On June 26, the Berkeley City Council will decide whether to approve the Middle Housing plan, the biggest change to zoning in our city in decades. Yet the impacts of these zoning changes on displacement, sunlight, fire safety, and open space have not been considered in city hearings.

We ask the council to reject the current measure and to initiate a Middle Housing planning process that maximizes equity, livability, and accountability, with transparency and full public participation in town hall meetings city-wide.

Equity

The current Middle Housing plan authorizes by-right (meaning no public hearing) replacement of single family homes with 35-foot-high (three-story) apartment buildings of five to seven units everywhere in the city except parts of the hills. Supporters say this will rectify Berkeley’s history of housing discrimination.

Instead, the plan threatens the most vulnerable members of our community with displacement. The “Middle” in the plan’s name doesn’t mean homes affordable to middle-income, let alone lower-income people. It refers to the number of housing units on a lot.

Developers will buy up less expensive single-family homes and cottages throughout the city. They will demolish the buildings, cut down the trees, and build big new market-rate apartment buildings with little setback from the street in their place. Because many of the these less expensive homes are situated in South and West Berkeley, the result will be gentrification of those neighborhoods, the very neighborhoods historically impacted by redlining.

It's a gift to corporate developers, and inequitable as a result. Providing for equity and affordability is a complex problem that will not be solved by wholesale upzoning of almost the entire city.

Livability

The current plan has no design guidelines. It allows up to sixty percent lot coverage and only five-feet rear setbacks from the property line and five-feet separation between buildings on the same lot. It applies virtually the same rules to all residential areas zoned R1 through R-2A and MU-R, except in parts of the hills. If developers invoke California’s Density Bonus Law, the 35-foot height limit could zoom to 50-52 feet, and the number of units could increase from seven to eleven.

California already requires cities to allow a duplex plus two ADUs on a previously single-family-zoned lot outside of the state-designated fire zone. Because ADUs do not count in computing lot coverage in the Middle Housing plan, actual lot coverage could end up being close to 100%. This increased density poses a greater danger of fire jumping from one structure to another.

The upshot: Little room for trees or gardens or greenery of any kind. Goodbye to open space, privacy and sunlight. Hello to heightened fire danger.

Revise the Middle Housing plan to include design guidelines that protect our sunlight, privacy, and open space, and enhance fire safety.

Accountability

Plan proponents have said that we shouldn't be concerned about the magnitude of this change because the current economic conditions aren't conducive to taking advantage of it! So, what’s the hurry?

Supporters like to tick off the number of meetings the city has held about the Middle Housing plan. But those meetings focused on the broad issue of adding housing without meaningful discussion of the impact of the specifics. They were attended by only a tiny fraction of Berkeley residents, and were held before the current version of the plan was proposed. Most people are in the dark, or have been led to mistakenly believe that this is about Middle Income Housing.

Initiate a Middle Housing planning process that includes written notification to every affected property-owner, public meetings in every affected neighborhood, and robust debate, so we all understand how this will affect the city.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

There is much more to know about how our city will change if this plan is passed. JOIN US in demanding that the public be allowed to have a say in the discussion and decision-making process by signing this petition (please indicate your council district* or councilmember in the comment section), and by writing to the city council (council@berkeleyca.gov) demanding the same before its June 26 meeting. As we said before, what’s the big rush?

*https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/council-district-lookup

For more information, see BuildaBetterBerkeley.org