the opposite of its intended effect, driving out more working families and changing the city beyond recognition.

“[In] 1973, Berkeley citizens passed the neighborhood preservation ordinance,” said resident Clifford Fred. “Now, 52 years later, you’re poised to pass the neighborhood destruction ordinance, I’m afraid to say.”

But hills resident Andrea Horbinski said the city shouldn’t be frozen in amber and should be allowed to grow.

“There are a lot of people who want to keep it as a necropolis for current homeowners, people who bought in the ’60s and ’70s,” Horbinski said. “Is it a tomb or is it a living community? A living community is what we want.”

Advocates also pointed to Berkeley’s role in pioneering exclusionary zoning as a driver of manufactured housing scarcity and rising costs. In 1916, the city became the first in the country to adopt single-family zoning, which was designed to protect property values from a perceived “invasion” of lower-cost housing — and the people who lived there — that would devalue homeowners’ investments.

Reforming exclusionary zoning, said Councilmember Ben Bartlett, a co-author of the Middle Housing proposal, is “the equity issue of our time.”

“We cannot keep deluding ourselves that we don’t have a scarcity problem,” Bartlett said. “You have to realize land is the foundation of wealth. And yet it remains out of reach due to the same scarcity that we prescribed, that we invented in our zoning code here.”

As of May, the “typical” Berkeley home sold for $1.4 million, according to Zillow, up more than 270% from a quarter-century ago. As home prices have risen, racial segregation in housing has persisted. In Berkeley, the portion of Black residents has dropped from 24% in 1970 to around 7% last year.

Many opponents, however, refuted the idea that Middle Housing would lead to greater diversity and criticized the lack of any dedicated, affordable housing in the proposal — though projects would be subject to the affordable housing impact fees that apply to all residential developments over 5,000 square feet.

“There’s no affordability in your plan. There’s no Section 8 support in your plan. There’s no guarantee of rent control in your plans, although many of these lots have houses on them,” said Negeene Mosaed, chair of the Berkeley Tenant Union. “You are not protecting the community. You are destroying it.”

Mosaed pointed to a 2022 study by the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project that found allowing more development could lead to “speculation, increased land values, and displacement.”

By expanding the buildable potential of properties in Berkeley, resident Janis Ching said it would incentivize developers to outbid would-be homeowners.

“This ordinance is going to commodify our land,” she said. “It’s going to make it difficult for homebuyers to compete with developers who want to build different types of housing, and also, it’s going to put pressure on people to sell and leave.”

Cheryl Davila, a former city council member, called the proposal and its promises for greater equity a “facade.”

“So this is all a fake,” she said. “People are going to get displaced and what’s going to be left? A white Berkeley or a Berkeley of billionaires.”

Other opponents pointed to the loss of open space, trees and other natural habitats for urban animals, along with concerns that three-story buildings would shade solar panels on single-story rooftops.

The ordinance allows buildings to cover 60% of the lot in most districts. It also requires the building height to step down to 22 feet in the rear of the property, partly, staff said, to address concerns about loss of light on neighbors’ properties.

But Councilmember Mark Humbert acknowledged some tradeoffs would have to be made.

“What is a bigger hit to our quality of life: losing a few hours of direct sunlight in the winter or losing our children to another state when they can’t afford a home in California?” he asked. “What really makes life in Berkeley less pleasant: a few more cars parked on the streets — hopefully more bicycles in foyers — or seeing more and more human beings forced to sleep on our streets?”

And even Duncan McDuffie, a real estate developer and key architect of Berkeley’s original plan, recognized that eventually, the zoning would need to change to reflect the city’s changing needs. At an annual dinner in the banquet room of the Hotel Shattuck on Jan. 21, 1916, he said city planning “must be rigid enough to direct the growth of the community and elastic enough to meet changing conditions. It should be a living thing — never fully completed but always being realized.”

The council directed staff to develop objective design standards and to return with a report two years after adoption or after 25 applications for Middle Housing projects have been filed, whichever comes first. The report is expected to assess the ordinance’s effectiveness and impact on equity, among other factors.