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Segment 1

The first order of business is roll call.
If the City Clerk can please call the roll.
Council member Castellani.
Here.
Kaplan.
Present.
Bartlett.
Is absent.
Tregem.
Present.
Hahn.
Present.
Weingrath.
Present.
Lunapara.
Here.
Humbert.
Present.
And Mayor Aragon.
Present.
A quorum of the City Council is present.
Thank you very much.
This is a special meeting of the City Council to take up one item of the agenda.
And it is the public comment on non-agenda matters.
We will begin our action calendar.
Item one, zoning ordinance and general plan amendments related to mental housing.
As this is a special meeting, we will not be taking public comment on non-agenda matters.
But you're welcome to join us for our 6 p.m.
regular meeting, to offer any public comment on non-agenda matters at that time.
And so, before I go to staff for the staff presentation, I just want to make an introductory announcement.
I want to welcome everyone to this meeting of the Berkeley City Council.
We are pleased to welcome you to this meeting.
In order to promote meaningful participation by all members of the community, and to ensure that important city business is able to be completed, we ask that all attendees conduct themselves in an orderly manner and respect the rights of others participating in the meeting.
Please be aware that the City Council's rules of the quorum prohibit the disruption of the orderly conduct of the council meeting.
A summary of these rules is available in the one-page handout on the table at the rear of the boardroom.
Disruptive behavior includes, but is not limited to, shouting, making disruptive noises, creating or participating in a physical disturbance, speaking out of turn or in violation of applicable rules, preventing or attempting to prevent others who have the floor from speaking, preventing others from observing the meeting, entering into or remaining in an area of the meeting room that is not open to the public, or approaching the council dais without consent.
We ask that you observe these rules so all members of the public may observe and participate in our meeting, and we thank you for joining us this afternoon.
Thank you.
So with that, we'll proceed now to item one, zoning ordinances and general plan amendments relating to middle housing, and we'll start first with a staff presentation.
I want to now turn the floor over to Jordan Klein, director of planning and development.
Good afternoon.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
Good afternoon, council members.
I'm joined at the staff table by Anne Hirsch, land use planning manager, and Samantha Uptegrade, the zoning officer.
I'm here to talk about the zoning ordinance.
This is a proposal to establish a zoning ordinance that will provide a robust and open environment for all the members of the public to participate in the meeting and we thank you for joining us this afternoon.
With that, we'll proceed now to item two, zoning ordinances and general plan amendments relating to middle housing, and we'll start first with a staff presentation.
Good afternoon, council members.
I'm Jordan Klein, land use planning manager, and Samantha Uptegrade, the zoning officer.
We're very pleased to have the opportunity to present to you an advanced middle housing zoning ordinance amendments today for your consideration.
This hearing is the culmination of years worth of work in response to several city council referrals dating back to at least 2017.
I want to acknowledge and appreciate all of the staff and consultants and commissioners that have worked on this project, as well as the thousands of residents who have engaged with us on this policy agenda.
Since we began working on it in earnest in 2022, including the many residents who have commented over the past week on the policy proposals under consideration at this hearing.
We all know that the residents of Berkeley care deeply about equitable housing, the environment, public safety, and other policy matters that are at play here, so it's no surprising that we've seen a lot of engagement on middle housing.
Council is being asked to consider new zoning ordinances and general plan amendments relating to middle housing, and we'll start with a staff presentation.
Good afternoon, council members.
I'm Jordan Klein, land use planning manager, and Samantha Uptegrade, the zoning officer.
We're very pleased to have the opportunity to present to you an advanced middle housing policy proposal.
The proposal's goal is to provide a more inclusive and equitable housing environment for all residents.
The staff is being asked to consider new objective standards that would facilitate the production of denser multi-unit development projects and low-density residential districts where those types of projects aren't currently allowed.
This is a program of the housing element, and it's an important component of the city's commitment to affirmatively further fair housing.
So we're pleased to have the opportunity to get your feedback today on the proposed zoning amendments.
Before I turn it over to Ann for the presentation, I want to call your attention to the revised materials and the recommendations of the staff that were submitted yesterday.
And the revised materials that staff submitted yesterday and were published yesterday.
Last week we became aware that unfortunately we made a procedural error related to the proposed general plan amendments to accompany the zoning ordinance amendments.
So we've modified the staff recommendation and are now requesting that council provide staff direction on the proposed amendments rather than adopt first reading of an ordinance today.
This will allow staff time to correct the procedural error, fire bring back the zoning ordinance, and then provide additional guidance on how to address the zoning ordinance amendments.
So I'm going to turn it over to Ann for the presentation.
Thank you.
The presentation was completed yesterday and I'd like to invite the city to take the authority for today's meeting to correct the procedural error, fire bring back the general plan amendments, and the proposed zoning amendments for first reading on a future date.
I sincerely apologize for the error and I really regret any delay that might be caused as a result of the error.
With that I'll now turn it over to Ann for the presentation.
Thank you, Jordan.
Again, I'm Ann Hirsch.
I'm the land use planning manager here with the city.
I'll provide a background overview.
The middle housing policy amendments are comprised of nine standards.
Five of those standards, there's a distinction between a planning commission recommendation and the staff recommendation where we are seeking some council direction for further ordinance refinement before we come back to the council for action.
The middle and little housing describes multifamily buildings that are larger than single family homes, but not as large as a typical podium or high-rise project.
Many of these projects are part of the existing fabric of Berkeley, such as the building on the left.
It can also be comprised of newer projects, such as the image in the middle, or it can be combinations of both, such as the image on the right side of the screen, which includes a landmarked property and the creation of new units on the rear of the lot.
Since 2017, the council has passed a number of referrals to direct staff to amend the zoning code to encourage multi-unit housing in our lower-density residential districts.
The housing element update includes program 29, which identifies the promotion of middle housing through amending our zoning standards to allow multi-unit development on one lot.
Staff commenced work on council's referrals in 2022, holding a series of discussions and work sessions to receive feedback.
Work on middle housing was included in the effort to adopt the housing element, and after adopting the south side zoning amendments, staff spent the latter half of 2023 conducting further outreach, which culminated in the Planning Commission's discussion of middle housing in November of last year.
Based on that discussion, staff drafted zoning ordinance changes, and the Planning Commission held a public hearing on February 7th, making a formal recommendation to city council.
Staff has conducted council meetings on the housing element and residential objective standards, and the Planning Commission and community engagement for middle housing standards, both as a housing element program and as a set of policy proposals in their own right.
For example, the council conducted four work sessions on the housing element and residential objective standards, including middle housing, and received briefing updates in August of 2023.
A joint subcommittee of the zoning adjustments board and the Planning Commission met twice to discuss residential objective standards and middle housing, as well as community outreach and engagement for the adopted housing element, specifically on middle housing.
Community outreach and engagement for the adopted housing element included 20 stakeholder interviews, a community-wide survey, 20 small format meetings, tabling at community events, and three public workshops.
What we've consistently heard throughout this process is that there is a desire to have more affordable housing, more housing production, and more housing for special needs in communities that are experiencing homelessness.
And on the right side of your screen, we've provided kind of a brief overview of presentations.
We've presented to 13 Berkeley boards and commissions.
We've held 18 meetings with 14 stakeholder interest groups, two online public workshops.
We had a pop-up event at the downtown farmer's market and then received numerous responses from a city-wide survey in November of 2021, as well as responses from a residential community.
And we've also received a number of questions about affordable housing.
Here are some of the boards from the event in 2022 where respondents were asked what type of housing they would like to see more of.
As you can see from the dots in that bottom row, there is a desire for a mix of housing types, especially middle housing, but also higher-density housing.
And this provides you just with some images that were taken from the survey.
And you can see that there are a number of different housing typologies within the city.
With respect to CEQA, an environmental impact report was prepared and adopted.
And the middle housing program is included as part of the housing element and was analyzed to evaluate the impacts associated with this policy.
There are nine proposed changes that would apply to the city's lower-density residential districts.
These would include changing the R1A and R2 zoning districts, permitting residential development with a zoning certificate, as well as changes to development standards related to minimum densities, lot coverage, height standards, open space requirements, setbacks and building separation, and the demolition of single-family homes.
The proposed changes would apply in the city's lower-density residential districts that are located in the lower-density zoning districts.
The proposed changes would apply in the city's lower-density residential districts.
The planning commission's recommendation included parcels located in the hillside overlay district, which the staff recommendation excluded.
The proposed ordinance merges the R1A and R2 districts.
Staff recommends merging zoning districts where regulatory differences between the two districts are negligible.
Within this package of changes, the city's zoning commission recommended merging the R1A and R2 districts.
Currently, all residential uses in Berkeley require a use permit and a public hearing.
Projects in the R1 and R1A zoning districts are eligible for SB9 by right approval for up to two units on a lot, and ADUs that meet standards set in the zoning code are approved by right.
The proposed ordinance would create a new land use category for residential projects.
The proposed ordinance would require that any residential project that complies with all objective standards would be approved with a zoning certificate.
Similar to ADUs, neighbors of residential projects would receive notices within 10 days of a project's submittal.
Discretionary approvals for residential projects would still be required in certain circumstances, such as if a structure of historic merit were involved.
Next slide, please.
The first change relates to residential additions.
Currently, an AUP is required for a residential addition that exceeds 600 square feet or 15% of the lot area, and additions are subject to height limits that are more restrictive than those for new main buildings.
For the planning commission, this appeared inconsistent to permit with the construction of brand-new residential projects with a zoning certificate, and the zoning code requires an AUP when adding a fifth bedroom to a lot in these residential zones, and a use permit for adding any bedroom beyond the fifth bedroom to a lot.
Again, as the proposed zoning changes included permitting altogether, new multifamily projects with a zoning certificate would not be permitted.
The second change is a revision that would remove permit requirements for new bedrooms.
Currently, the zoning code requires an AUP when adding a fifth bedroom to a lot in these residential zones, and the zoning code requires an AUP when adding a fifth bedroom to a lot in these residential zones.
Again, as the proposed zoning changes included permitting altogether, new multifamily projects with a zoning certificate, this also appeared inconsistent to require an AUP or a UP to a bedroom.
Therefore, the proposed ordinance includes revisions that remove separate permit requirements for new bedrooms.
The city council requested the study of minimum and maximum density standards for these buildings.
The city council requested that the minimum density standards be applied, which also includes the minimum number of units that would result from the standard on a typical 4,000-square-foot lot.
The minimum density standards would not apply to ADUs.
Currently, in the R districts, the maximum average building height is 28 feet, which can be increased to 35 feet with an AUP.
In the MUR, the maximum building height would be 25 feet.
The MUR does not include this option in the R districts, and instead establishes a 28-foot maximum average height and a 35-foot maximum height standard.
This combination accommodates three-story buildings while controlling overall bulk and mass.
Maximum height would remain at 35 feet in the MUR district.
For the R districts in the MUR, a standard has been included which would limit the maximum maximum height of a project size.
This is in line with the recommendations that were presented to planning commission and to the council last year.
With respect to lot coverage, it currently varies by zone, and is determined by the height of a proposed project.
The proposed standards would increase the maximum lot coverage in low-density residential districts to 60 percent in the MUR district.
The shown maximum lot coverage is already 100 percent in the MUR district.
Currently, open space standards vary by zoning district and are based on the number of units in a proposed project.
The proposed standard would be the same for the R1, R2, R2A, and MUR districts, and would be calculated based upon the total number of units in a single lot.
This is consistent with the recent change that has been made to the calculation of the affordable housing fee and for open space standards in the south side.
Total residential square footage recognizes that there are both conventional units and group living accommodation projects, as well as the need to have flexibility to provide open space when there are multiple units on a single lot.
It is worth noting that required open space does not constitute all of the undeveloped units in the MUR district.
The proposed standards include changes to setback and building separation requirements, although the standards in the MUR would remain the same.
For our districts, the setbacks largely match what is required for ADUs.
Here you can see the rear setback is proposed to be four feet, which is what is required for ADUs.
The building's maximum height is limited to 22 feet within 15 feet of the building's maximum height, which is what is required for ADUs.
The interior side setback in the R1, R2 and R2A zoning districts would also be four feet.
Front setback standards would be reduced by five feet, from 20 feet to 15 feet in the R1 and R2 zoning districts, and in the R2A, this would be reduced from 15 feet to 10 feet.
Projects could provide a smaller setback that is the average of the front setback and adjacent to the R1 and R2A zoning districts.
The zoning standards also include a reduction in building separation requirements.
While staff has initially proposed doing away with building separation entirely after consultation with the fire department, the proposal includes a five-foot separation requirement, which is also reflected in the recently adopted ADU standards.
Finally, the ordinance includes a change related to the demolition of single-family homes.
The proposed ordinance includes a change related to the demolition of single-family homes, which permitted the demolition of single-family homes that were not tenant occupied with an administrative use permit if the demolition would result in a project that would create a net increase in units.
The adopted housing element commits the city council to consider permitting the demolition of single-family homes with a zoning certificate.
Therefore, the proposed ordinance includes permitting the demolition of single-family homes with a zoning certificate.
The proposed ordinance commits the city to consider permitting the demolition of single-family homes that, if the demolition would result in a project that creates a net increase in units.
And now we will examine the five components of proposed policies where there was a discrepancy between the staff recommendation and the planning commission recommendation.
As we go through the slides, staff will present the current standard, the planning commission recommendation and the planning commission recommendation.
The five components of the proposed policy that we discussed earlier include the exclusion of the hillside overlay district.
The city is currently undertaking a safety and evacuation study of high-risk fire zones.
So staff's initial recommendation was to exclude the hillside overlay from the zoning changes until such studies are complete.
And so, as you can see, the planning commission recommendation to include the hillside is on the left side of the screen.
As part of the housing element, staff was directed to develop zoning ordinance amendments that would streamline the approval of projects that have more than two units on a single lot.
Consistent with that direction, staff had proposed to the planning commission permitting multi-unit residential buildings that met objective standards with a zoning certificate.
Since development standards were to encourage multi-unit housing, staff's alternative included preserving the more stringent use of public hearing process requirement for single family homes.
This distinction in permit requirements was largely to provide an incentive for an applicant to consider creating a multi-unit residential project.
And as you can see here, for residential additions, the current standard requires an AUP for additional floor area and heights that are lower than the main buildings.
The planning commission recommended allowing this through a zoning certificate if the project complies with development standards for main buildings.
And the staff alternative preserved the zoning certificate as long as the project resulted in the creation of new dwelling units.
Staff's initial proposal to the planning commission only included the reduced permit requirements in cases where a project would include a net increase in units.
This reflected feedback received from the city council and others that middle housing standards.
So, thank you.
That, sorry.
Would not merely result in permitting larger single family homes, but that additional development capacity would add units to the housing stock.
The city council had directed staff to consider minimum and maximum density standards for middle housing projects.
Staff had originally proposed the following maximum density standards for the planning commission's consideration.
This slide also includes information as to the maximum number of units that could be included in a project on a typical 4,000 square foot lot.
Staff had initially proposed maximum density standards at the request of city council and with the intent of providing predictability to property owners and neighbors.
The planning commission recommendation did not include maximum density standards as a maximum density standard was considered a cap on housing and the building size was sufficiently controlled through other development standards including maximum density standards for the roofing services, as well as the lower level of back and lock coverage.
With respect to floor area ratio, there is no current standard and the planning commission put forth carrying this forward, again, identifying that other development standards would control bulk and mass.
I want to just identify that we have updated this table.
The floor area ratio standard is the same as the current standard.
The floor area ratio standard is the same as the current and does differ slightly.
Staff had originally proposed a maximum floor area ratio standard for the planning commission's consideration.
FAR provides an objective standard for the size and bulk of buildings on a lot without being overly prescriptive as to the building location and appearance.
Additionally, the maximum floor area ratio standard was proposed by the planning commission.
The planning commission recommended that staff receive from the middle housing consistent with direction, staff receive the middle housing development standards as it would result in the addition of units to the housing stock and not just permit larger units in low density or single family projects.
Similarly, staff had presented to the planning commission a proposal to scale up permitted maximum lock coverage based on the housing stock.
The proposal included a uniform 60% lock coverage standard for all residential projects.
The staff alternative included lower lock coverage standards for projects with fewer units.
This, again, was a proposal consistent with feedback that middle housing standards should encourage more units, not just result in larger low density projects.
And with that, I'm going to conclude my presentation, and I'm going to turn it over to Jordan to provide some additional information.
I'm going to give you some direction for further refinement to this ordinance before bringing it back to you at a future date.
Jordan and I are here to answer questions.
We also have the zoning officer and cultural resources officer available to answer questions.
Thank you very much.
So here's how I would like to proceed.
I'm going to give each councilmember three minutes to ask any initial questions or make any initial comments.
And then I'm going to turn it over to the zoning officer and cultural resources officer to have any substantive debate or take any action.
I think we absolutely want to hear from all of you here today and those on Zoom.
So if you want to speak, press your button to be added to the queue, or if you have a question, press your button.
You have three minutes.
We set the clock for three minutes.
We'll go first to Councilor Tregub.
You only have three minutes.
If you go beyond three minutes, we'll go back to you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I actually just wanted to ask some questions.
On the slide 25, I wanted to just confirm with staff that as currently proposed, there is no requirement for a single family home from being demolished under a zoning certificate if there was an eviction of a sitting tenant in the prior five years.
Just kind of wanted to understand the interplay between the demolition ordinance we passed and that.
And if you can just confirm that there's nothing under SB 25, there is no requirement for a single family home from being demolished under the standard preventing demolitions.
If it's okay, I'm just going to ask all my questions on the record now.
I don't think I need all three minutes.
I wanted to confirm when the fire study is coming for the hillside overlay.
I also wanted to confirm if it staff's contention that the implication of the planning commission's recommendation on maximum floor area ratio is more larger single family homes.
I wanted you to just provide some more color as to how you are anticipating that.
And lastly, I understand that there's been a lot of discussion about the non-value recapture, and I was curious how that may have been captured or not in either of the recommendations that were before us today.
Sure.
I think I'll take the first crack at answering these.
I got four of them down.
I think I may have missed one.
I'm going to go through.
I think I'm going to go through the first one.
The non-value recapture would not apply to a residential unit when immediately following an LSAC eviction would still apply in the case of a single family home.
So the allowance of a single family home to be demolished via zoning certificate would not apply to a single family home when immediately following an LSAC eviction would still apply in the case of a single family home.
Any questions? No.
Ladies and gentlemen, in order to make sure we can get to our meeting, please don't interrupt.
Let's give everyone the respect that they deserve.
We want to hear from everyone.
I understand there's a lot of concerns about demolition.
I want to note that we were working on the demolition ordinance for a number of years.
Until council had already taken consideration on broader amendments and updates to the demolition ordinance.
Those were adopted on second reading on July 9th.
City council worked for years on updating that ordinance to make sure that it's compliant with state law while preserving and carrying forward this very strong tenant protections.
We wanted to make sure that those tenant protections were completed prior to relocation benefits right of return.
In addition to demolition when harassment or LSAC eviction has taken place.
So council made a deliberate choice to carry forward all of those tenant protections.
We wanted to make sure that policy consideration had been completed for taking up these middle housing provisions.
I want to note that we were working on the demolition ordinance for a number of years until council had already taken consideration on broader amendments to the demolition ordinance.
That was adopted on second reading on July 9th.
It includes that demolition is not allowed if the residential unit was removed from the rental market through a tenant protection agreement.
It is not allowed to demolish any of the homes that are proposed to be demolished in order to make way for a dental project.
I see.
So it would not be any level of permit.
It would just not be allowed.
That's correct.
Thank you.
That does clarify it for me.
Yeah.
Great.
The next question that I caught, I think I may have missed one, is about the elimination of scaling.
There is a study that is expected to be advanced to city council for consideration sometime this fall.
I believe the fire department staff are here if council has more specific questions about that study.
On the elimination of scaling, I do think I do have some comments.
I think it's important to note that the zoning ordinance that was proposed against large single-family homes, that's what might result from the zoning ordinance amendments.
We were referred from city council the desire to allow and facilitate denser multi-unit development projects in what have historically been low density neighborhoods with the intent of reversing the existing zoning ordinance.
The zoning ordinance that was proposed by the city council originally designed the provisions with the idea that you could only max out the buildable envelope of the site when you're proposing a project that includes multiple units.
That was the idea behind the scaling F.A.R.
And the scaling lot coverage.
Planning commission felt that the F.A.R.
would be a better fit for large single-family homes.
I'm concerned that there's a proven market for large single-family homes in Berkeley.
It's down to people know.
There's a strong demand for those.
I would also note that the construction costs per square foot tend to be lower because you're only building one kitchen.
A lot of the construction costs are higher for larger single-family homes.
So, I think with a more proven market, less need for small developments.
So, I'm concerned that the construction costs per square foot tend to be lower because you're only building one kitchen.
I would also note that the construction costs per square foot tend to be lower because you're only building one kitchen.
So, I'm concerned that the.

Segment 2

I'm concerned that we're going to end up with that unless council considers other mechanisms to control for for that outcome.
The referral on loan value recapture.
Planning commission has considered that multiple times in connection with.
Uh, multiple different, uh, land use policy matters.
They, they've consistently.
Uh, landed on the idea that the inclusionary housing requirements for the city of Berkeley.
Constitute our land value capture.
Uh, strategy, it scales, it has the benefit of scaling.
So the denser the project, the larger the community benefit.
Did I miss any of the questions I don't believe you did.
So thank you so much.
Thank you, and I'm going to turn it over to staff to answer any questions that they may have.
In the interest of time, staff can try to keep their a little bit more succinct.
So we're going to get more into it after the public hearing.
So we'll go next to vice mayor Wengrath.
Thank you.
1st, I want to address the zoning in the hillside overlay.
Berkeley prides itself on being a leader in housing reform and an environmental leader and a leader in fighting climate change.
Expanding housing opportunities is a very high priority for me.
I supported the missing middle proposal and I'm very sympathetic to young families that can't afford to move to birth.
However, creating more housing opportunities should not be done by putting lives at risk.
I think we can all agree that the most fundamental goal.
So, if you clap, you're taking up our time.
So I think we can all agree that the most fundamental goal of government is to promote the safety of our residents.
I cannot support putting them putting my constituents, 15,000 people who live in district 6 and that's just district 6.
I cannot support putting them in harm's way.
Please listen to our fire chief.
He has presented a science based report documenting all the reasons why increasing density in the fire zones of our city is a bad idea.
Please do not include the H overlay and the zone in plans to densify our city.
We already have SB 9 and our regulations currently in place that allow for more than a 100% increase in density in the hills.
Any additional densification will exacerbate an extremely dangerous situation and threaten not only the people in the hills, but the people in the entire city.
We've seen that happen before.
Climate change is not going away.
Extreme weather events will probably become more extreme in the future.
I want to commend the planning staff for excluding the H overlay from the middle from the middle housing proposal, but the planning commission ignored the risks and realities that face hills residents.
Their recommendation that the hills be included in this up zoning is reckless and irresponsible.
I hope that any recommendations that come out of this afternoon's meeting will exclude the H overlay and ESR from any further consideration.
Trust me, those of us who live in the hills know that the evacuation study that's forthcoming will not tell us anything that we do not already know.
Under extreme weather conditions, our current residents will not be able to escape safely.
A wildfire can move at exceptional speeds, destroying everything in its path and will threaten the entire city all the way down to the bay.
It could take 20 to 30 minutes for a wildfire to grow from grizzly peak down to Martin Luther King way.
Adding density of people, structures and vehicles to this very vulnerable area of the city is madness.
I have additional questions of staff, but I think my beeper just went off and so I'll hold those for later.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
All right, let's go now to Councilor Hahn.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, and it's great to see so many people here today.
I'm going to start by saying a couple of things.
I'm going to start by saying a couple of things.
I'm going to start by saying, first of all, I also represent, I guess, the 2nd largest number of people who live in very high fire hazard severity zones and who are already at risk of losing their lives as well as their properties in in the fire when it comes because it isn't a question of whether we will have one.
But I'm going to start by saying that I am 100% in agreement with Councilor Gabbard's comments regarding the fire areas.
I am 100% in agreement with her and I won't take more of my time now repeating what she's already said.
I just want to say a few words about process and content.
And then I also want to say a few words about the specific set of proposed zoning and general plan amendments, which covered like 50 different topics around housing.
They've been about a whole bunch of things that are tangential to this specific set of proposed zoning and general plan amendments.
But the particular unusual set of recommendations that the planning commission put forward have not been.
They have not been consistent with what the planning commission has put forward and I want to say with all due respect the work that our commissions do there is no substitute.
Or speaking directly to your elected officials.
So, I do not believe that a single hearing for this is enough.
But I am pleased that they allow us all council and the public.
More time to understand and respond to what are incredibly.
Widely applied and impactful changes.
To pretty much everybody's home in Berkeley, and I believe that warrants.
More thoughtful and deliberative and more input from the community.
I want to speak a little bit to content as well.
I'm, I'm curious.
I don't want anyone to say anything, but if you could raise your hand in the public, if you could right now stand up, I'm not asking you to do it.
But if you feel confident that you could stand up and explain to everyone here, what is.
Okay, wow.
All right.
We've got, we've got a couple of people here who could do that.
But clearly, most people.
Don't have a strong understanding of that concept.
This is just 1 example of how we need to make sure everyone understands what we're talking about before we take action.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council member, yes, thank you.
Mr.
mayor.
I just, I want to.
I want to acknowledge that there really are very serious fire risks in the hills and I, and I think it's absolutely prudent to wait until the, we received the evacuation study to to see what portion of these changes can appropriately apply to the hill.
So, I, I agree with council member wind graph.
Absolutely.
In that regard.
I just have 1 question.
I have a statement that I want to make later after public comment, but I have, I have 1 question of Mr.
Klein, and I'm not sure if he can answer it or not, but I wanted to know approximately how much in city funds have been spent on consultants and staff time for the missing middle housing effort.
To date, if you have a sense of that, including staff time, or just consultants, including staff time, if we.
You know, if you can estimate that if you can't, yeah, I mean, I think the total budget for consultant services has been about 150,000 dollars or 200,000 dollars.
It's inclusive, but excluding what we spent on the environmental review for housing element, which I'm not included.
We probably spent the equivalent of.
Um, you know, I, you know, at least 1 for the past.
Uh, 3, at least 1 full time employee for the past, uh, 3 years, I would say.
Um, so that, I mean, in dollar amount, it's, it's a lot of money probably.
Also, it's certainly an excess of a half a 1Million dollars approaching 3 quarters of 1Million dollars.
Yeah, thank you very much.
That's that was my only question.
Appreciate it.
Are there any other.
Initial questions or comments from members of the council.
So, press your button or raise your hand.
Okay, I want to wait to ask my questions and make my comments until I hear from the public.
And so here are the ground rules for how the public hearings to be conducted.
Once again, I want to go back to my initial statement about our rules of the quorum.
I know people feel very strongly about this issue.
We all care about our community.
Let's be respectful of each other.
Let's not interrupt speakers, heckle speakers.
People can people can disagree.
We want to hear from everyone.
And so, given the anticipated number of speakers like to ask for unanimous consent to set the public comments speaking time for 1 minute.
Any objection so the way our rules work is that people have a minute to speak on the topic, or if you get 3 other people to yield you the minute, you will have 4 minutes, the maximum 4 minutes.
So, the organizational speakers, you may want to pull time so that people can speak for 4 minutes.
Otherwise people have 1 minute.
We have many people on zoom who would like to speak as well, but we're going to go 1st to those those people that are here in person to take their comments.
And then we'll go to public comments on zoom.
And so I know there are a lot of people who want to speak today.
The way we're going to do this is ask people to very politely line up on this side of the room.
In an orderly manner and.
And if the line is too long that if you can please wait until we get through the queue and then line up again.
And we will get to every single person today, because we want to hear from you.
It's extremely important that we hear from our community about this very important issue today.
If there are people that have.
Mobility issues that would like to speak 1st.
You are welcome to start.
So, 1st, Lindsey, are you still online.
Yes.
The time is right.
Okay.
Okay, so I will now open the public hearing and I don't want zoning ordinance in general plan amendments related to middle housing.
And if you would like to begin.
You could pull down the Mike, so we can get sure.
Hi, my name is Mary.
I'm a 22 year homeowner in Berkeley and a very long time resident.
I came here to ask you not to vote today, but given the changes, I'm going to focus on the nuts of my comment.
And that is, 1st of all, there was a remarkable departure in this proposal today from the just the very basic rules that we have about emergency preparedness, not just fire, but earthquake and evacuation and all the other emergency preparedness items that people like me in the Berkeley foothills care about a lot.
So, that was a remarkable departure and I saw the fire chief's notes and I really appreciated that.
So, I really felt bad that you were going to move ahead with a vote.
Or you might have moved ahead with a vote.
Nonetheless, the 2nd thing I want to say is a Berkeley fire department showed up on my house twice in the last 2 months, and they did an evaluation all around my house and they sent me some postcards and said, here's what you need to do.
And here's what we recommend.
And many, they did the same thing for all of my neighbors.
Many of us spent money that we did not have.
To do those mitigations for fire hazards.
So, the idea that you guys might move forward and not consider what we already know about evacuation was hurting my feelings.
Thank you.
Council members, my name is Braden McLean, and I stand before you today in support of the missing middle housing ordinance.
Having stepped away from my newborn triplet daughters in the hospital due to the urgency of answering this question, where will their generation be able to live and thrive in Berkeley? Decade ago, I arrived here and navigate their housing gauntlet, living on couches and in bunk beds.
And today I'm privileged to own a home in district 8, where we've created a vibrant multi-generational community.
But our 3 families are squeezed into a single family home, highlighting the need that this ordinance is aiming at addressing.
So, legalizing missing middle housing is about breaking free of this zoning stranglehold that is stifling how young families, like ours, already prefer to live our lives.
So, please let us build the housing that can support and celebrate our close knit community lifestyle and defend Berkeley's diverse, inclusive generation, inclusive community for my daughter's generation.
Thank you.
Congratulations on your newborns.
I hope you go back to the hospital now.
Thanks for being here.
Hello, my name is Greg Murphy.
I happen to be a member of the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission.
However, I'm here as an individual today.
I live on the Loma Avenue on a home that was built on the ashes of the 1923 Berkeley Hills fire, and as a result, very aware of the impact of the disaster and fire safety commission on our community.
And as a result, very aware of the vulnerability of fire zones 2 and 3 in Berkeley.
And I want to just reiterate what Councilman Wengraff started, that the Hills overlay really should be held off.
It is just inconscionable to me that staff recommended that that be held off and the planning commission went ahead with it.
And I just want to end with a reiteration of Chief Sprague's summary about this issue.
The department would strongly suggest that encouraging further density within the fire zones, which already pose a high risk of structure to structure fire spread and are ill equipped for evacuation is unadvisable.
The fire zone should be excluded from the middle housing zone amendments.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for having us.
I'm Penny.
I'm a 40 year resident of Berkeley district 6.
And I have to say that the fire truck that was next door to mine burned down to the ground in a house fire.
It was very difficult for the fire trucks to reach the house.
And I have to say that the fire truck that was next door to mine burned down to the ground in a house fire.
It was very difficult for the fire trucks to reach the house.
And I have to say to all my neighbors.
So there's ample evidence.
Plus the comments from all of you and my neighbors that it is unconscionable that more vehicles will be parked on our streets.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
I'm Brent black could be 20 year resident of district 6 and a candidate for council this fall.
I want to thank vice mayor when graph for leadership.
Thank you.
I'm going to support the development of more affordable housing across Berkeley, including missing middle, where it is safe to do so, where transportation infrastructure can support greater density.
Unfortunately, adding more housing density people in cars to the hills specifically, very high fire.
So, very zones 2 and 3 is not safe.
It's a very high density and not existent on weekends in response to the commission's proposal.
Chief spray strongly advised against adding density to the hills because it quote may nullify the work being done to transition zones to more wildfire safe environment.
In addition, we're still waiting for the long awaited evacuation study.
For these reasons, we need a 282 undersigned urge the council to hold on any zoning modifications in fire zones, 2 and 3, while moving forward with missing middle housing in areas of Berkeley, where it is safe to do so.
Hello, I'm Margo Smith.
I've been living in Berkeley since 1969, and I've seen many, many changes here in Berkeley.
A lot of high rise housing going up all over the place.
We've increased density enormously in the last few years and increasing all that density has not lowered the price of housing in Berkeley at all.
And putting more middle housing in Berkeley is increasing density is not going to lower prices or make any more available to moderate income or low income people.
This is a farce and I oppose the rezoning.
It has, we have experienced increased density and it has not lowered the prices for anybody and the missing housing in the future is not going to do it either.
Thank you very much.
Hi, I'm Laura Schmidt.
I'm a UCSF professor who works on poverty and health.
I've been in the field for over 30 years and I've conducted studies of homelessness.
And I fully understand and deeply appreciate the need for addressing homelessness in this community.
Sorry, I'm also here today speaking as a resident of the Berkeley fire zone 2, where this year, many of my neighbors lost their home insurance because of the extreme fire risk.
I was also here for the Oakland firestorm, and I know people who lost their homes and lost family members as a result of that crisis.
They were unable to evacuate their homes in time 27 people.
Since then, climate changes only made the situation worse.
While I wholeheartedly support our efforts in this community to promote middle housing and deal with housing insecurity, I can't support efforts.
To make make my home and my family and my neighbors unsafe during fires.
My name is Nori Hudson.
I'm yielding my time to Wanda.
I want to work in 10 in district 1.
I feel that the council and all of these planners.
Think it's a crime to believe in property rights.
Property rights of ordinary citizens, not the grillionaires that you people are defending.
And using things like racism and greed to say that that's what we are.
That is the people you are working for.
You don't even know it.
Those people are calling you useful idiots.
You're getting the job done when the pitchforks come out.
You're the ones in line to feel it because they're going to be long gone.
The developers are not landlords there.
They get their money.
They leave.
There's no such thing.
It's corporate housing.
Look at the standard.
Residents on Bancroft Avenue where there's leaking the ceiling is falling in.
There's leaking from the top from the middle and from the bottom.
This was approved before it was actually ready.
And that's what what you're doing.
You are working for those who want to system property from ordinary citizens who could afford to buy a house.
My sister bought a house in the 70s when it was a black neighborhood.
Her neighbor, thank you.
She rented.
I have another minute.
You are defending the people who make housing prices go up.
These people who talk about, oh, well, I own a home, but I need a 2nd home are now on our block.
The homes are worth a million dollars.
Nobody could afford that.
I just want to read 1 more thing.
There's a lot more to say, but in attending a Berkeley fire department meeting this past year, where the chief was laying out the state of the city's condition fire conditions, I learned an amazing thing.
I just want to read 1 more thing.
There's a lot more to say, but in attending a Berkeley fire department meeting this past year, where the chief was laying out the state of the city's condition fire conditions.
I just want to read 1 more thing.
There's a lot more to say, but in attending a Berkeley fire department meeting this past year, where the chief was laying out the state of the city's condition fire conditions, I learned an amazing fact that the fire department is not equipped and able to fight fires in high rise buildings.
I just want to read 1 more thing.
There's a lot more to say, but in attending a Berkeley fire department meeting this past year, where the chief was laying out the state of the city's condition fire conditions, I learned an amazing fact that the fire department is not equipped and able to fight fires in high rise buildings.
So, I'm familiar with our issues here and the missing middle is a great proposal, but it needs a couple adjustments.
Obviously, we need to address the fire safety and I'm kind of disappointed that we're going to spend a lot of time on that when it's pretty obvious we're going to need to do that.
And I'm kind of disappointed that we're going to spend a lot of time on that when it's pretty obvious we're going to need to do that.
But I really think we need to also look at the objective design standards or form based code that should go along with the current proposal by staff and planning commission because right now we can end up with the same 1970s type apartment buildings that we rejected with the neighborhood preservation ordinance.
I wasn't here for the NPO, but I saw the reasons why people took up the NPO.
The 2nd thing I wanted to bring up is the zoning does not address equity right? And I put it in the letter that we really need a way to address the equity for the single family homeowners in the San Pablo park area.
Thank you.
And in the west of Martin Luther King area, these are redlined areas that's going to help you to move on racial equity, not a zoning proposal.
So we've totally lost sight of that.
So let's, let's get on track.
Thank you.
My name's Jonathan and I've lived in district 6 for 45 years.
Recently, I attended the fire webinar and learned about the risk of fire.
And as I was driving down Marin Avenue, stuck in traffic, as is the usual case every day, I assumed that the city had a plan for evacuating people out of the hills.
I contacted my council person and was put in touch with the police department and learned that such a plan is still under study.
However, it is felt that in the event of an emergency, there are not adequate resources to ensure traffic flow.
So, population density is 1 thing.
It's not low density.
If you don't have the infrastructure to support it, we do not have the roads to provide safety.
In the case of the fire, we do not have a safe situation there and increasing the population density puts everybody who lives in that area at risk, including the new people moving in there, their lives are at risk.
And I urge you not to pursue the restrictions in advance.
Thank you.
Thank you, Nancy, and I'll turn it over to Nancy Rader, who's going to talk to you about the fire safety plan.
Good afternoon.
My name is Nancy Rader, and I'm here today, representing the Berkeley Fire Safe Council, a Berkeley nonprofit dedicated to preventing catastrophic wildfire in Berkeley Fire Safe Council strongly urges you to exclude our high fire zones from the proposed ordinance as your fire department has very clearly recommended, regardless of the evacuation study, your duty is to protect the safety of Berkeley residents, adding population, vehicles, and closely spaced storage facilities to the fire safety plan.
In addition to the high fire zones, we also urge you to reduce the risk of wildfire in the city.
In addition to the high fire zones, adding population, vehicles, and closely spaced structures to the high fire zones would substantially increase the wildfire threat facing the entire city, not just the hills.
The city has a great deal of work to do in the areas of reducing the large quantities of highly hazardous fire prone vegetation, fully implementing and enforcing the defense defensible space inspection program, and addressing the street congestion from parks, park cars on our narrow windy streets that will trap trap many people in a wildfire.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I thought this was going to be a historic meeting and I wasn't sure that I read the supplemental correctly that you really weren't going to take a vote because I came here to see if we were really going to have a council that will give middle finger to our fire department.
And I think you understand what that means, even though I see some expressions that find it confusing.
But that's why I'm here.
That's why I arrived.
I thought it'd be really fun to write about who ignored the fire department and who voted to increase density in the high fire zones.
Thank you.
I read some of the letters before, and I figured I had a count of at least 4 who were going to ignore the fire department, but there is hope.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I want to acknowledge Susan for her comments.
I appreciate the conciseness and the accuracy of everything she said.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I want to listen to her and carry forward with the points that she brought up.
I was amazed to learn today how much has gone on in building to this point.
I was amazed to learn how much has gone on in building to this point.
I was amazed to learn what was going on.
The monies that were spent on that, and I'm not here to talk about money, quite honestly, but the planning has no touch as to how much has been spent on this already.
I'm not here to talk about money, quite honestly, but the planning has no touch as to how much has been spent on this already.
I'm not here to talk about money, quite honestly, but the planning has no touch as to how much has been spent on this already.

Segment 3

that point.
I think it's substandard.
Pardon me? You mean substandard.
What did I say? I mean substandard.
I'm sorry, thank you for the correction.
But at any rate, I'll just close with that.
Please, please reject the proposed general plan amendments that this meeting addresses.
Thank you.
Hello, city council, all my wonderful colleagues and neighbors.
Hi, everybody.
On the false hope that building up Berkeley will lower rents and not increase the land value and therefore not raise the rents as a consequence, rather it is this is written in a hurry, but rather it is to lower rents that is this hope cliche of Samuelson's crude old economy context of quote supply and demand.
That doesn't make sense, but I think you get the point.
But when this theory fails, the builders, the bankers, and the council will have gone.
Oops, oh, well, we were wrong.
Life goes on.
Big profits, no liability.
Berkeley land is value.
Berkeley land value is being extracted and is ready for private equity down the road.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Veronica.
I'm a resident of District 8.
I'm a mom of a two-year-old and I'm a climate scientist.
We want to stay in Berkeley and grow our families in Berkeley, but it is unaffordable.
And I hear a lot of talk about the climate crisis, but it is only going to get worse unless we rapidly reduce carbon emissions.
And we cannot do that without increasing the density of our cities and relying less on cars.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Tess.
I live in District 5.
So I'm a homeowner in the hills.
I have a few things to say.
One, I'm standing up here largely just to represent the younger voice in Berkeley.
We've got a lot of older residents here who, I will say, as a mom of a three-year-old and a six-year-old, I have the privilege to be here.
A lot of parents of young kids who are working full-time cannot be here.
So when you see the balance between the younger people who tend to support denser housing and the older people who seem to really cling to the status quo, just remember that there's a lot of young parents like me who can't be here today and don't are really tied up in the lives of their families and can't be here.
The other thing I just want to remind everyone is that I've worked in housing before.
Development does not happen overnight.
So yes, the new proposal allows for the construction of 100,000 new units or whatever it is.
That doesn't mean that's going to happen.
No one's going to go around tearing down single-family houses in the Berkeley hills and replacing them with 10 boxes.
Oh, they are.
Oh, maybe they are.
Let's not interrupt this.
Okay.
Well, my bad then, everyone.
But anyway, my point is just that development is a slower process and that we will have time, even if this proposal passes and it does create more density, there is time for the fire department to adjust.
There's time for us to develop better evacuation plans.
Okay.
Ma'am, if you could just wrap it up, please.
So, okay.
Sir, before you start.
Sir, excuse me, sir.
Sir, I need to make a statement.
Can you wait? So, that was, first of all, please do not interrupt the speakers.
I know we all care about this community.
Let people have the floor.
Let's not interrupt people.
It's also not appropriate to flip people off or cuss at people or treat people disrespectfully.
We all love Berkeley.
Let's give each other the respect and attention that they deserve.
So, I really call on everyone to please be civil and respectful of each other.
Let's hear from each other.
And I'm going to turn the floor over to you again.
Okay.
My name is Jeff Kaplan and I live in District 1.
Given that this missing middle housing will almost certainly be more expensive, too expensive for middle income people, one must want to ask what is it built for? Who is it built for? There's no reason to think that any of it will be cheaper than the high rises that are already going up.
I think I know the answer.
It appears that the city is planning in conjunction with UC to become the biotech equivalent of Silicon Valley, a sort of biocupertino.
Hence, we have a city ordinance coming up to allow biolabs to be built all through the city.
So, the push is to change those zoning laws and housing all over town for biotech workers will be able to afford the rents in the new housing that no one else can.
This feels like a deja vu all over again for me because it's much like the Measure T fight from 2012.
Back then, it was about building biolabs in West Berkeley.
Some of us fought back and we won that.
Now, they are starting in West Berkeley again because the people there are the most vulnerable.
But we should keep in mind what they can do to some of us, they will do to all of us.
Thank you.
Okay.
So, once again, as we continue with the public hearing, we want to hear from everyone.
Let's not interrupt, let's not heckle, let's not flip people off.
Let's give these speakers their full attention and respect that they deserve so we can hear from everyone and get through this public hearing.
Sir.
Hi.
My name is Chris Shaw.
I live in District 1.
We presently don't have a council member representing us.
I'm targeting single-family homes.
Let me quote someone, you will own nothing and be happy about it.
And one more comment.
A long time ago, Berkeley City Council was all for environmental concerns and community control.
Now, it's just corporate stooges.
Thank you.
I give my extra time to the next speaker.
Hi.
My name is Donna Deetamore and I have two other people ceding time to me, Chris Hamilton and Meryl Siegel.
And Chris's and the prior speaker's extra time.
I think it was like 3.20 or something, 3.20, something like that, right? We shared the meeting.
Let me chair.
Let's put 3.20 on the clock because she had an additional 20 seconds.
Okay.
Thank you.
Let's see if I get it up there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Many of you feel that there's been a robust public discussion of these changes to the general plan.
I would like to offer what I and many other people would prefer to see.
When huge changes are being contemplated, each council member should announce that fact in their newsletters, emphasizing the need for the public to pay attention because of the potential ramifications for the city, and then outlining for us exactly how we were to do that by telling us what committees, which commissions, what sources of information we should be monitoring.
Give us links while you're at it.
Create a hot topics box in your newsletter so that we can easily spot updates and keep abreast of progress.
As you and staff do your work to formulate policy, tell us about the studies you're relying on and special interest groups you are meeting with, and the opposition research that you are finding.
That way, we can be prepared to intelligently evaluate what ultimately will become the final recommendation.
Hold public forums where we're able to ask questions and get answers.
Don't set the parameters for discussion in a way that focuses everything toward a predetermined outcome.
We know we will hear the pros of a proposal.
Always see to it that there is someone qualified to present the cons, too.
If we know you have considered the concerns that immediately pop into our minds, and you tell us how those will be mitigated, we're much more likely to get on board.
Clearly understand that having a lot of commission meetings, which you consider to be part of adequate public engagement, is wholly inadequate.
Each individual's public participation is extremely limited, and there is absolutely no ability to ask questions and get answers or correct anything that commissioners posit.
I don't mean to offend, because this is a serious topic, but stop telling us that every single thing that has to be done in the city is a matter of equity.
The overuse of this word is cheapening it.
It's being used in this matter because of the historical connection to redlining and exclusionary housing caused by single-family home restrictions.
Yet we can see the handwriting on the wall with this proposal.
Housing in the districts that bore the brunt of the discrimination will bear it again, and I'm in District 1.
As older properties are purchased and demolished in order to build bigger, taller structures that cover even more lot space and can be cut up into small units that no family would want to live in or left as one giant unit.
Prices will not fall.
It will definitely increase, and the value of all single-family homes remaining in the city is going to go up.
If this isn't true, be prepared to explain to us why not.
We, as you, will have focus on what staff has presented.
If a staff proposal comes back from a commission with significant changes, as this one has, don't immediately put it on a council agenda for action.
Instead, distribute the new recommended policy through your newsletters in the Hot Topics box and give us a few weeks to read and digest it so we can offer up our comments.
While I agree with the council member who wrote that you all have the capability to evaluate and deal with changes commissioners have recommended, the point is the public should continue to be engaged in determining the final outcome.
If we can only read the proposal a few days before a council meeting when it is posted on the city's website, we are being excluded from the most important step in the process, determining the policy's final outcome.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Heike Helmer, and I cede my time to Meryl Siegel.
Thank you.
Yeah, I ceded my time, but then Heike gave me her time.
It's one minute.
It's one minute.
Got it.
So, I'm concerned that the City Council is misunderstanding the furthering fair housing AB 6866, especially in District 1 where I live.
I live down in District 1, close to San Pablo Avenue, and we're concerned about the way housing has been propagated along San Pablo Avenue, completely disregarding the neighbors.
But bringing it back to the issues that we're here to discuss today, what will happen regarding gentrification in D1? There's a sliver of housing that is lower income.
It's about 18% African-American.
What will happen to that housing? Is it going to be bought up by big developers and held? Is it going to be bought up and then replicated into apartments that very few people can afford? Those are my questions, and I'd like them answered at a later date.
Thanks so much.
Good afternoon.
My name is Yes Duffy.
I'm a Berkeley kid named after their favorite rock band.
I also am chair of the zoning board, but I'm here in my personal capacity as a property owner in the R1A for many, many years and having grown up in the Berkeley Hills as a small child.
I also taught architecture at Cal for many years and practicing architecture, specifically housing, for over 20 years.
What's before you today is important community work and equity work, owned and refined over many years, and I feel like it's 90% fair.
A few comments, a few nerdy comments.
Height, I encourage you to keep it simple, 35 foot max height, three stories max, period.
Please eliminate the unnecessarily cost burden subjective and complex average height calculation.
It's messy.
Massing, I support the proposed strict controls of building mass using setbacks, heights, and lot coverage as you propose.
There's no need for adding additional controls like FAR max densities.
Lastly, the majority of my Berkeley family has been displaced to the Berkeley's decades of exclusionary zoning.
I urge you to pass this legislation so all Berkeley kids, unlike my family, have the opportunity to live affordably here.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Glenn Kroehler.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
You know, it occurred to me, looking at the analysis of the proposal in the Berkeley Daily Planet, adding 80% to the housing stock of Berkeley is going to make an immense change in the character of the city.
Now, I have to agree not to increase density in the hills for two reasons.
Yeah, fire risk and the fact that people invested, bought nice houses, built their lives there, and they'd like to continue those lives.
Now, what's going to happen in the rest of the city? The gentleman who wondered if it was going to be turned into a crucible for tech workers, biotech workers, really got my attention because it does seem unlikely that they're going to be affordable housing that is going to make any actual change in the reasons that were given in the handouts that we've received through email.
So, for that reason, it seems to me to be a very questionable proposal.
Thank you.
Council, my name is Theo Gordon.
I'm a disaster and fire safety commissioner covering Zone 3.
But I'm speaking on behalf of myself today and on behalf of East Bay YMBA.
I'm urging you to pass the Planning Commission recommendation today.
Mayor Aragin himself said that Berkeley zoning was designed with a racially exclusive intent.
As an Elmwood resident, I'm ashamed that it was my neighborhood that pioneered zoning in order to block a Black dance hall.
I urge you to pass the Planning Commission recommendation today.
Council, is remedying our racist zoning actually important? Or should we dither on it for another year? It's been three and a half years since Council pledged unanimously to end our racist zoning.
And yet we do land acknowledgments.
We have BLM signs.
But we are not sure if we're actually going to turn any of that into policy.
You are going to have a chance to answer that today.
This is a modest proposal.
It won't change the built environment, but it will bring down rents.
It's a shame that all this new housing has come online because it's making it harder for poor landlords to charge the rents they want.
But let's keep building that housing.
Let's bring down rents.
Thank you.
Okay.
Once again, sir, before you speak, sir, I want to just make another reminder.
I want to go back to my original announcement at the beginning of the meeting.
That our rules do not prohibit disruption of the meeting.
That includes shouting, making disruptive noises, speaking out of turn, or in violation of applicable rules, preventing or attempting to prevent others who have the floor from speaking.
So, people that are groaning that are talking while other people are speaking that are interrupting, please don't do that.
Let's be silent.
Let's be respectful.
We want to hear from everyone.
And I want to hear from this gentleman now, so I'll turn it back over him.
Hello, my name is Martin hammer.
I've been a licensed architect in Berkeley for over 25 years.
I learned of these proposed zoning changes just 3 days ago.
I'm not sure if this reflects more on me, or the city's public notification methods.
I've spoken with 4 of my Berkeley colleagues like me, they've expressed mixed opinions with lack of sufficient awareness and knowledge to form a sound assessment.
All of us support increased density when done right.
We all support increased affordability and equity.
The question is whether it's being done right.
We're aware of the state mandates for increased dwelling units.
We're aware of the state mandates allowing ADUs, which we fully support.
What I find most troubling is that the multifamily development and the proposal is allowed by right with a zoning certificate instead of an AUP.
Berkeley has a wealth of design professionals and academics that could have been and still could be explicitly invited for evaluation and input.
Please consider this.
Broadly.
My concern is for the potential for unintended negative consequences are creating more problems and solved.
And I urge the council to not to not put on the proposal before them today.
And I urge the council to not to put on the proposal before them today.
Even with, or maybe because of its stage of development and give community members a final chance to suggest improvements and prevent harmful outcomes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So, I'm a Berkeley kid.
I was born in missing middle housing and I live in missing middle housing.
I live in Susan's district.
I have a lot of respect for Susan's real concern about fire.
So, my suggestion would be that the council put together a comprehensive package to address all the factors.
Essentially, restricting new housing, restricting the expansion of housing.
But most critically, my mind restricting vegetation and restricting parking on those extremely scary streets that are east of Euclid and in panoramic heights.
Address all the issues at once and it will not appear to be exclusionary and unfair.
So, my suggestion would be that the council put together a comprehensive package to address all the factors.
Essentially, restricting new housing, restricting vegetation and restricting parking on those extremely scary streets that are east of Euclid and in panoramic heights.
Thank you.
Yes, Mark, I've lived in this town since 1946.
When we started the 1st, political action I can remember is my mom fighting the demolition of Courtney's village, which was the biggest low income housing project in Berkeley was huge.
I've worked on the rent control.
I was very active when we first passed rent control.
That's how I met my wife working on grassroots newspaper collective.
I have.
I have.
I have.
I have feelings about these things, but the fact of the matter is.
As Sophie Han and Martin both expressed.
We don't know about this.
I mean, she's rattling off a bunch of stuff today.
Mumbling and rattling couldn't understand it.
She doesn't have a piece of paper passed out that we could follow along.
She's writing it down.
So.
I'm going to leave that communication all the way along you.
What? Yes, okay.
As we proceed with the meeting, let's be respectful staff.
Let's be respectful of the council.
Let's be respectful of everyone.
And let's be respectful of the council.
And let's make sure that we have the information that everyone deserves.
We want to hear from everyone.
Yes, ma'am.
Hi, my name is Kara bins.
I am a Berkeley resident as well as a mother of two young children.
Who's raising my family in Berkeley.
My son's about start kindergarten here in Berkeley.
And I wanted to make two points.
One is I feel very blessed to live in a neighborhood that already has a good amount of missing middle housing.
I know about wealthy hillside communities.
I love living in a community that has more diverse housing.
We have four plexes.
We have six plexes.
We have duplexes.
My children grow up with people that they will interact within their communities.
And I really appreciate that experience of theirs.
And I hope that more families and more communities have the opportunity to do that.
And it's not just all single family homes.
So that's one point.
The second is I think the city of Berkeley has an opportunity to continue to put their money where their mouth is and make policies that encourage more housing development.
Thank you so much.
Good afternoon.
My name is Alexander Boutel earlier today.
I was listening to Kamala Harris's autobiography and she talks about how her single mom moved them into a duplex in Berkeley.
That duplex could not be built today.
And a single mom probably couldn't afford rent in most of Berkeley.
We need more housing, but I understand how some residents are resistant to the idea of towers.
And that's why missing middle is so important.
Duplexes and four plexes will not destroy neighborhoods.
They will organically grow them.
The alternative is a town that looks the same, but it's only accessible to those who can afford to buy a $2 million single family home.
Finally, I want to reiterate this meeting is not representative of the community.
Most folks who have jobs cannot come to a three 30 meeting on a Tuesday.
And to anyone who's here, who feels like they don't understand why people would oppose your viewpoint.
Talk to the people who are under 65 and the people who are renters because housing prices are killing us.
And we need to build more.
Thank you.
All right.
Hi, my name's Andrea.
I'm a 46 year resident of district six.
And also on the cert committee and the fire wise group.
Many people in our area have lost their insurance.
And over the years I've had to evacuate.
From the major fire and then twice as a voluntary evacuation on high ground.
And I've had to evacuate.
At this point in time.
We've been woken up by the police or the fire department, at least four times because our street had been impassable.
And since they could only recognize the car on our sidewalk, we've been woken up in the middle of the night to move our car.
The streets are extremely dangerous and that has not been dealt with.
And that is a very true and existing risk for all of us, especially many of the elderly.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
That would be the flats.
This zoning proposal is not about justice and equity.
This is about the industrial gentrification of the flats.
Let's just take the demolition.
For example.
Is there any homeowner protection? What happens to, I was a member of the land use planning committee in Venice, California.
And watched developers muscle out.
The city of Berkeley has taken money from UC Berkeley.
So that there's so that UC Berkeley does not have to commit to any student enrollment cap.
At the same time.
You see system has invested $4 billion in Blackstone real estate, a hedge fund from New York.
That's key on developing places like Berkeley.
This is not about equity.
This is a billionaire inside deal.
Congratulations to the guy who just had triplets.
Is he still here? It's really cool.
My name's AJ Fox.
I live in district eight and the Elmwood.
And I would like to see a lot more housing built in the Berkeley Hills.
And I would like to see a lot more housing built in the Berkeley flats.
And I would like to see housing built on the BART stations.
And I'd like to see housing built at the Marina, because that's where I live.
And it's very frustrating that we have spent so much time talking about this missing middle thing.
I think three and a half years since my former council member, Lori initially passed this.
And the action that we really need to see hasn't been taken.
And apparently it's not even going to be taken today.
I'm very frustrated that we've all gathered here.
I left work.
My boss is calling me.
We're all here.
I'm going to be here.
I'm going to be here.
I'm going to be here.
I'm going to be here.
I'm going to be here.
I'm going to be here.
And I'm going to be here.
And I'm going to be here.
I'm going to be here.
I'm going to be here.
And we've all gathered here.
I left work.
My boss is calling me.
We're all here.
And it's not going to get done.
We're going to have another meeting and probably another one after that.
We need this housing.
We need it immediately.
Because otherwise Berkeley is just going to turn into a museum.
If it's former self.
So I want to urge you to act quickly on this proposal and to get this housing built.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Let's please let's not.
Let's let's let's not.
Argue with people, interrupt people, confront people.
Let's be respectful.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
My name is David Mendelsohn.
I think I'm a valuable member of this community.
My question is.
If I told you that I live in a three-story apartment building.
Would I not fit in, in a single family neighborhood? Would I ruin the character of certain areas? If my building was next to your single family house.
Would you consider the neighborhood to be the poor for it? My building was built in 1964.
And in response to buildings like mine.
Too many people in Berkeley decided in the years that followed.
That the people who lived in my three-story apartment building.
We're wrong for Berkeley.
Or at least they're part of Berkeley.
I don't think that kind of exclusionary attitude has any place in the Berkeley of today.
It is time to get this done with no further amendments.
It is time to get this done.
Thank you.
I'm a city manager.
I live in.
I live in zone six.
I support the motivation behind.
This proposal.
I think it's.
Excellent.
I think we need to work on the issues that have confronted us for so long, but we haven't addressed.
At the same time.
The most urgent matter facing us today is the safety.
Of our residents.
Until we're sure that we have an evacuation plan that will really.
Address those issues and get people out.
I think you need to delay on the hills overlay.
Thank you.
Hello.
I'm a city manager.
I live in zone six.
I live in zone six.
And I know it exists in the context of all that has been and all that is.
And a really important part of that context is that we're in a climate crisis.
It was 105 degrees in parts of California this year.
And we start to freak out when it's in the eighties.
People are going to have to move to Berkeley.
We have a beautiful city.
We need more neighbors.
And we have to make a city that welcomes them and has the housing to do so.
So, thank you.
It's time to do it.
We've been doing a lot of hard work.
Staff has been doing a lot of hard work.
Commissions and consultants.
It's time to do it.
More process is not going to make a better solution and it's not going to make a more popular solution.
So time is stacked now.
Thank you.

Segment 4

He's so tall.
Hi, everyone.
Many who don't want to see, oh, by the way, I'm Rebecca, live in D4.
Many who don't want to see Berkeley's residential neighborhoods become accessible to middle and low income households are claiming that the ordinance before you now needs more public input.
They're calling it undemocratic.
The ordinance before you today has spanned 3 years and 40 public meetings.
That is hardly undemocratic, but it's been a long time coming, and I'm excited to see what it's going to look like in the future.
I urge you to approve the missing middle ordinance and not exclude the city's most affluent neighborhoods.
Let's dismantle racist, single family zoning.
And to the folks who are starting their comments with how many decades you've lived in Berkeley.
I would love to be you one day.
I graduated from Berkeley last year, and I love it here.
I want to grow old here, have a family here, whatever, but we'll see if I'll be able to afford to do that.
If our city continues to be so affluent.
I'm incredibly excited after 3 years of community engagement, 3 years of public meetings that we finally have a plan that will bring thousands of new affordable homes disrupt the legacy of racist, single family zoning.
As others have already mentioned, Berkeley created single family zoning as an explicitly racist segregationist policy, and that's a legacy that we still suffer from today.
I'm sad to see an unrepresentative group of people who are here today defending that legacy.
That's not a good thing.
By removing artificial restrictions on the supply of housing and allowing new different types of housing to be built, we open the door to thousands of new units and bringing in different diverse members of our community.
I understand that the fire department has concerns about the risk fire risk in the hills.
I would just say that new construction has better defensible space, better home hardening, and you can reduce overall home ignition potential.
I know that because I'm a fire professional, wildland firefighter.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Zachary Russ, District 1, and I just wanted to thank both the staff who put together this proposal, and I wanted to also congratulate the fire department on this.
And I want to say that I fully support up-zoning, and I want to say thank you to the fire department on this proposal.
And I want to say thank you to the fire department on this proposal.
I'm Zachary Russ, District 1, and I just wanted to thank both the staff who put together this proposal, and I wanted to also congratulate Councilor Luna Pariah on her recent election.
And I want to say that I fully support up-zoning Berkeley.
I've moved here over 10 years ago, and since then, my rent has gone up and up and up because rent control does not help you if you have to move.
Like, if you have a terrible landlord, and you know what allows landlords to be terrible when they have no competition.
So, supply and demand are real, and they do work, and building more housing will cut prices.
The only time that my rent has not risen in between one year to the next is when all those buildings went up on University and Bancroft and so on.
So, I support up-zoning immediately.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time.
I won't be repetitive, but one thing around the stuff we're talking about, I hope being able to put up a big building.
I hope being able to put a big building isn't harder, or sorry, yeah, isn't easier than what I have to go through to say, add a bathroom.
I'm going to go through a couple of things.
I agree.
We need to improve housing 1.
this feels like, and I think it's your job maximize.
How do we get the most housing? But often in these situations, we have to optimize and in this case, we're talking about optimizing housing versus safety versus infrastructure, mass transit, the size of the Berkeley campus and the student population, the character of the city.
So, I'm going to go through a couple of things before we, you guys vote on this, that there's some optimization against do we get the best solution for all those variables? 2nd, thing is law of unintended consequences.
Be careful.
This will introduce into look what happened to Oakland after 2008 and the crash privately came in grabbed all the housing stock took it off the market.
Like, I mean, this is something that's very, very, very important.
So, I mean, this is something that's very, very important because if the city is not community, the population is not community interest.
It's it's it's profit, and I believe they would suck suck value out of the community.
Both whether it's an expensive someone's paying a lot of monies or a low income person private equity takes money away.
So, I mean, I think there's there's there's a lot of ways to do it.
But I think you can complete your thought.
Sorry you can complete your thought.
Oh, thank you.
Finally I think the bigger problems we live in the Bay area.
Where the tech money is going to continue to rise things to the top.
So I don't know how to solve that.
My proposal is, let's model it model all the variables.
Let's pilot it.
Is it possible to do this in 1 district and then expand by phases? Yes, absolutely.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Nathan Randall.
I live in district 1.
I want to commend the staff.
1st off, I have worked on zoning ordinances.
It is really hard and this is a product of a tremendous amount of work and input.
I want to say that this is a matter of equity.
Now, this is a matter of whether new people in Berkeley only are allowed to live on a major transit corridors on a major busy streets, like University in San Pablo, because that's where we're building housing.
And if we don't build any housing in the interior neighborhoods, like where I live, then that's all that will be.
Finally, if you're worried about big developers, you should support this proposal because this proposal will support small developers that build the historic multifamily small multifamily buildings that we find all over Berkeley.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good afternoon to the counseling to the mayor.
My name is Deborah Matthews.
I am a resident of South Berkeley.
I am also the co founder of South Berkeley now.
I'm a proud co developer of the Black Panther housing development that just opened this past week.
100% for very low income, formerly incarcerated families.
Housing has always been my North star.
The missing middle housing initiative strongly advocates for the right of historical wrongs.
This is totally inaccurate based upon the proposal we have before us today.
The African American small property owners will be further harmed by painful gentrification without some policy safety networks in place.
We must provide those who have experienced redlining.
The same leverage to upgrade their homes.
Do expansion of development and have the opportunity to continue to live in their.
Neighborhoods and be productive members of our community.
And not just have the properties go to new speculators.
Let's pause and work with city staff and get this right.
And then move forward with middle housing right away.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Alan Pearson.
I'm in district 5 and I'd like the council to delay making a vote on this.
What I've seen is that there's a lot of different ideas and opinions.
And the best way you have contention is to have a vote democracy.
I think what we should do is we should step back, have a vote this, even though it has been, there's obviously a lot of council meetings and workshops that have been had.
People haven't understood this proposal.
I don't know is the right solution or not.
I mean, we need to look at things like, what are the targets? How many new properties are going to be created? How many new housing units can be created? How many people and what about the bus service? What about the infrastructure? What about insurance that hasn't been covered in this proposal? I think we need to step back.
And look at this from a much broader perspective.
Thank you.
Hi, before I start, I want to claim a 2nd minute from my neighbor.
Bob's is raising his hand over there.
Hello, my name is Dave Marcus.
I'm a multi decade residents of Berkeley.
1st is a tenant in a duplex as the owner of a 4 plex.
So now.
I was the occupant of some of my house.
I live in district 1, and I want to say that.
The hills are not the only place with narrow small streets and slow access.
And I'm very concerned that the blanket.
Upsetting of 10 or 20,000 homes all at once.
Doesn't pay any attention to that difference between small streets and bigger streets.
I'd urge you to look at the suggestion that I saw from planning commissioner.
Lisa Keaton that would be some individual.
Council member look at the maps as to which streets this would apply to and not have a university applied to every street.
I also wanted to make a point about.
The call from some people about Berkeley needs more housing.
And that's as a flat statement.
Oversimplifies the state guidelines call for Berkeley to have something like 9,000 units dorms excluded over this decade.
Already in the pipeline built since 22 and in planning now.
It will be built well before 31 by over 11,000 units.
More than exceeding the state guidelines.
And in those 11,000 units, something like 1500 of them are very low income.
And this proposal, there's nothing about low income requirements.
There's nothing stopping people from building.
Very top end market to the people who can pay the most.
And some of the differences between the staff proposal and the commission.
The proposal reflect that the argument far, for example.
So, I would urge you take more time, take more granularly.
Thank you thanks.
My name is Michael Parman and I was born and raised in Berkeley had the great joy of living here all my life and raising my children here.
They love.
Sorry, they love gardening.
I was just saying I had the benefit of growing up here and living here on most of my life.
My children live here and they love gardening.
One of the reasons they love it is they find so many amazing melted trinkets in the backyard from the 1920s fire.
We're almost all the way down by Shattuck, so I think people need to take the fire risk seriously, but that's not really why I came up here to talk.
I wanted to repeat a quote from our friends.
The denser the housing, the greater the community benefit.
I'm not quite sure what community you're talking about.
Maybe the community of developers, maybe the community of architects, but not the community of residents of Berkeley intelligent density, like, had already been contemplated in our general plan that centers around transit and is ecologically.
Therefore, friendly is a community benefit.
This.
Anarchic handout to developers is not.
I'm going to turn it over to Laurie Snowden to talk about the fire insurance and how it's impacted the community.
Hi, my name is Larry Snowden.
I live in Sue's district and without reiterating all of the fire dangers that have gone through, I'll just mention that I live in a very dense neighborhood across the boundary from where the 23 fire stopped and like many of my neighbors, I've lost my fire insurance, but it's a dense.
I have a lot of infill in the block.
There's a lot of infill in the block.
There's a lot of trucks next to me.
There's tons of infill in the block.
Their apartment houses.
It was done in the 20s when it was still legal.
And it shows it can be done nicely, but when I look at what's been done lately in Berkeley, things buildings that give back nothing to the community and don't appear to have done anything for the housing prices.
I just think that this wide open.
It's not going to, it's going to completely change Berkeley and much for the worst character.
Hello, my name is where's Dodge like many of my neighbors in the high fire areas.
We've been working closely with the fire department to try to implement.
Our city's wildfire management program, which is 1 of the best in the state, because they took all the best ideas from all the other cities and counties around and have created a wonderful plan and we've been working with them.
And I come to understand that our job up there in the hills is to reduce.
The danger of fires moving from the hills and proceeding on into the rest of the city, and we've been trying really hard to reduce all the flammable materials in and around our houses.
If you build more.
Residences in the hills, you're negating all of our work.
You're just putting more flammable material in the hills, which will make it harder for us to hold back the fire and be the guardian zone.
We hope against the fires when they come because they will be coming.
Thank you afternoon, James Lloyd, California housing defense fund.
My organization litigates against cities that violate state housing law.
I'm very fortunate to live in district 6 and a 9 unit rent controlled building.
I was built in the early 1900s and would be illegal to build today.
So I'm very lucky.
But today's naturally occurring rent controlled housing stock was yesterday's market rate speculative development.
Additionally, I just want to say that my organization strongly supports the proposal as promulgated by the planning Commission missing middle housing is a great way to achieve gentle density and densify areas without disrupting community character.
Additionally, state law obligates the city to affirmatively further fair housing carving the hills out would carve out your racially concentrated areas of affluence.
This would enshrine segregation in your local municipal code.
We urge you not to carve the hills out.
And finally, in terms of fire risk, we are staffed to look at examples like Tokyo, where they're very successfully mitigate their very intense fire hazard to redevelopment of existing just a wood frame structures.
Thank you so much.
Next speaker is Aaron.
Thank you.
My name is and I'm a housing policy professional California in the volunteer advocate with the state for everyone.
I'm very proud to be here for a moment to spark meeting.
I want to make a few quick remarks.
I feel like I have more time for any more than I've had in a long time that I might have the future home in Berkeley.
I have some with, you know, the details of this policy.
I agree with Mister Duffy that the high limit could be higher.
I think the front setbacks should be lower.
But overall, it represents a very serious effort by planning Commission and staff to design a policy that will work and achieve the goal of expanding housing opportunities and all Berkeley neighborhoods.
I hope that we can get to the real work of building these new homes.
I know the benefits that will bring.
Thank you.
Hello, thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak.
My name is Kathy.
I live in district 6.
I was actually born and raised in Berkeley, and I live in the house.
I moved into when I was in kindergarten.
I really urge you to adopt this proposal.
It's really needed.
Berkeley needs more young people.
It is so discouraging to walk the hills and realize that I am among the relatively spy in the people going up and down the streets.
And the thing I would, I really appreciate that because I'm just address 1 issue that I don't think has been given a sufficient consideration.
The streets and the parking, why on earth is it okay for every household in district 6, including on my street, which is not very wide to have 3 or 4 cars, all of which are parked on the street and they pay no more they pay no more for using up our public property and endangering our lives than the people who have 1 car or keep a car in a garage this needs to be done.
Hello, my name is Kathy.
I live in district 6.
I was actually born and raised in Berkeley, and I live in district 6.
I really appreciate that because I'm just address 1 issue that I don't think has been given a sufficient consideration.
The streets and the parking, why on earth is it okay for every household in district 6, including on my street, which is not very wide to have 3 or 4 cars, all of which are parked on the street and endangering our lives than the people who have 1 car or keep a car in a garage this needs to be remedied.
Okay, 2 minutes.
Good afternoon to the mayor and Berkeley city council.
My name is Skylar Carly and I'm a part of the mayor's equitable black Berkeley initiative.
I spent the 1st, half of my 2024 working for the mayor's office studying the impacts of this ordinance on racial equity.
These opinions are my own.
If the city of Berkeley hopes to attract the communities driven out by gentrification and high housing costs back to Berkeley, it needs affordable family sized homes.
This ordinance is a groundbreaking step in solving our housing crisis.
My primary concern with this ordinance is that family sized units, including intergenerational homes will not be built.
My research shows that this ordinance will enable economically feasible housing production in Berkeley of studios and 1 bedrooms, but it is economically infeasible in almost all cases to build family sized units.
While new family homes are rarely built, single family homes are unaffordable to almost everyone and the supply available to new families decreases as the amount of homeowners aging in place grows each year.
To attract communities of color that have been displaced back to Berkeley, family sized units must also be prioritized.
This can occur most effectively through property tax abatements.
Another opportunity I say was whether black homeowners in Berkeley have an opportunity to convert their housing equity into wealth to developing their land.
I find that there are significant wealth building opportunities for them if they choose to do so at the same time.
I worry about developers taking advantage of homeowners, so I recommend proper representation in a negotiation for residents if they choose to engage in a land swap development deal.
Finally, I want to applaud the bravery of the authors of this ordinance in applying equitable zoning standards to the hillside overlay, a region that has long cited environmental concerns to further overly restrictive housing policies that perpetuate systemic racial and wealth inequities in our community.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
A $10,000 bond and proponents can result in 2 haven't normative systemic racial, and we'll think, and equities in housing that resemble a veiled extension of red lighting.
Thank if you can please complete your thought.
Hello.
Yes, okay.
Hi.
Hi, my name is Karen and I'm the director of the urban wildlife interface.
I live next to 60 eucalyptus trees at last count.
There is an open fire pit in children park less than a 1000 feet away from my house.
And there are cigarette butts that are constantly being thrown on wildcat Canyon.
I'm resigned that my house is going to burn down.
Berkeley does not have the agency to meaningfully reduce the fire risk.
So, the very least that can be done by the console is not add to the problem by allowing further development.
In a fire trap anything I'm Andy cats, I'm speaking as an individual as a member of the disaster and fire safety commission.
I mean, I'm the director representing Berkeley for the last 18 years and I'm a resident of district 6 and a candidate for the city council.
I want to thank council member 1 graph for a very strong statement that explain the public safety issues that we're facing.
I'm deeply concerned about the impacts of applying this potentially doubling or more the density.
In our very high severity fire zone, we don't have the evacuation study in hand, but we do know what it will say.
I live on a very narrow street just past the hairpin curve.
And my street is just 1 double car away from an ambulance not getting through.
We know that we residents of the hills will not all make it out on time in a conflagration.
The only real question is how many will not make it out.
And how can we mitigate the loss of life with optimal routes? I'm going to thank the fire department for that work and the chief's report.
I've advocated for additional housing in Berkeley for decades.
I've worked on the climate crisis for decades, but this is not resilience.
This is a conversation that we should continue to have to meet our regional housing needs, but not by rezoning the hillside fire zone.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Jim McGrath.
Carla's offered me, Carla Woodward's offered me another minute.
I may not take it, but I'd like it up there.
So, there's a lot to like about this, but it's not really ready yet.
And I'll just give you 1 issue.
I've supported this or housing for a long time in Berkeley through the neighborhood association.
I think it's appropriate.
I think Berkeley is 1 of the places that will in California that will have the most benign climate as things heat up.
So, I think it's a place that you, you need to increase housing, but you need to do it in the right way.
So I'll only highlight 1 issue for you, which I think is problematic.
When I heard the presentation today, it talked about a 50% increase in runoff.
I think of it as runoff.
Remember, I'm a, I'm a civil engineer.
I've worked on flight control in this city for more than a decade.
A 50% increase in lot coverage means a 50% increase in runoff.
Berkeley has a very flashy system and that runoff is already a problem.
I mean, I can point to 20 year old studies that talk about the 80Million, the 90Million dollars, the 100Million dollar flood control problem.
As I understand it, this issue was not addressed in the, in the EIR.
That what's going to happen with this density, what's going to be done to offset it? It is very much an equity issue.
You know that flooding is, although it goes all the way up to Telegraph, it's worse when you get west of Sacramento, and it's really worse when you get west of San Pablo.
So, what this will do to flooding in Berkeley is an issue that hasn't been addressed.
I think you need to take care of it, and the last comment, to have this be just part of Berkeley's culture war between the old and the young, rather than trying to find a way that it all work is a mistake.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Before we go to the next speaker, just a time check.
It's 532.
We have many more speakers on Zoom as well, and Council's not yet had any discussion.
So, we will not start the regular meeting at 6 o'clock just to announce, and that will be delayed until such time that we complete this item.
I just want to just announce that for everyone.
We are still very much in the special meeting on missing middle.
Once that's completed, then we'll go to the regular meeting.
Oh, actually, I just remember we have another meeting before the 6 o'clock meeting.
So anyone who's here for an item for the 6 o'clock meeting.
Please hang tight, maybe go back home, come back because we're not going to get to that for a couple more hours.
So, yes.
Everyone, my name is Sam Greenberg.
I'm a 4 year Berkeley resident and most definitely not a homeowner and I'm speaking today on behalf of East Bay for everyone.
We are due to adopt the zoning amendments proposed by the Planning Commission.
First, I want to remind us that exclusionary zoning was invented in Berkeley to prevent a black owned dance hall from opening in the Elmwood neighborhood.
A unanimous commitment by Council to reverse that legacy is why we are here today.
And I want to remind us that maintaining the status quo is not okay to non-starter.
By refusing to act, we're telling our residents who did not win the housing lottery years ago to move to Brentwood where it was 103 degrees today.
We are making some progress as a previous commenter mentioned the Berkeley Property Owners Association recently put out a mailer lamenting that rents are falling and make no mistake.
This is because we've built more housing.
These decisions are not easy, but 40 meetings with stakeholders, 3 council work sessions, community wide surveys, outreach events, many public workshops, and 10 commission meetings later, it's time to get this done.
There'll be no point where this vote is easy.
There will also be no point where maintaining the status quo is just in any way.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Debbie Sanderson and I support this proposal completely.
I want to point out that you can't solve all the problems at once.
There are various problems that get affected by housing supply.
And I think it's important that we start here.
Like with many legislations, things change over time.
The zoning ordinance is a live document.
We start where we think we should be and we watch how it goes and we make amendments over time.
If we hold off to get it perfect, it won't happen.
It's been another 3 years trying to make it.
And I will say, while I understand the concerns of people in the hills.
I will tell you that for the last 30 years, every hearing I went to.
About housing in the hills was opposed because of the fire danger.
At some point, we have to build housing and we have to reduce the fire hazard.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I understand and you should get it done.
My concern is about the map and I just want everybody to understand that when you zone for orders of magnitude above the market demand.
You are not creating that much more housing.
What you are affecting in the short term, I would say, like, the next decade is actually site select.

Segment 5

that's what we're going to do is we're going to let the market decide what direction.
And what this map does is it says everything is the same.
To this community and we're going to let the market decide you're going to let it development interests decide where and when the housing should go into what place.
Well, it's not all the same.
It's not all the same, especially in districts, one, it's all going to be lower income areas.
It's going to be a lower income areas.
And.
Development is highest.
So if you make it all the same, it all goes to lower income areas and does the reverse of what you're expecting in the short term.
My advice to you is to focus on our middle neighborhoods and let the market as best you can with this type of housing and take some pressure off the middle neighborhoods, and let the market as best you can with the market, and let the market as best you can with the market, what you say you want to achieve, which is housing more which is housing more diversity and income.
people so do that and in the hills, please remember, we're not talking about sustainability anymore, we really are talking about survivability and the wrath of climate change has arrived for climate change has arrived for district 5 and 6.
So have mercy and let them do the careful work.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Jeff Baker I live in district 5.
I just want to mention, sort of an issue that's a little technical but I think it is fundamentally deceptive, which is that we're mixing the concept of the very high fire hazard severity zone, which is definitely a thing, which is a zone that is based on fire science that is developed in collaboration with all the fire science experts in the United States.
And so we're contemplating that with Berkeley's fire zone 2, which is just a bunch of HOAs that decided they wanted to use this topic to establish an exclusionary pattern.
And the fire zone 2 comes way down almost to the border of Albany and it includes much more territory than the very high fire severity zone does.
So those of you who are shaking your head should ask the fire science experts in the University of Albany and Berkeley.
So there's a lot of danger in the very high fire hazard severity zone, but it would be a perpetuation of the exclusionary pattern to extend that to the hillside overlay.
Thanks.
Good afternoon, you all.
I'm Tony Mester, D2.
I have time from Christopher and I'm going to speak for four minutes.
I'm going to speak for four minutes.
Hopefully I'll make sense and survive.
The Berkeley flat lands where I live are already zoned for mid-density.
The R1A, the R2, the R2A, the MUR, they all allow more than one unit.
So we already have mid-density zoning.
It's not missing.
The R1A, the R2A, the R2A, the MUR, they support the staff recommendations.
I think they're very wise and based on experience.
Let's take a typical 5,000-square foot lot.
Increasing the lot coverage from 40 to 60% creates a building footprint of 3,000 square feet.
At a height of three stories, you get a total square footage floor space of 7,500 square feet.
The R1A, the R2, the R2A, the MUR, they support the narrow lot, which we have in the flats.
25 feet, we're originally west of San Pablo Avenue, 40 feet width in the R2.
So with that allowance, nobody is going to build a bungalow court, which is pure nostalgia.
It's not a realistic or desirable goal.
What we want to see is small buildings that are built to meet the city's environmental and climate goals.
The proposed standards do not match up with the goal of producing these family units, nor do they meet the city's environmental and climate goals.
To ensure these outcomes, we need larger usable open space for children to play in.
And as Jim McGrath mentioned, for runoff control, you want more plans for climate control, you need to renew the aquifer with absorbable open space.
So without maximum densities, which the staff recommends, it's not really zoning.
It's unzoning.
It's actually deregulation of the neighborhoods for the benefit of professional developers as opposed to homeowners who can usually qualify for a HELOC, Home Equity Line of Credit, to build an ADU.
And thanks to Deborah and the ADU task force, the homeowners of the city have risen to the challenge and have built ADUs in the hundreds, which is really an exceptional achievement.
Without maximum densities, we will get some variation of dormitories because they're lucrative.
So the neighborhoods and family neighborhoods need protection against this use, including specifications for group living accommodations.
So they will absolutely be ruled out.
And so the clusters of bedrooms with a kitchen and a bathroom do not get counted as a dwelling unit, but they're actually a GLA for student housing.
That also means adopting an efficiency dwelling unit ordinance with standard zones and circumstances for ADUs and JDUs.
If you protect the neighborhoods and family life with their tradition of peace and permanence from planned transience, disruption and overcrowding by adopting maximum densities and ironclad prohibitions against dormitories, I believe that most of the neighborhoods in the flats will support this recommendation.
And I'd like to say that I bought a single family house and I made it into a duplex on a part-time teacher's salary.
And I'm very proud of that achievement.
Thank you.
And I was a housing provider for 30 years.
So you can call me a landlady if you like, but I'm very proud of that achievement.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, everybody.
My name is Pamela Jacob.
This is Delicia, my assistant, who covers my backside all the time.
I live at Helios Corner at 1531 University Avenue on the fourth floor.
I'd like to share with you what we're talking about.
Right across from University Avenue on California Street, there's a development.
I have traumatic brain injury and have been under assault for months by demolition and earth-moving equipment.
The perpetual, never-ending noise has triggered my PTSD, I've had one seizure, and I'm on high alert all the time and I also have tinnitus and loss of hearing due to this incessant 7 a.m.
to 7 p.m.
racket.
I live in a residential area where the highest building is one to four floors.
What? She's giving you her minute.
What'd he say? I'm giving you my minute.
My entire blue is this rapid, rapid expansion.
It will put massive pressure on the emergency services and the medical services in Berkeley.
It now takes me three to six months going on now until next year to get a specialist appointment and a primary care appointment because they are understaffed.
I sat in the emergency room in a gurney for eight hours because there was no beds, because they had no staff.
It appears staffing is a key problem and the parking will be crazy because there is so little parking allocated to these new buildings, and right now when they..
What's he got here? He's got..
We're talking about 9,000 units, I assume, or people coming into Berkeley.
The roads need fixing.
The parking where our people need to park close to the building, there'll be none.
Then you've got the big expansion going on at West Berkeley Park.
700 units.
700.
Ma'am, if you can please complete your thought.
Probably not.
We have to move on to other speakers.
You can submit your comments in writing as well.
I beg your pardon? You can submit your comments in writing as well.
We'll do that.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Hi, my name is Alana Kinrich.
I'm a Berkeley resident and a homeowner, and I'm an emergency medicine doctor.
And I feel very strongly for the prior speaker in our emergency medicine waits.
And one of the things I always wish I could prescribe to my patients is a place to live.
Because it's one of the few things that I can't solve in the ER.
And the epidemic of homelessness, the epidemic of all of the problems that come with that, that is associated with that, are so severe in our communities.
And when someone has a preventable complication, medical complication that arises from homelessness, I can give them antibiotics and I can't give them a safe place to live while they're healing.
So I encourage you to help us create more housing in our community, to help house people who are unhoused, help bring down rents for everyone.
Thank you.
Since I'm one of the last, I want to leave the group, which I totally respect, all of you for the time that you've taken, and all of you for the time that you've taken to come and hear the proposal, whether you agree with it or not.
I can assure you this is a democratic process, having spent four months in an East German prison at age 20.
A guest of the Stasi.
Three things.
One, which can be done, all of these can be done today that are positive.
Garages.
Pass an ordinance that if you have a house with a car and a garage, hold a lawn sale, get rid of what you're using in your garage as a storage unit and put your damn car in the garage.
That gets it off the street.
By getting it off the street, it tells the gentleman sitting over here on the side that he doesn't have to respond to a break-in.
That's a minute.
May I have 30 seconds more? Okay.
At every intersection, as was done in San Francisco after the L6 earthquake, we could build cisterns, which take the runoff, percolation, that does not percolate, and it takes the runoff to increase the percolation.
It's the same with additional supplies of filtered water at every major intersection, for example, Grizzly Peak in Latham Lane, Marin and Grizzly.
And thirdly, statistics.
Two years ago, Cal Fire statistics, 96.5% of all the fires they were called out on, and I'm a qualified helicopter pilot, they were called out on because of the lack of water supply.
That's about 90% of the state.
» Thank you.
» You can check the stats.
» Thank you.
» Good evening, Councilmembers.
My name is Tim Frank, and though you may often see me wearing another guise, tonight we're going to be talking about the environmental impact of climate change.
A few years ago, when I moved to Berkeley, I was the chair of the National Challenge to Spall campaign, which was a nationwide effort of the Sierra Club to promote infill development that would actually improve the quality of the environment, provide greater social equity, and provide an important component of smart growth.
I'm delighted to be here tonight to support a measure aimed at promoting missing middle housing.
This is a key component of smart growth that is not a silver bullet, it's not the whole deal.
I mean, there are many other pieces, puzzle pieces, that we have supported and would continue to support, and this is an important one of them, and I'm delighted to be here tonight to support this measure, and to make this important change.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
So the missing middle is yet another way to gentrify Berkeley.
It will create predatory conditions.
It will create predatory conditions.
It will create the conditions within the red lines the most.
And the fire danger is equally as dangerous in the flatlands.
We have a fuel line that goes straight up Alston from the freeway, and, you know, it will create predatory conditions.
So you should think about that.
And to have this meeting in the middle of the day is really disrespectful to your constituents in the community.
And, you know, a lot of people can't come out in the middle of the day to a meeting.
It's just a gift.
And to the realtors, and with the demolition ordinance as well, it's like you don't care about your constituents because you're just giving gifts to developers and realtors and creating a way to further gentrify Berkeley to the white community, I guess.
Thanks.
≫ Thank you.
Are there any other members? ≫ Ann Alitis, classist.
≫ Thank you.
≫ You're welcome, Mr.
≫ We need a public comment.
Any other in-person speakers? Any other members in the public here in person ? Okay.
So I am going to ask council if we can recess this meeting very briefly so we can go to the proclamation of our former colleague Max Anderson and then we can come back and proceed with Zoom comments.
So we'll be taking up this opportunity to go to ceremonial matters.
I think there was also a proclamation for the arts summit, right? Are we presenting that today? Okay.
So we'll now go to ceremonial matters for our 6 p.m.
regular city council meeting.
And I want to, before I turn over to Mr.
Anderson, I want to thank the staff and friends of our former dear colleague council member Max Anderson who I had the great honor of serving with for eight years on the Berkeley city council.
And I think all of us on the city council and all of us in the community mourn his passing and are so immensely grateful for all that he did not just as a council member but as a member of the community.
So I'm going to turn over to council member Bartlett who will read the proclamation.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
And Linda, I want you to come on up to the area, all of you.
The owner of dear Max.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And this is my daughter.
It's good to see you.
Honoring the life and legacy of Max Anderson.
On January 15, 1944, Max Anderson dedicated his life to the service of his country and his community.
Being a veteran in the Vietnam War, union member, nurse, planning commissioner, rent board commissioner, Berkeley City Council member, and whereas Anderson moved to Berkeley in 1985 with his lovely wife Linda Livenbaum, where they established the Alcatraz Avenue Neighborhood Association, and he would go on to enter a dual master's program in city planning and public health at UC Berkeley in 1990.
And whereas Anderson served as a representative for District 3 from 2004 to 2016, during which time he demonstrated unwavering commitment to social justice, public health, and the well-being of all Berkeley residents.
And whereas his impactful tenure resulted in multiple major accomplishments, including the Right to Know Ordinance, which required cell phone retailers to inform customers about potential radiation exposure, passing the soda tax, implementing tobacco control measures, advocating for stronger police oversight and accountability, advancing tenants' rights, and providing affordable housing, overseeing the creation of the Ed Roberts Campus, rebuilding the Theria Hall-Pittman South Branch Library, supporting the Berkeley Climate Action Plan, and creating educational, recreational, and economical opportunities for underserved youth.
And whereas his commitment to the community went beyond Max's role as elected official, he is now a member of the Berkeley NAACP, the Sierra Club, and a founding member of Friends of Adeline.
And whereas Max Anderson's legacy will live on through his significant contributions to Berkeley and the enduring impact of his work in advocating for social justice, equity, and the betterment of our community.
Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Berkeley City Council hereby honors the memory of Max Anderson, recognizing his extraordinary service and dedication to the City of Berkeley and its residents.
Hear, hear.
Thank you.
Yes.
I just want to thank everyone for the recognition of my husband, Max Anderson.
He, as you know, dedicated much of his life to the civic life and improvement of this city.
And he would just, I know, urge you to continue in his footsteps advocating social justice, voicing for the poor and those who are underserved and those who cannot speak for themselves.
And with a special attention to South and West Berkeley.
So thank you for recognizing him.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Linda and family of Councilmember Anderson and Debbie, it's good to see you.
And Shirlene as well for being here tonight.
I think we all were deeply saddened to hear of Max's passing.
It was really an honor and a privilege for us to be able to be here with you tonight.
We're going to have a proclamation on Sunday, August 11th at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 1 p.m.
And a remembrance of Councilmember Anderson and his life and work in our community.
So thank you.
Let's do it.
Okay.
And then we do have one more proclamation we were going to present at the 6 p.m.
regular meeting on August 11th at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 1 p.m.
And a remembrance of Councilmember Anderson and his life and work in our community.
So please raise your hand if you're here at the summit.
Is there anyone here in person to receive that proclamation on Zoom? If so, please raise your hand.
Otherwise, we'll present it and we'll get it to them later.
Okay.
So this is honoring the 2024 Berkeley Music and Arts Summit, whereas the City of Berkeley continues to be a thriving environment for the arts and culture.
And valued members of Berkeley's Arts Nonprofit Community organized the 2024 Arts and Music Summit that took place on June 3rd on the campuses of the Freight and Salvage and California Jazz Conservatory, as well as the Berkeley Symphony and Freight and Salvage Choir, as well as the Berkeley Symphony and Freight and Salvage Choir, as well as the Freight and Salvage and California Jazz Conservatory, convening for the first time more than a dozen leaders of local arts organizations to talk about the challenges of bringing patrons back to in-person performances and art exhibits.
The inaugural summit created a pathway for the city to connect and create inspired and meaningful discussion around opportunities to collaborate on meaningful operational costs and creating new experiences that audiences will love.
It is with this inaugural summit that we hereby commend the local arts leaders for their initiative and newfound partnership in organizing the Berkeley Arts and Music Summit and their ongoing contributions to the cultural life of our city.
So we'll present this in absentia.
We wanted to do this recognition today.
We'll get this to them to thank them and with that, that completes ceremonial matters.
We'll go back to the comments on Zoom.
So if you are on Zoom and would like to speak on the zoning ordinance and general plan amendments relating to middle housing, please raise your virtual hand on the Zoom screen and we'll go to Barbara Schick as our first speaker.
My name is Barbara Schick.
I'm a resident of District 5.
There's a famous saying, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
So I pray that you will come up with an ordinance that will not have too many unintended consequences.
I just found out about this last night after midnight.
I thought it was meant to, like somebody has a single family house, oh, maybe you want to do your foundation, raise it up and have like a second apartment downstairs that you can rent out to you or you have your family come live with you.
And now it's sounding like these houses are going to be sold, demolished, and we're going to have contractors dealing with it.
I'm also concerned about the cost of the construction.
So I'm wondering if you could please complete your thought.
I would like to preserve some of the beauty of the housing that we do have somehow.
Thank you.
We'll go next to Russ Mitchell followed by Zipporah Collins.
Hi.
My name is Russ Mitchell.
I live in District 6.
I'm a fire chief.
I've been a fire chief for many, many years.
I'm the only person who had the planning commission not ignored its staff and ignored the fire chief to wait for an evacuation plan at the very least.
I've been smelling smoke all day.
I've been the last few weeks cleaning up around the property.
We live with narrow roads that are crumbling.
I don't know where we live.
I believe we're in the middle of a big fire and we'll see maybe the city council is ignoring the fire chief.
I said ignore.
Somebody else said middle finger.
That sounds good too.
I think that it's important not to sugarcoat the stakes here.
There could be burning bodies, people, women, children, all sorts of people being killed.
One more sentence.
If the planning commission and the city council passes this, all of that mayhem is going to be on your shoulders.
Thank you very much.
Our next speaker is Zipporah Collins followed by Warren Wells.
Zipporah Collins, you should not be able to speak.
Yes.
I didn't realize I had to unmute myself.
Okay.
This is a massive change.
I read that it could add up to 100,000 units in Berkeley which now currently has about 37,000 units.

Segment 6

The middle housing was covered in a number of public hearings for the housing element over time, which is a massive document, but I did not hear about it until a few days ago.
To have this happen at a meeting that takes place at 3.30 in the afternoon of a weekday, I think it excludes vast members of the public.
The one thing that I wanted to stress is that the proposal is for market-rate housing, and a wealth of studies have shown that building market-rate housing does not bring housing costs down.
The only way to get more affordable housing, which is what Berkeley desperately needs, is to require it from the developers or for the city to use public funds to pay for a non-profit affordable housing developer.
Thank you, Zippy, if you can complete your thought.
Yes.
I urge the council to hold more public hearings on this specific matter and do a lot of publicity in all the neighborhoods.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Warren Wells, followed by Chance Boresky.
Warren Wells, you should now be able to speak.
Please unmute yourself if you wish to speak.
While we're waiting for Warren, I'll go to Chance Boresky.
Please forgive my pronunciation of your last name.
Don't worry, Mr.
Mayor.
The pronunciation is just fine.
Yes.
My name is Chance Boresky.
I'm a UC Berkeley alum.
I'm here representing East Bay for everyone.
Frankly, what I've got to say is that this zoning change is not there to benefit people who were lucky enough to buy a house in Berkeley in the 1970s for $30,000 and who now own $1.5 million home in the hills.
This zoning change is an investment in Berkeley's future because Berkeley's working families, Berkeley's teachers, Berkeley's nurses need places to live.
Unless Berkeley's retired homeowners are going to step into those jobs, then unfortunately, we need to start building housing that people who can't afford a $1.5 million home can actually realistically move into.
I got to take issue with what the previous speaker noted.
Every piece of available economic evidence and analysis shows that building more market rate housing drives rent prices down.
That's what Berkeley needs to do.
The city needs to follow through on its housing element commitments and get this done.
Thank you.
We'll go back to Warren Wells.
Warren, are you there? Warren Wells? Last call for Warren Wells.
Richard Ilgen followed by Friends of Five Creeks, followed by Chris Colander.
Good afternoon.
First, I want to join those persons who have objected to this proceeding because it's occurring at 3.30 in the afternoon.
It should be occurring in the evening, especially with changes that are this massive.
I want to thank Council Member Wengraff for raising the alarm on this issue.
I live in District 6.
As you know, some 30 years ago, we had a huge fire in the hills that could have been a lot worse.
People have talked about the people who couldn't escape from the fire, but people were blocked because roads were blocked, fire engines couldn't get up because roads are blocked.
If they can't contain the fire because fire engines can't get up there, you've got a very serious problem.
That fire almost went down and took out the Claremont Hotel and would have spread down into the rest of Oakland and Berkeley.
People on the campus area were evacuating because of the potential fire risk.
If you allow that to happen again, you're derelict in your duty.
You should send this back to the Planning Commission with the Fire Chief's recommendations because it doesn't look like they had those recommendations when they acted.
You also should get a presentation from the Fire Chief on this proposal also.
You have one in the Planning Department, it's fair to have one from the Fire Chief, and send it to the Disaster Commission for review also.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Friends of Five Creeks, followed by Chris Colander, followed by Brandon Young.
Yes.
First, thank you so much for taking the time to hear everyone.
I apologize for signing on with the wrong account.
I'm Susan Schwartz speaking as an individual, long-time resident of Oxford Street.
I support this middle housing for my part of Oxford Street, which is wide and reasonably level.
However, climate change is real.
I won't repeat what everyone else has said, but Fire Chief Sprague's letter makes clear that you would be derelict in now adopting this plan.
When you do raise it for the hills, do not let that be an excuse to once again, prevent rezoning in the hills.
I have seen as an activist, quite a bit of misuse of environmental arguments, but this one is not.
Climate change is real.
Finally, if I have a couple of more seconds, I very much support what Jim McGrath said on the great impact of increased impermeability given the great likelihood of deluges.
You don't have to delay for that.
You have begun a stormwater plan.
It should be incorporated into that in a realistic way.
I want to note that there is nothing on the city website that tells any resident that that exists, that it has not been on the agenda of any commission, and that no public meeting is planned until three months before that plan is supposed to be adopted a year and a half from now.
This is unconscionable.
Thank you.
I just want to clarify since it's 6.12, that we are still in the 3.30 special meeting on missing middle housing.
We have not gotten to the 5.30 special meeting or the 6.00 PM regular meeting.
If your hand is raised and you're on Zoom and you want to speak on something for the 6.00 PM regular meeting, please, I ask that you please lower your hand at this time, and we'll get to your comments when we get to the regular council meeting.
We're just taking public comments on middle housing.
We'll go to Chris Colander followed by Brandon Young.
Hi, my name is Chris Colander.
My home is not in the Berkeley Hills.
I'm in fire zone 1, but I know something about the hills.
Due to my service as a radio patrol person on high fire days, and my encouraging people in zone 2 and 3 to form firewise communities.
I fully agree with the points made in Chief Sprague's July 16th memo to the council and urge the council to reject the planning commission's proposal for oversimplification of zoning, and to instead take the time to put in the effort to try and get this right.
It's been said many times, but increasing housing densities in the hills will increase the chances of a major wildfire there, the ember storm from which would likely set West Berkeley on fire.
This is one of the primary reasons that measure FF was brought before all Berkeley, rather than being a special levy on the hills.
If the hills burn, so do we all.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you, Chris.
Next speaker is Brandon Young.
Should be allowed to talk.
Hello, Honorable Mayor and Magisterial City Council.
My name is Brandon Young.
I'm speaking in favor of the planning commission proposal.
I just want to add some nuance.
One thing that has been mentioned is there's conflation between zoning and what's actually built in the real world.
Under the best case scenario of tonight's meeting, we'll see a trickle of new projects.
I've checked in 2023 projects between two and four units.
There are only nine projects.
It's really expensive to build in Berkeley.
I think that if we do pass the planning commission's recommendation, it will really be a trickle.
This is just a small step amongst many that we'd have to take to actually approach the level of housing production that we would need.
I would also urge the council to consider actually deferring to CAL FIRE's recommended very high fire hazard severity maps.
The current zone two encompasses areas of the city such as Dwighton College, which I think you wouldn't necessarily think of a very high fired zone area.
Finally, I would also urge the council to, after this, consider planning staff's recommendations for a citywide historic resource survey so that we can fix some CEQA issues and get rid of the historic resource evaluation, which is a burden placed on the applicant, which the city should fund.
Thank you very much.
I support the planning commission's recommendation.
Our next speaker is Peggy, followed by Brett.
Hi, my name is Peggy Vredel.
I'm a resident of District 1.
I'd like to know why, despite statements from the staff that there was significant public input, my household received no notice of any of these opportunities.
It seems that input was obtained, but just from a select group, not from a diverse group of residents.
I'd really like to see this major issue be discussed more equitably amongst all of us.
I also question whether this change in zoning will actually serve the group of folks ostensibly to be served, or is it just going to bring in a new set of transient residents? I just am worried this is a little too much in the hands of people who don't have our best interests of actually providing for people who need it.
One of the other things is shading of adjacent structures has not been addressed at all.
Now, what's not clear to me is, yes, you're saying this is like three-story or 28-foot height restriction.
Can people get variances to get another floor in if they had low income? What happens to the neighbors? We'd like to keep our solar installations going.
Also, we're seeing also that insurance availability.
Have you thought about that? Thanks.
Thank you.
We're going to go next to Brett, followed by Neely, followed by Verona.
Brett, are you there? Yes, Brett.
I'm a working professional with Teeny Young Children and a vested stake in the future of this region.
I'm here to voice my support for the missing middle zoning changes.
We have an opportunity tonight to correct an injustice in Berkeley and make the city more livable for more people and to slow the growth of the homeless population in Berkeley.
The typical changes in the proposed code will be modest, but the impact will be huge for so many younger people who are struggling to make it here.
What we are doing in Berkeley is working.
New homes are being built, and the rents are lowering, and it's increasing the affordability.
Missing middle plan will increase construction of family-sized housing in particular.
The process has been exhaustive, over 40 meetings.
We should be ashamed of such a process.
I urge you to vote yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Neely, followed by Verona, followed by Ilana Auerbach.
Good afternoon.
My name is Neely.
I apologize for not being in person.
That was due to the time of day, but I suppose given how long this meeting has been going, I could have shown up in the middle.
I urge you to adopt the planning commission's recommendations.
The recommendations both enable construction of desperately needed housing and streamline regulations for all homeowners.
Requiring buildings be the same as 30, 40, 50 years ago keeps a neighborhood superficially the same, but destroys its community.
Our high housing costs are due to housing shortages, and the only real solution is to build more homes.
This is how we ensure a vibrant community into the future.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Go next to Verona, followed by Ilana Auerbach, followed by Ted Matley.
Verona, you should now be able to speak.
I just unmuted.
Hi.
I live in district six.
As a member of the community, I'd like to be involved and informed about this process.
I did not have any information that allowed this to happen.
I think this process should slow down.
I advocate considering the climate crisis issues that need to be addressed in the proposal for any Berkeley neighborhood before it's adopted.
I'd like to see data demonstrating that new housing will be affordable.
I also have a question.
Does Berkeley have the infrastructure required to support the additional housing increase proposed? Do we have the firefighters, the police, the emergency services, the road services, et cetera? If not, I propose that Berkeley address these issues before we up development.
An additional fact about density on the hills where I live, many of us have ADUs.
On my narrow street, about one fourth of the houses have multiple generations living with them because of housing costs.
This is a pattern that I think will continue.
It was a pattern in my parents' generation in the past.
And I don't necessarily think, I think it's, I think it's great to have multiple generations living together.
Thank you, ma'am.
If you can please complete your thought.
It's complete.
Thank you.
Okay.
And it was, thank you for your excellent comments.
We'll go next to Ilana Auerbach, followed by Ted Matley, followed by Mike Dunham.
Ilana Auerbach, you should now be able to speak.
Yes.
Hi, thank you.
So to respond to several folks who have said that rents are decreasing, in the past year, rents in Berkeley have decreased by 1.6%.
So for a $3,000 studio apartment, That's very minimal.
It's still, you know, so, but it's true.
I guess they have gone down by one and a half percent.
I am fully in support of building actual affordable housing.
However, there's nothing in this plan that ensures affordability for mid income households.
In 2022, the anti eviction mapping project issued a report entitled densifying Berkeley, which costs our city, tens of thousands of dollars.
Have the findings from that report been considered and included in this plan? If not, I urge you to include these, those findings.
One of the findings was upzoning can lead to speculation, increased land values and displacement.
By the same token, upzoning has not led to greater racial integration and opportunities for vulnerable communities.
Upzoning alone is unlikely to make housing affordable to those most in need.
And it's not likely to make housing affordable to those most in need.
Or make Berkeley's housing market more equitable.
That is a quote from their report.
Please include affordability requirements in this plan.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
Our next speaker is Ted.
Natalie.
Followed by Mike Dunham.
Followed by Sam Fishman.
Ted Mattley.
You should not be able to speak.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Ted Mattley.
I'm the city manager for the city of Berkeley.
Concerned about rush to judgment.
Change is certainly coming to the Berkeley hills.
We're just now beginning to grapple with preparing for future fire conditions with.
Think about vegetation, vegetation and other things.
Density higher density.
Absolutely has a place.
It makes the most sense where the infrastructure supports it.
I think it's no secret that higher density brings a greater fire risk.
And with no secret that the roadway network.
Is currently unsupported for evacuations.
It's overcrowded.
We have parking.
On the streets that blocks efficient traffic flow.
It would only be.
Exacerbated.
I think we need to address these issues.
So again, is it not? We can't do this, but let's do it.
Right.
We can't have higher density, but we need to understand the risks.
I work for FEMA.
I had the opportunity to.
Visit the site in Lahaina where people were trapped in the roadway and the roadway network.
And I can't imagine a better place to do that.
Thank you.
Next up is a question.
From fishman.
Followed by Christina Oatfield.
Good evening council.
Thanks for letting me speak.
My name's Mike Dunham.
I'm a homeowner.
In district eight.
Also in fire zone too.
My wife and I have a 21 month old son.
And it's sort of my, my most sacred responsibility on there on this earth to keep them safe.
And I think the best thing you can do to keep my son safe.
Is to get him out of there.
And I think the biggest threats to our house are old, dilapidated, poorly maintained houses near us.
Those are exactly the houses.
They're going to get redeveloped.
If you allow increased, increased density.
And that density has all the other benefits we've talked about.
I think it's also really important that you revisit parking in the hills.
If things are as dire as someone getting told four times to move your car.
In fire situations.
They should not be able to park there.
If a single double parked car.
We'll shut down access to a fire truck.
You should not be able to park on that street.
So please revisit parking the hills.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll go next to Sam Fishman.
Followed by Christina Oatfield followed by Jordan Grimes.
Good evening, council members.
Thank you for allowing me to speak today.
My name is Sam Fishman.
I'm with spur.
An organization that works to support public policy for cities in the Bay area.
I used to live in district four.
I strongly urge you to support this proposal.
To provide middle.
The missing middle housing for Berkeley.
The city of Berkeley.
Will be facing the same challenges that will be faced by people who are not.
Allowed to live in Berkeley or not able to live in Berkeley due to high rents.
They will be pushed to the periphery of other regions.
And other cities in our, in the Bay area.
And in California where hazards from climate change are also escalating.
And where cities may often face.
So I strongly urge you to support this plan.
I know that this is a fairly affluent.
And well-resourced city that can address issues.
Related to fire hazard and flood hazard.
So I strongly urge supporting this plan.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Christina Oatfield followed by Jordan Grimes.
Followed by Mary.
Christina Oatfield.
You should not be able to speak.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Christina Oatfield.
I'm a member of the planning commission.
I'm here tonight just to speak.
On behalf of myself, not on behalf of the commission.
I wanted to share a little bit about why I voted no on this proposal in the version that came before the planning commission.
I am a middle-income person.
I have friends struggling to afford cost of living in the Bay area.
This is an important policy, but something that was discussed.
Very little, almost not at all.
In the planning commission deliberations on this topic was the city's 2017 land value recapture policy.
Which was a resolution passed.
Overwhelmingly by the city council resolving that.
Land value recapture be included in the preparation and implementation of all area plans and zoning considerations.
However, I do think that the city's decision to not include land value recapture.
In the planning commission to city council is.
Leaving things on the table and not really.
Getting, getting the most for, for our city in terms of potential community benefits.
So that's why I voted no, but I hope the city keeps working on this and let's get this right.
Thank you.
Okay.
Our next speaker is Jordan Grimes followed by Mary Orem.
Good evening.
My name is Jordan Grimes.
I wear a number of different organizational hats, but speaking only for myself tonight.
This ordinance has been a long time coming.
It's the culmination of years of hard work by staff and so many others.
And I urge you to advance it tonight.
The missing middle rezoning is critical for creating the housing growth.
Berkeley needs for its students, renters, young people, and so many others who are rent burdened and experiencing housing insecurity.
But this plan has implications beyond Berkeley, which is why I'm here.
I'm here to advocate for equitable rezoning efforts across the entire Bay area.
We so badly need relatedly.
I'll note that when affluent communities refuse to build enough housing, refuse to rezone, they push that housing burden onto others as well.
I urge the city not to delay to move forward tonight and make history.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
We'll go now to Mary Orem.
Followed by Amy Baldwin followed by Alfred true.
Mary Orem, you should not be able to speak.
Berkeley is already the densest town in the, in the state of California.
I don't think people really take that into consideration.
Second rents come down.
If you increase the supply, but control the demand.
I think in Berkeley, we have sort of a limitless demand.
The more housing that's going to be created, The more housing that's going to be available.
The more housing that's going to be available.
The more rents there's going to be.
I've been managing property in Berkeley since.
Oh, about 1988.
And the rents keep going up, even though we've had a lot of housing.
Third, I think there's the demand in Berkeley is.
Is comes from number one.
Cal admitting more students.
And other parts of the Bay area increasing their employment.
And so they're not.
They're not working in Berkeley.
Rather, they're working someplace else.
The companies that they work for in those other places.
Are collecting all the taxes.
And.
Then they come home and here we need to provide them with all the services that they require.
Police and fire and sewer and water and parks and education for their, their families.
And so, you know, I think that's a problem that we cannot.
Solve on its own.
So I think it needs to work as a, in the Bay area more than just creating us as the little solution for everybody's problems.
We'll go next to Amy Baldwin.
And then.
Alpha two is here in person.
So we'll go to you.
Amy Baldwin.
You should not be able to speak.
Hello.
Hi, I'm Amy Baldwin.
I'm a resident of San Francisco.
And I'm going to be the first one.
I believe that this housing motion is.
Violating California.
AB six, eight, six, which requires us to fight past patterns of racist segregation.
And because we are using the existing zoning map.
And because we are not taking the burden of the highest density.
We'll continue to take the burden of the highest density.
I would really urge the council to try to create a committee to analyze.
What past patterns of segregation actually are.
It's extremely complicated.
It's not just single family housing.
It's not just red lining.
And it's not just, you know, what happened in the past and how we can alleviate the problems instead of perpetuating it.
And harming our, our poor minority communities.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Out for two.
All right.
Sorry.
I was still at work earlier.
It was getting started.
Okay.
So important that we move this forward.
The city already has a lot of jobs coming in.
The new biotech campus is going to half a million square feet.
Another million square feet at the old Pacific steel site.
That's about the size of the Salesforce tower.
Skyscraper in San Francisco.
High paid jobs.
And these people are going to need somewhere to live.
But also I think if we're not taking action, We're going to have a lot of issues.
We're going to have a lot of issues.
And they might not be as concerned about our local control issues.
While at planning commission, we were.
Very careful to make sure that the height limit remained at 35 feet, because we understand how important that is to everybody.
To address the fire zone issues.
I would recommend that.
You require noncombustible construction for the exterior as well as enforcing.
The zone zero, nothing flammable five feet from the building.
Okay.
Our next speaker is George Porter.
Followed by Mackay Freeman.
George Porter.
You should not be able to speak.
Hi, George Porter here.
I think.
Hi.
I don't know, I'm not sure where I'm going.
Listen, ironically I'm sitting in Williamsburg right now where there has been construction going on.
For years.
And as far as I can tell.
Rents still keep.
Listen, what I want to say is just slow this down.
I got a note.
From a.
Acquaintance who is a real policy wonk.
And I just said, I don't want to be a policy wonk.
And she says it's 172 pages.
I need time to read the zoning.
And then do background research.
I can't come up with talking points on the fly.
Simply hearing people talk about the proposal for a couple of hours without having the necessary background information.
I want to read that.
I also noticed a proposal recommends reducing open space requirements to one 50 square feet for every thousand feet of building floor.
What might be the unintended consequences of this, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I don't have time to do all that resource before three 30.
You've been other obligations.
Do we want, this is a Berkeley citizen.
Didn't she have a right to do that research first and put in her input so that perhaps we can move forward in a.
Fashion that will not force us to back up.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
We do have a nine additional raised hands.
We are still in the 3.30 special meeting on.
Zoning ordinance in general plan amendments related to middle housing.
If your hand is raised to speak to an item on our 6 o'clock regular meeting.
Please lower your hand at this time.
We'll take your comments when we get to that.
Those items later.
We're only taking public comments.

Segment 7

I'm going to turn it over to you.
I'm going to turn it over to you to make a couple comments on zoning ordinance and middle half and zoning or is in general plan amendments related to middle housing.
Okay, my free men are you speaking on the middle housing amendments.
Okay, great.
I know you're going to speak on the public hearing later as well.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So listen to your community So listen to your community.
And be as much And be as much be as formed be as formed be as formed housing housing changes in changes in a part of the changes in a part of the changes in a part of the city that is impacted by now impacted by now roads impacted by now roads sidewalks.
And so I want to And so I want to address this address this area.
And I want to And I want to paradise paradise and all these and all these people not people not emergency emergency emergency considerations considerations considerations and and I will be and I will be submitting the submitting the joint guidance joint guidance department department for how to for how to modifications modifications accessibility accessibility I'm very concerned I'm very concerned about the transparency about the transparency the only housing the only housing continues to be continues to be not available to the very low to the very low to the very low people in burdens people in burdens you continue to not progress communities communities not increasing inclusion and now units that are empty even in the flatlands housing has not gone down poor in the sand can live in the city thank you thank you our next speaker is Whitney Sparks followed by Blair Beekman followed by Bridget Shank Whitney Sparks you should not be able to speak okay we will go to Blair Beekman next but we are waiting for Whitney hi Blair Beekman thanks for the public comment today it is nice to hear so many people speaking of public comment because there is a full range of ideas for this item about fire issues living in San Diego for the past few years we have not had these sort of continual public meetings on fire preparedness it is a real great service that you are offering at this time that the public and community can get together and talk about fire issues good luck with working on missing middle issues is there any way that mixed income ideas can be of help in working out these issues I hope you can be thinking about mixed income ideas with these missing middle projects and how to apply them and to introduce people to the good work that is possible with different levels of income within the same neighborhood area that can live together, thank you okay our next speaker is Bridget Shank followed by Betsy Morris followed by Matti Teiblem Bridget Shank you should now be able to speak hi I am a resident an architect and a small scale developer living and working in the Berkeley Hills I am attempting to build safe and responsible infill development in this area that has a very real fire danger and I have two specific suggestions to allow for safe development in the hills without inadvertently using the fire danger to create exclusionary zoning laws the first suggestion is that the current proposal as it's written eliminates the ministerial approval process for single family homes created by SB 9 and section 23.202.070 states that the purpose of this district is to encourage housing development of all types and yet this proposal unnecessarily burdens the approval for single family homes which may be the most appropriate consideration for a single family home development on certain lots in the hillside district and I think that should be seriously considered by council before approving the second suggestion is pretty specific the front setbacks should be smaller not greater in the hills where topography makes most sites impossible to comply with a 20 foot setback or even a 15 foot setback and the second suggestion is that there should be a fire evacuation scenario at least in the hillside district this will make more sense for keeping egress safe during a fire evacuation scenario thank you thanks and I just also want to thank staff I know everyone's worked really hard on this and I know we do need more housing so thank you thank you very much okay we'll go on to the next item and that is the ordinance for a resident of Upper West Berkeley in District 2 and I wanted to bring up a couple things one is I support the intent and purpose of this change in ordinance so that we can have a greater choice so I'm not a resident of Upper West Berkeley but I question deeply the use of the term transients to label potential you know almost half the population are renters actually no I'm sorry more than half of the population of Berkeley are renters and while some come and go as students many people make their livelihood on renters or through their employment so I want to be respectful of that second I my time is up I spoke too much well thank you for considering this and supporting this one size does not fit all and I appreciate attention to details and I'll speak further about it another time thank you very much this is for Matthew Matthew Shabil speak yes can you hear me yes okay thank you for allowing me to share my opinion I'm not sure I know or I have an opinion which way this should go but what's missing and for me in the presentation there's a lot of data and projections about the outcomes of different options of development they are relying on our current infrastructure from roads for evacuation water drainage you name it infrastructure that we know is in disrepair and behind on maintenance how much what is the capacity to accommodate and did the city do live dynamic modeling to understand what the development what are the situations that the development will create what I hear and see is only projections or development of codes and regulations without understanding their potential outcomes and I think we have to be educated when making that decision and make sure that we have the right data and analysis in order to at least prepare or know where the gaps are thank you thank you go next to Adam Tigar followed by Alex Marenikov followed by Kevin Burke thank you counsel I was born and raised in Berkeley and I was born and raised in Berkeley and I live in district 4 and I would like to continue to live here and multifamily housing that's my favorite kind personally and I would hope you pass this proposal so that I can continue to do so thank you so much for your time and giving us the opportunity to give public comment thank you Alexander Marenikov followed by Kevin Burke can you guys hear me all right I live in district 4 it's important to younger people to speak to you I live in a 60% AMI BMR as a renter and have for almost 15 years in downtown Berkeley I only live here because I have a BMR and I can barely afford that because I'm on social security and I rent in a BMR can go up 10% year over year it is a yearly struggle to stay in Berkeley which I consider my home we need more housing and BMR condos like SF has in Berkeley I believe the city must approve any and all initiatives to build more housing and we have a responsibility to do so economies that grow need fuel and that means more housing this is not an isolated village and we must adapt thank you thank you very much okay we'll go to Kevin Burke our next speaker Kevin are you there you should not be able to speak hi my name is Kevin Burke I am a member of East Bay for everyone I am commenting in support of the ordinance Berkeley has done a really great job recently of lowering rents you don't need to believe me you can believe Dan Lieberman who is the president of the Berkeley Property Owners Association who wrote his most recent book property owners association who wrote his most recent newsletter with lots of new construction coming online and the job market shifting many landlords are no longer able to command the rents for vacancies that they once could so Berkeley has done a really great job for one and two bedroom units of lowering rents but there's still family units right now it's really hard to afford family units in Berkeley and this ordinance would do a really good job of putting larger units on the market we live in Walnut Creek we love the chance to live in Berkeley but it's just too expensive and right now in Walnut Creek today it's about 105 degrees so it's not great that we're sort of forcing people who want to have kids to live out in the suburbs and we sort of see this in enrollment data in Berkeley to school enrollment is down about 15% 18% in the last decade in Berkeley which is just not a sustainable trend and it's going to lead to school closures.
Thank you.
So I pass the ordinance to reverse those trends and let's get kids back in Berkeley schools and families back in Berkeley.
Thank you.
Okay our last raised hand on Zoom to speak on the public hearing on item one zoning ordinance and general plan amendments relating to middle housing is forced if there's anyone else on Zoom would like to speak in this public hearing please raise your hand at this time.
Forced should not be able to speak.
Forced, are you there? Yes, I'm here.
Can you hear me? We can.
Yes, thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening city council members.
Thank you for your service to the city of Berkeley.
I've had the privilege of living in the same South Berkeley neighborhood near Ashby Barts for the last 17 years.
My wife and I have raised our daughter here and she starts at Berkeley High in just a few weeks.
Berkeley is an amazing place to live and more people should have the chance to live here.
I encourage you to adopt the Planning Commission's recommendations without delay.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
That is the last speaker on Zoom and so in consultation with the city attorney since we will be providing direction there will be a revised version of the ordinance coming back at a future meeting we will keep the public hearing open so we will not close the public hearing and it's now in order for council to discuss and provide direction on this so I'd like to take the chair's prerogative and to begin the discussion.
So I really want to thank everyone who came tonight.
We've gotten hundreds I think it was like 600 letters in the supplemental packet, hundreds of letters from Berkeley residents, countless phone calls.
We had a packed audience today.
Clearly this is an issue our community cares deeply about not just in terms of the need to build more housing but making sure we're doing it thoughtfully and responsibly and so I really want to thank everyone.
I thought there was a lot of very thoughtful public testimony today and I want to say that I have listened to the input that we've heard from the community and look forward to discussion from the council today.
I kind of want to center this conversation to three years ago when the council I believe unanimously took action to pass a resolution recognizing the historic harm that our single family zoning had created in Berkeley and many people may have read the Color of Law which talked very extensively about racial covenants and restrictive zoning as a way to racially segregate and divide communities throughout the United States.
I'm proud of many things in Berkeley but one of the things I'm not proud of is that Berkeley was the first city in the United States to pass single family zoning to prevent racial segregation and racial discrimination.
We have a dance hall in the exclusive Elmwood district and that is the foundation our single family zoning is perpetuated on in Berkeley and we see the outcomes to this day of racial disparities in health and policing and education which had been perpetuated by racial segregation and racial discrimination throughout the United States.
We took the step recognizing that if we're going to address systemic racism not just in policing and criminal justice but in every aspect of our society recognizing that systemic racism persists in every aspect of our society that we have to address how it has addressed our housing market and our housing policy and so we unanimously passed single family zoning to end exclusionary zoning.
We also passed a very ambitious housing element earlier this year that set the goal of adopting zoning regulations to allow for middle housing and so really this is about how we can expand housing opportunities throughout the city of Berkeley so that those generations of people who have been priced out of Berkeley or have been displaced from Berkeley to come back to Berkeley the people that work here that grew up here can live here and so I think this is a very important step for our city to take to not just fulfill our commitment to end exclusionary zoning and address equity in our city's land use policy to right the past wrongs but to also be a model for cities throughout the state of California and this is one of the most ambitious rezoning efforts of any city in the United States and I think it's appropriate for us to do that.
I think it's important for us to make sure that we do that effectively.
That being said we want to do it right.
We want to make sure we have public input so I'm glad that we're not taking final action tonight that we'll have an opportunity over the next few months to get more input and to take into consideration I think the very thoughtful issues that have been raised such as the fire safety issues in the hills.
I think it's important for us to make sure that we have public input so that we can really clearly outline the very serious public safety issues that we have to consider.
We also are waiting on an evacuation study that we had commissioned I think about a year ago and so I want to make sure we have that information when we make a decision about whether to apply these new zoning standards in the hills because there's no doubt that parts of our hills are going to be affected.
We're going to have to make sure that we have public input.
If we don't do this thoughtfully and don't do this right we are going to put people's lives at risk and that's not acceptable.
I think we can balance the need to build more housing and to put in place responsible regulations that also prioritize public safety.
So taking all that input in mind I have put together a motion and I want to thank Councilmember Castellani who I've had the pleasure of working with and I'm going to share my screen with you.
I'm going to share my screen with you so that I can make sure that the appropriate staff can work on the ordinance and bring us back in the fall.
But I think to reflect I think some of the input we've heard from the community.
So I'm going to share screen give me a moment.
And I think everyone can see this.
So I'll just read this.
I move that the Council provide staff direction to prepare for the next phase of the ordinance.
The next phase of the ordinance in the hillside overlay zone in ESR district.
As staff originally proposed Council expresses its desire to receive and review the Fire Department's evacuation study in order to better understand public safety risks prior to consideration of middle housing standards in the zone.
Outside of the hillside overlay zone.
The Fire Department is required to include a maximum density standard per acre as follows.
And they are one district 40 units an acre which would result in 4 units on a 4,000 square foot lot.
R1A and R2 50 units an acre which would result in 5 units on a 4,000 square foot lot.
And the R2A and MUR districts allow 6 units an acre resulting in 6 units on a 4,000 square foot lot.
And the R2A and MUR districts allow 6 units on a 4,000 square foot lot.
This is in response to I think.
Concerns that are raised that I've expressed around making sure that we're not creating incentive for large homes or mansions but that we're really focusing on the goal of the middle housing ordinance which is to maximize the number of single-family homes.
And this is in response to another suggestion which I think is based on what some other jurisdictions are doing which is to regulate the size of the of the primary unit.
To make sure we're not resulting a situation we have large McMansions.
But however, there is benefit in my opinion for having large single-family homes or that could be more affordable.
And this is in response to some of the concerns that I've expressed around limiting affordable or multi-generational housing opportunities, limited equity cooperatives, different types of housing models that can make housing more affordable and expand housing opportunities in our city.
So the proposal is to allow this while controlling against excessively large single-family homes.
And this is in response to some of the concerns that I've expressed around limiting primary unit square footage maybe no more than half the lot size.
So for example, 250 square feet, maximum primary unit size for a lot on a lot of 5,000 square feet, or no larger than 2,500 square feet, whichever is greater.
These square footage limitations shall supply to home additions as well as one primary unit that exceeds the square footage limitations from a home addition will require administrative use permit.
Height, rather than have a maximum average height of 28 square feet to establish a much simpler, clearer standard of 35 feet or three stories in order to provide certainty that structures do not exceed three feet.
This would allow for a higher standard of 35 feet or three stories.
However, the ceiling heights are not substandard.
A maximum average height is more costly to design and build and is less energy efficient.
So in order to make sure we don't have substandard ceiling heights or substandard housing, and to make sure that we can reduce the cost of building housing, I'm proposing that we just establish a standard of 35 feet or three stories.
This would allow for more flexibility in front and rear property.
Front and rear setback to provide greater flexibility for smaller parcels and promote backyard space, I'm proposing that we provide more flexibility in how the front and rear setbacks would apply.
Berkeley has, this would apply citywide except for the hills.
If you're going to have a large front yard setback or a large front yard setback or wide lots, this would ensure that you can either have a large front yard setback or a larger rear yard setback because the setback requirements that are proposed would result in situations where in some cases there would be no backyard basically, no usable backyard.
I don't think that's good for the livability, the quality of the front yard setback.
I'm also proposing that we provide a total of 20 feet combined with a minimum of 5 feet in the front and a minimum of 5 feet in the rear.
This is to ensure that smaller parcels are not required to maintain a 15-foot front setback and lose the possibility of a private backyard, which might encourage fencing of the front-facing open space, which is a deleterious outcome for the front yard setback.
This would provide more flexibility for the property owner to determine the setback configuration on the basis of the lot condition.
Neighbor notice.
When we adopted the ADU regulations, we had established a requirement that we provide neighbor notice for neighboring properties when there was an ADU application.
And staff has done a great job with this.
I'm not saying that this is a ministerial project.
This isn't subject to discretionary view, but I think it's the right thing in terms of good government and it's the neighborly thing to make sure that if a buy right project is happening in a neighborhood, that the neighbors are notified.
I'm proposing that we adopt the same language that we adopted in our ADU ordinance for the middle of the project.
The notice shall provide the address of the property and the owners and tenants of adjacent confronting and abutting properties within 10 working days of submission of the building permit application to the city.
Content of the notice.
The notice shall provide the address of the project, allowable hours of construction, a link to the city's ADU webpage, or I guess the city's webpage, the address of the project.
The notice shall provide the address of the project, allowable hours of construction, or any other resource or information deemed relevant.
Mailing fees, the applicant shall be responsible, the project applicant, for the cost of materials, postage, and staff time necessary to process and mail the notices.
So it's the responsibility of the applicant to do the neighborhood development.
The next item on the agenda is the citywide historic context statement.
This is not particular, but just I think very important to the implementation of this missing middle housing ordinance.
I'm proposing that we refer $200,000 to November AO1 process to fund a citywide historic context statement.
This document would describe broad patterns of historical context statement.
The council expresses its intent to fund and conduct a citywide historic resource survey to identify resources for landmark initiation.
That's my motion.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, Councilmember Lunapar.
Thank you.
I want to first thank our incredibly hardworking planning staff, as well as our commission members and everyone who has given their time and energy to make this ordinance happen.
I want to start out by saying that I strongly support the planning commission version of this ordinance and would like to see it passed as written tonight.
Missing middle housing improves neighborhood integration.
UC Berkeley has shown that most California metro areas have a high level of segregation, and the problem is actually becoming worse over time.
I do not believe that the building code revision of the 2008 building code revision mandated fire-resistant construction.
However, it should be noted that the fire department's memorandum specifically noted that part of what makes the hills prone to wildfires are the fact that the houses were built before the 2008 building code revision that mandated fire-resistant construction, as well as the fact that the houses were built before the 2008 building code revision.
The building code revisions should be able to replace the houses with modern fire-resistant designs.
Furthermore, redevelopment typically involves new landscaping and trees, which is a perfect opportunity to remove fire-prone invasive species.
Careful application of landscaping standards and building codes could result in a situation where new development actually improves the neighborhood.
I would like to reiterate that we are not able to discuss affordable housing inclusionary zoning today.
The decision to allow for a higher density in our neighborhoods does not preclude us from enacting affordability requirements in the future.
We need the tenant opportunity to purchase act, we need social and cooperative housing, and we need feasible inclusionary zoning.
I would like to reiterate that we are not able to discuss affordability requirements in the future.
Our current policies are actively worsening gentrification.
Our status quo is actively displacing our poor residents.
We are artificially increasing the prices of homes across the city, benefiting landlords and homeowners.
Passing this missing middle ordinance as written would overturn our status quo.
I would like to reiterate that we are not able to discuss affordability requirements in the future.
We need the tenant opportunity to purchase act, we need social and cooperative housing, and we need feasible inclusionary zoning.
I would like to reiterate that we are not able to discuss affordability requirements in the future.
I would like to reiterate that we are not able to discuss affordability requirements in the future.

Segment 8

the city's most affluent.
The city has been providing a lot of housing for tenants and they are providing relocation assistance and right of first refusal for former tenants.
The Berkeley property owners Association sent a letter to landlords across the city encouraging landlords to lower rents for their tenants due to the fact that supply and demand balance has shifted in tenants favors.
Berkeley has some of the strongest tenant protections in the state and I want more people to enjoy these tenant protections by allowing more people to live here.
The city's affordable unit count policy will allow for more affordable units to be allocated to affordable units that are indeed restricted below market rate units.
This policy will quite literally expand our city's total affordable unit count while providing less expensive options than single family homes.
I also want to push back slightly on the McMansion fear.
There are many reasons why large homes may be important for multi-generational homes and families, cooperatives including student cooperatives and fraternity and sorority houses just to name a few.
I also want to be cognizant of the fact that the city's affordable unit count policy is an unequivocal commitment to affirmatively further fair housing.
It is therefore our responsibility to not exclude the wealthiest and whitest part of the city.
I also want to be cognizant to the threats of those who live in areas of the city threatened by dangerous evacuation routes.
It is also clear that the entire hillside overlay is not equal.
There are many blocks within the hillside overlay that are not evacuation hazards and I do not think it makes sense for a Now let me take a few minutes to make some comments.
I appreciate the original motion and I would like to make a substantive motion.
To recommend staff to develop an ordinance amending the general plan based on the planning commission recommendation for R1, R1A, R2, R2A and MUR with the exception of R1H and return with recommendations for R1H after the completion of the evacuation study.
I am open to some of the amendments presented by the committee.
We would like to make additional amendments to the original plan.
We are open to any additional changes and height changes but would like to maintain no density unit maximum.
Thank you.
I will second that for purposes of discussion.
Thank you.
Councilmember Wengraf.
Would you like to listen please? We don't need to hear the comments.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you to everybody who came in person tonight.
And everybody on Zoom who participated.
Berkeley has always valued citizen participation.
In fact, we voluntarily included an element in our general plan called citizen participation.
And the citizen participation is a key element in our general plan.
And it's a key element in land use decisions.
So I want to thank you for coming.
But I don't think it's sufficient.
You came because some of us asked you to come.
You didn't know about this before that notification.
And there are thousands of people out there who don't know that this is going on.
In the time since we're not going to be able to get information.
And we're going to be located in every corner of this city.
Informing and educating people about what this all means.
This 174-page report, nobody can make sense of it unless you're a professional planner.
I was on the planning commission for 18 years.
And it took me four days to figure out what this means.
And I'm going to tell you what it means.
I really want everybody to understand what this means.
We all agree, we all agree that we have a crisis in affordable housing.
However, many people commented here today that there's no evidence that this proposal is going to create affordable housing.
And I'm going to tell you why.
I'm going to give you an explanation of why we think this proposal is going to create affordable housing.
If the answer comes back, yes, it will.
And there's data to indicate that it will provide what we're looking for, then great.
Let's move forward.
But let's not do this by saying that we're not going to create affordable housing.
We're going to take the roads to the hills, which I represent.
And the mayor and council member Hamid and council member Humbert.
In 1991, in the tunnel fire, we watched people burn in their cars.
Lives extinguished because of the fire.
And I think climate change has made this an issue that firefighters can't save us.
Chief Sprague is not going to put our fire department in harm's way to go in and rescue us.
The fires move at such speed with such velocity.
And we have fire chiefs here who, you know, if you don't have a fire department, you don't have a fire department.
I've devoted myself to this issue long enough to know that it's real.
It's not anecdotal.
It's real.
Can we find a way to provide affordable housing in the hills and not put people at risk? That should be our goal.
We should be able to do both things if we stop and think long enough.
I'm going to ask you a question.
I know zoning is a very blunt tool.
And you planning staff know that.
Where is the nuance in this? Just increasing density citywide? There's a reason why we have area plans.
Because every area of the city has different needs.
And we have different goals for every area of the city.
We now have the south side plan.
We now have the north side plan.
We now have the north side plan.
We now have the south side plan.
We now have the south side plan.
We now have the south side plan.
Every part of the city needs specific individualized attention.
Just making this blanket density thing is nuts, I think.
I think.
My personal opinion.
We need to find a better way.
I don't think we have a better way.
But I would like to try to amend it.
And see if you can include in your motion, Mr.
Mayor, the opportunity to have community workshops throughout the city in the time between now and when staff is ready to come back to us.
So that we can have a conversation about what our citizens deserve.
And we can inform them and educate them about what this means to the quality of their lives.
You know, I can hold, I can call the meeting, I can invite the planning staff to do a presentation.
We can have the fire department come out at night.
It's not burdensome for people to come out at night.
But I really think it's an essential part of this program.
So I would like to amend it to that.
Offer that as a friendly amendment.
I also.
I accept that.
Yes, I also accept that.
Thank you.
Me and the planning director and the fire department.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I want to amend your motion because as written, you're using two different standards for lot size.
One is 4,000 square feet and one is 5,000 square feet.
I believe staff usually uses 5,000.
So I'd like to amend the motion to be consistent.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
I'm confused.
The actual density per acre standard is as it's shown.
It's confusing.
We can get the numbers for how many units are created on a 5,000 square foot lot.
I think it's better to be consistent with your numbers.
The last comment I want to make is that if the zoning amendments are not consistent with the general plan, then you know that all zoning amendments have to be in compliance with the general plan.
And Jordan is shaking his head.
And a lot of the suggestions that are before us tonight are not consistent with the general plan.
So in order to avoid confusion, I'm going to be identifying all the areas of this proposal that are currently not in compliance with the general plan and come back to council with revisions for making them compliant with the general plan.
And then we will have to present all the other areas that are essential in the general plan.
So Jordan, I think, knows what I'm saying.
It's very important.
And if any of you have several hours to spare, you might look at the general plan because it's an extraordinary proposal.
But it's not going to be true to what our values are.
So those are my comments for now.
Thank you.
≫ So was there a suggestion with respect to that comment? ≫ No.
I'm asking for as part of the motion or we can just do it.
≫ I'm not sure.
I'm asking for as part of the motion.
≫ I'm asking for as part of the motion.
≫ I'm asking for as part of the motion.
≫ We will take the additional time to do a comprehensive review of the general plan and ensure consistency and when we advance this back, we will advance it with any required accompanying amendments for the general plan.
≫ Thank you, Mr.
Chair, and thank you to all of the commissioners for your participation on this project.
It's really incredibly good work.
I'm also really grateful for all the public input and the work of the commissions and everybody involved in these many, many workshops and outreach sessions.
I'm really excited we're approaching this historical Rubicon, which is a side of the city that's been a significant part of this.
I think my predecessor and housing hero, Laurie Drosty, and also councilmember Kesarwani, also a housing pioneer and hero, and I want to add to this list our great pro-housing mayor.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
I'm going to keep my comments fairly general and not technical.
The Elmwood neighborhood project is an opportunity to help right historical wrongs and ease our housing crisis.
I represent district 8, which includes the Elmwood neighborhood.
The Elmwood was the birthplace of exclusionary zoning in 1916, which was created as a back door to racial segregation when courts began striking down explicitly racist neighborhood covenants.
The Elmwood neighborhood project, which was created as a back door to what's called racist covenants, were legitimate.
The courts were considering that in the early 20th century.
I think the developer of the Elmwood found out about that, a very savvy guy, and included this new program of R1 zoning to accomplish the same purposes.
Now, I'm not saying that the Elmwood neighborhood project was a bad idea.
The Elmwood neighborhood project was a good idea, but it was based on racial racism and exclusionary intent.
And after that, you know, Berkeley was a pioneer in this.
After that, R1 spread across the country from Berkeley for the same exclusionary reasons.
And as council member for district 8, I feel like I have an historic obligation to fix the Elmwood neighborhood project.
I'm not sure if it was a good idea or not.
I'm not sure if it was a good idea for African-Americans and Asians from moving into the neighborhood.
I've read some of the ads, and specifically, it involved one of them was an African-American dance hall, which I think may have been intended to be built on Claremont Avenue.
I'm not certain of that.
But it was a neighborhood that was excluded from the neighborhood.
And often, you know, still the case, it had the effect of excluding those groups from the neighborhood.
And we know for a fact that these economic disparities continue to exist, in part because people with lesser means have been financially locked out of the neighborhoods.
This is general in the country that we live in.
In the Elmwood neighborhood, the demographics are disproportionately white, with a substantial percentage of Asian-Americans, but very few Latinx and Black residents.
This lack of inclusion is a legacy of those racist policies.
The one African-American who lives close to me in the Elmwood is Judge Thelton Henderson, who was the chief judge of the U.S.
District Court in San Francisco.
That's the only African-American that lives very close.
I'm not saying, again, that our one neighbors are racist now.
I'm saying that it was racist in inception, the zoning.
Strong missing middle housing policies help reduce these disparities because they reopen our neighborhoods to people who maybe can't afford a big house on a large lot, but could afford a unit and a duplex, a fourplex, or even something like a bungalow court.
We have a couple of bungalow courts.
I love them.
They're adorable.
And they can be built.
There's one built at the corner.
This is just over the border in Oakland, the corner of Benvenu and Alcatraz.
It's a two-story bungalow court, shingled.
It fits right in.
It's lovely.
And apparently, it was feasible.
For these policies to be meaningful, we need to cut red tape, make it simpler and faster and make it more accessible.
That's what the proposals before us do.
Having said all this, I represent District 8 again, which is the one district that was affected directly by the fire in 1991.
Part of District 8 burned.
And that's the area above, part of the area above Tunnel Road would be on sort of the east side of Tunnel Road.
And that's where we're at right now.
And that's where we're at right now.
And that's where we're at right now.
But there are parts of the hillside overlay that are not high-fire danger zones.
I'm thinking of Eaton Court, which opens up directly onto Claremont Avenue, very close to the intersection.
And then there's the intersection between College and Claremont Safeway.
So it just opens up onto a four-lane road.
It's in the hillside overlay, but it's not subject to the same risks as some of the other houses in the uplands, above Alvarado, Panoramic.
Panoramic is a particularly scary and risky area.
And it's not a safe area to live in because it's really at such risk.
So I'm aware of all this, and I want to make sure that we do a good and sort of nuanced job of delineating the districts in the hills that can accommodate some more density and those that can't.
And so I'm really waiting for the results of the evacuation study.
Thank you.
≫ Okay.
Thank you.
We'll go next to Councillor Kiselwani.
≫ Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Mayor.
Thank you to our planning staff, our planning commission, our city attorney's office, former Councilmember Lori Droste who led the charge on this in 2019 requesting a middle housing ordinance.
As the mayor recalled in 2021, this Council unanimously voted to end exclusionary zoning.
And after 35 public meetings, it sounds like we'll still have a few more, though.
So that's good.
I'm really glad that we've gotten to this point of what I hope will be providing very clear guidelines for how we're going to end exclusionary zoning.
Affirmatively furthering fair housing, we heard some public commenters talking about that.
It is a legal requirement in state law.
It comes from federal law from the 60s, the Fair Housing Act.
In our housing element plan, we are required to affirmatively include more affordable housing in higher-income neighborhoods.
That is a key reason why I led the charge in amending our housing element to increase the zoned capacity of our commercial corridors in higher-income neighborhoods, including College Avenue, North Shattuck Avenue, and Solano Avenue so that those commercial corridors where, you know, those are areas that are not in the hillside overlay that are not in the commercial corridors that are not in the commercial corridors that are adjacent to extreme wildfire risk, that those can be places where we can create larger, taller housing with inclusionary units on site or with those developments paying into our affordable housing trust fund the same way that the numerous projects on San Pablo Avenue are doing.
So I strongly support this proposal.
I strongly support all of the strategies we are pursuing to bring fair housing.
However, it is still my view that we should pause consideration of this middle housing proposal in the hillside overlay zone until we can receive the fire department's evacuation study and advance strategies to fully mitigate public safety risks.
I strongly support all of the strategies we are pursuing.
I strongly support all of the strategies we are pursuing.
I strongly support all of the strategies we are pursuing.
I would also like to see us do more to better manage the street parking so that it could be possible to consider modest middle housing standards in the hills.
I think there could be ways to do this in the hills with standards that are specific to areas of this zone where it is most affordable.
I would also like to see us do more to better manage the street parking so that it could be possible to consider modest middle housing standards in the hills.
I think there could be ways to do this in the hills with standards that are specific to areas of this zone where it is most affordable.
I do want to talk about how important it is to advance this proposal in the rest of our city now.
As we heard in public discussions, we heard from people who are struggling with the cost of living.
We heard from teachers, firefighters, seniors who are on fixed incomes and kids who grew up here, a chance to live here as adults.
We heard from young people who are struggling with the cost of living.
I believe we have a responsibility to help them.
This is something we can do that doesn't require a new affordable housing bond.
It doesn't require a new affordable housing bond.
It doesn't require a new affordable housing bond.
Instead of making those investments, we just have to change our zoning rules to open up some of these parcels.
It's not going to be every parcel, but where it makes sense, I want us to allow those opportunities to flourish.
There was a Berkeleyside opinion published today and authors say that the city's historic black population has dropped by 70%.
That is 18,760 people, they write, and it has fallen every decade since 1970 in neighborhoods that have built no housing.
Daryl has done a neighborhood-level analysis of the census data, and he found that the only Berkeley neighborhoods where the black population and overall racial diversity has grown are in Berkeleyside.
The only neighborhoods where racial diversity has grown are in our downtown and in our waterfront area where housing is being built.
That tells me that creating homes helps our communities of color.
They also cite five-year 2022 American Community Survey data.
I'm sorry to do such a policy walk here, but you have to indulge me.
What they showed is that the median Berkeley household in a single-family home is $1,000,000.
When you look at new multifamily homes, when they're in multi-unit housing, that's five to 19 units, so this midsize housing, the households who live in that housing, their income is six times lower than the income of a household in a single-family home.
What does that look like? Their incomes are on average $33,000, and the average income of somebody in a single-family home is $1,000,000.
So we have to lift our ban on middle housing.
We have to create more options for people who aren't going to earn $225,000, but who deserve to have an opportunity to live here.
These data points tell us that the way to help our low-income communities and people of color is to adopt this proposal and lift our ban on middle homes like duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes.
As some of us have stated in our newsletters, Berkeley's own Kamala Harris, she grew up in a West Berkeley duplex.
She didn't grow up in a single-family home in the Elmwood.
There's a reason for that, and we can do better.
We can do better for the next generation, and I'm really looking forward to this council approving the direction so that we can do better for the next future generations.
The next one after Kamala Harris, I mean, according to the person who will be from Berkeley as well, according to UC Berkeley's Othering and Belonging Institute, single-family zoned areas have been shown to increase racial segregation and income inequality.
That's why we need to do this, and I know we are pausing on the hillside overlay zone tonight.
Well, that's what the mayor is proposing and what I support.
There still are significant R1 zones on the eastern side of the city when you look at that zoning map.
They're high-resource areas.
They have larger parcels.
Those are opportunity sites that may get developed.
I do want to ask you, Mr.
Klein, a lot of people are citing the possibility of 100,000 new units.
I believe that assumes that every single lot is built out to the max.
Can you tell us how many units are expected as a result of this zoning change? In the sequent analysis that we conducted, we projected up to 1,700 units over an eight-year period, but that was extremely conservative, like on the high end.
The reality is it's likely to be a fraction of that, really.
If we look back at the pace of development of middle-housing projects, actually, anticipating that we might get this question today, I asked staff to look at how many middle-housing or projects between two and 10 units were permitted in recent history.
They were able to pull six years of data.
Citywide, in six years, we saw 25 middle-housing projects for a total of 75 units.
That's a little more than four projects a year for 12 units a year.
That's not a lot.
Now, one of the reasons we're not getting middle-housing is because it's not permitted in much of the city, but that's not the only constraint.
As you've heard, there's concerns about financial feasibility, actual owner interest.
Not a lot of people are actually interested in redeveloping their property until monthly in development.
I don't anticipate that we're going to see a flood of new projects.
I think as one commenter said, it's more likely to be a trickle of new projects.
I think that's accurate.
Thank you very much.
I think that's helpful to keep in mind.
The way I look at it is we do not want our development standards to stand in the way.
There are already so many other barriers in terms of financing, construction costs, feasibility, whether people are even interested in pursuing the development standards.
There are so many other barriers.
If you think about the number of homes that are for sale at any given time in Berkeley, it's really not that many.
The opportunity parcels are going to be limited.
I don't want people to come away from this meeting tonight thinking that this is going to lead to 100,000 new units overnight.
We do need the units, but we do need to see some changes.
Also, we can modify things in the future as we see the type of homes that are being developed.
Thank you very much again, everyone.
I look forward to coming to a vote soon given that the time is 7.35.
Thank you.
Council Member Hunt.
Thank you very much.
I wanted to thank Council Member Hunt and Council Member Hunt.
I wanted to thank Council Member Hunt and Council Member Hunt for the motion.
I strongly support the middle housing referrals that we've done in the past.
I distinctly recall that in the past, and I've gone back to our March 2019 referral and some of the other referrals that we've done in the past.
That is exactly what the mayor and Council Member Keserwani's motion does.
I'm really pleased because I think that the Planning Commission's version, which is what was ostensibly before us tonight, really went kind of radically.

Segment 9

structure that went into it that.
And I did ask of them I winter 7 years on the signing board and I did ask of them I winter 7 years on the signing board.
Size and you guys never got back to me how you may have been it you're going to look at the states.
Oh didn't tell me what the minimum since Berkeley doesn't have an amendment to minimum.
What would the minimum be for state building code.
I apologize for not getting back to you that's not behind us.
Next slide.
Okay so there's this is a different unit you could do all right well that I've I'm going to go back to the next slide.
How many units can you have you can have 5.
It's it's I'm very pleased with what we have because it conforms with what we have referred.
And that is much more acceptable to me in terms of the size of the parcel.
Thank you.
Any other questions for staff.
How does the per acre.
Number work is it like if it's.
50 per acre and you have a half acre parcel you can have 25 if it's a quarter acre parcel you can have 12 or 13 is it just a quarter acre parcel.
Okay.
The number of units is rounded up which is established in the zoning ordinance.
Okay, yeah.
All right I I'm sorry I should just clarify and it's rounded if it's 0.5 or higher and it's a quarter acre parcel.
Okay.
If it's 50 if you have a quarter acre parcel you're paying your right in the middle.
I would like to.
Offer a friendly amendment to the motion makers.
Okay.
So this is the first time that we've seen this proposal and I wonder and that would yield with the 40.
The 40 per acre if I understood correctly and thank you it did go by.
Quickly.
Well okay sorry yes, thank you for putting this up because I just want to know like this proposal we don't have it in this.
This is the first time we've seen it.
Those of us who are not involved in creating it.
40 units.
So does that result in 4 units can staff confirm that for me.
That number actually Mister is.
So if we're talking about a 4,000 square foot lot it would be 4 units so so this.
Units per acre it scales with the size of the lot.
And so so the way to do this math for everyone at home it's 5,000 square feet divided by 43,560.
Square feet in an acre so we're getting we're getting a fraction of how much of an acre is 5,000 square feet times the size of that unit by 60.
That's correct so we're correct so it's 6 pieces right here.
They are correct now so it's it's got put up.
This when request a change that's correct.
So this is different from this looks different from what was.
Explain when the motion was made I guess I'll come back to that in a couple minutes I have I have some other questions and some some things I wanted to say.
I wanted to ask that the fire department I know we have.
I'm sorry I'm not sure I'm hearing you.
I'm sorry I'm not sure I'm hearing you.
That's not straight.
That's Colin.
It's most certainly that's great.
Yeah so I wanted to so I spent quite a bit of about it about I don't know a year or 2 ago.
I was on a call with the California Department of Highway Safety and the fire department and we did have a public speaker who came up said something that isn't true that that is really easy to misunderstand because of the way Cal fire does its maps.
So my understanding is that Cal fire proposes very high levels of statistical knowledge.
So if you have your own fire department in your location.
Then any jurisdiction that has its own fire department and I forget what they call it but basically it means you have your own local fire department.
They can then go and do their own studies based on their better local knowledge.
So.
The California Department of Highway Safety and the fire department has provided statewide.
When the local fire department a local fire agency makes its determination and the council that's us.
Designates the very high fire hazard severity zone that is the state map.
And that is the state map.
Unfortunately, even though that gets fired with Caltrans with Cal fire sorry did I see Caltrans Cal fire.
They don't change their map.
And so if you go to state map.
It is truly extremely confusing.
But I don't want anybody to think that the California Department of Highway Safety and the fire department has changed their map or somehow contrary to the state the state recognizes only one very high fire hazard severity map.
And that's our map.
Not the map on their website.
Did I explain that correctly.
Members Council good evening.
My name is Colin Arnold and the chief of the California fire department.
And this this question predominantly concerns our jurisdiction but I am supported by other chiefs if they have other comments.
Councilmember Han you're entirely correct to the state does provide an initial map and recommendations and then all local agencies do have the opportunity to amend it and add additional areas.
We've done that with each cycle and you are correct the Cal fire agency does provide an initial map and recommendations and then providing more rapid updates.
It's obviously very confusing to see that Cal fire map with a zone that's so much more restrictive.
But you are correct that the very high fire danger severity zone is identified by the local agency is passed back to Cal fire and it does more or less resemble fire zones two and three.
There are a few individual fire zones that are identified by the local agency.
But I would like to say that they are a good representation of the very high fire hazard severity zone.
One of these days I'll be able to say that correctly.
Okay.
Thank you.
And so the other thing that I wanted to spell here is the street width thing that people like to bring up.
And the idea that any of us can't do that.
We can't do that.
We set our own standards for what is extremely dangerous and what is not we.
We cannot do that ourselves.
And I it's not so much about the width of the small, the smallest residential and feeder streets.
Sadly, if you have vehicles on the streets, you can't do that.
You can't do that.
You can't do that.
It's not about the width of the foot.
It is much more about the capacity of our actual evacuation roads.
And even in a place like Oakland where they have, you know, very, very high fire hazard severity.
They have four lane streets skyline.
And they have a very, very large number of people.
And they are constrained in the number of actual streets of lanes for egress of a very, very large number of people.
So I I'm not going to go on and on about this.
But my point here is I want the public and my colleagues to understand that.
If you're going to run into a thoroughfare on your street, it doesn't make a lot of difference because you're going to run into a bottleneck on the thoroughfares that gets you out of harm's way.
If you haven't already run into a thoroughfare on your street.
I would like to request that the fire department provide a report to the city manager.
I would like to request that they provide a report to the council and to the public.
What these hazards are because I hear it over and over that people question this.
And if there is if we're going to question it that we need to do that based on studies and science.
And we have to take action as an entire body.
So I would like to request that the fire department provide a report to the city manager.
Acting city manager.
I think we need to do that.
Thank you.
Councilmember Hahn, if I could ask for a follow-up, when you say a report back on the specific hazards, are you asking about the evacuation routes and the hazards related to leaving the hills? Is that what you're referring to? Yes, that's what I'm referring to.
I'm not opting, what is it called, there's a name for it.
It's not the hazard mitigation plan, it's something else that we, whatever, the whole process for how that map gets made.
I want everyone to understand the process as well as the content, as well as street hazards.
I'm not going to go into too much detail that we already have underway, but I'm talking about explaining to people how these designations are made and why the Cal Fire map is so confusing, right? We can maybe talk about it more in agenda committee, but I just think we need to have that presentation and a robust understanding.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I think we are wisely excluding these areas and we cannot do this on the fly.
And I appreciate that.
Okay.
A couple of other things.
I wanted to ask staff, you may recall that about, or you might recall that about the single-family homes.
I don't know if anyone remembers this.
They were sort of normal-sized homes, single-family homes, where somebody stuck, like, six bedrooms in the basement and they were each 7 by 10.
And then they built a little weird mezzanine in the area that had a high ceiling and they put another 7 by 10, quote-unquote high ceiling.
And then they built another mezzanine, and it ended up having, like, 17 or 19 tiny little bedrooms.
And at that time, the zoning board asked the city council, which I was not on, could you figure out a way to help us here? And my apologies to people who were on the council at that time, but they came up with a way to help us here.
And the zoning board decided that it had to come to the ZAP, or more than five, I can't remember, that it had to come to the ZAP.
And we could just decide if it was reasonable or if it was crazy.
By taking that away, we have now, we would now be opening the door again to this kind of, it was really kind of a Mad Max situation.
So, I'm just going to add to this motion just to refer to staff to look at that challenge, because it was a real one, and there was more than one of these, and just see if there's a mechanism in here that can address that unusual circumstance, because it was a real circumstance.
I'm sorry, something about the mini-dorm, I'm sorry, I think it was a mini-dorm problem.
It was what we called at the time the mini-dorm problem, which was exactly what I described.
It was like this massive number of bedrooms, and I don't think anybody here is envisioning that they think that's a good idea in the format in which it was coming to us.
And I'm not saying to put anything in it.
I just like a report back on that.
I'm not sure if that's a good idea.
Just to report on that.
» Council member Honda, if you'll allow, it looks like at the same time that that was instituted, just looking through the BMC, it looks like that may be also when chapter 1342 was added, which is establishing operating standards for mini-dorms and that's what we're looking at right now.
» Yes.
» And that is administered by the code enforcement, neighborhood services code enforcement and city manager's office.
So a referral to neighborhood services, a referral to the city manager to consider the effectiveness of chapter 1342 might be what you have in mind? » I'm not sure.
» I'm not sure.
» And I just want to make sure we're not creating that.
And the answer might be that we're fine.
So that would be fine with me.
» I'm okay with that.
» Council member Honda, do you have a recommended sentence, a recommended sentence for chapter 1342? » The interfaces with the mini-dorm concern.
» I don't know a better way to say it.
It's just a report.
You know, just include like three paragraphs in their report or something that explains what the breaks are on that.
» I'm not sure.
» The only way it was addressed was this very clumsy thing that said that if you were adding, I think, a 6th bedroom, no matter what, you had to come back to the zoning board, which was onerous and not good.
And this removes that requirement, and I just want to make sure the other breaks that we have are adequate.
» I'm not sure.
» Okay.
» I also would be, yeah.
» With neighborhood services, code enforcement on this, yeah.
» We could try to work with neighborhood services on that.
» Thank you.
» I'm not sure.
» I don't know if that has to be even referred if it's a state requirement, but perhaps that could be somehow referenced in what you bring back to us.
Now, they said minimum unit was 220, right? » Yeah, that's established in the local adoption of the housing code.
» Okay.
» Yeah, it's possible also that the local amendment has changed within the last few cycles.
» Okay, great.
I think it would be good to have that brought into whatever zoning you bring because it would just provide clarity as to the minimum unit size that's already established.
» Thank you.
» Thank you.
» In the original referral that we did in 2019, there were a whole bunch of questions.
Including asking about green features, evaluating environmental impacts.
Now, I'm not saying we need an EIR.
I'm not saying we need an EIR.
I'm not saying we need an EIR.
I'm not saying we need an EIR doesn't mean we can't at least do some evaluation.
And obviously, there are huge benefits to infill housing, environmental.
But I think there may also be some information we need to have about, you know, what the impact is of having a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
What the impact is of having a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
What the impact is due to the tree canopy.
If you add up, say, a 60% lot coverage and then you have an ADU, you might really only have five foot little perimeters around the buildings.
I personally would really just like to have the questions that we already referred, answered and I'm wondering if you would be able to commit to responding to those questions about first-time homeownership opportunities.
I mean, none of this is new.
It's all in the original referral and it would be good to have responses to those questions that were referred originally when we're actually looking at adopting something.
And I'm wondering if you would be able to respond to those questions.
And I'm wondering if you would be able to respond to those questions.
≫ Yes, we can.
≫ Okay.
That would be great.
≫ I wanted to ask about the right to return.
I know that we are doing that at Ashby BART and my understanding that is maybe a little bit more complicated than that.
I don't know if there's a requirement in order to create the BART station, but I'd be interested in knowing if there's any element of the right to return that could be applied to formerly red line neighborhoods.
Should there be, you know, additional development in those neighborhoods.
I mean, there's a lot of talk about the right to return.
I don't know if there's any element of the right to return that there could be additional, you know, return of communities that were so displaced.
But I would be interested in knowing if there's any part of the right to return that could apply here.
And I don't need the answer now.
Again, I'm requesting that specific information.
I don't know if there's a requirement in order to create the BART station.
I don't know if we had discussed the right to return at any length and we might have referenced it in here.
If we had, we do reference what the impacts might be on displacement.
And so I think it falls under that.
I just wanted to highlight that I'm interested in that question.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I would like an opinion about this.
At least, well, no, it might not be very last, but almost last.
I am requesting the city attorney provide us with a legal opinion, which, of course, is something that she provides to us confidentially.
Based on what we refer today, I would like an opinion on this.
Do we need to amend the general plan as intended? If so, whether the changes are so significant that maybe the general plan needs to be redone.
And if it doesn't, do we need to amend more than the housing element? Do we need to amend other sections of the general plan? Do we need to amend the housing element? Do we need to amend the housing element so that we actually get that from her? So that we have that security in knowing that all of the processes required by state law and by our own general plan and our own statutes have been fulfilled.
Is that acceptable, ma'am? Thank you.
I would like to know if the planning staff would be willing to make themselves available for council members who want to do a town hall in their district, whether you would be available.
And I guess that's a question for the acting city manager, the interim city manager.
I would like to have a town hall.
I would like to have a town hall that is accessible to present and explain in ways that the public can grasp and understand with, you know, pictures and diagrams and things that are not too technical.
And I'm wondering if that would be amenable.
We'll take a look at that, Council Member Hahn, but we certainly understand the need for a town hall.
I would like to have that in my district.
I would like to talk to the team to see about the resources and the timing because we've got to get this done coming up fairly soon, but absolutely, we'll take a look at it and I'll get right back to you this week.
Okay, well, that is a request.
I would like to have that in my district.
Certainly.
I appreciate it.
Okay.
Thank you.
My understanding was that we were looking at 4, 5, and 6 units per parcel in the different tranches that you stated and my preference would be that we just specify that per parcel.
Okay.
So that was when you stated it, I was like, great, it's that many per parcel and that conforms with what we referred originally.
So, Council Member Hahn, we're using the structure that the staff proposed, which it scales up if you have a bigger lot.
So, you know, my lot is rather small.
It's only 3,500 square feet.
So, you know, I'm reluctant to change that.
I'm reluctant to show the bigger lot you have.
So that's why it's showing a bigger unit number, but 40 units per acre on a smaller lot is 4 units.
The 4,000 square foot lot size is more common further west.
So, I'm reluctant to, so the way to change this to use these standards would be to lower the size of the unit.
So, I'm reluctant to change that.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for considering.
Council Member Kaplan.
Thank you.
Huge thanks to planning staff, commissioners, committee members who have weighed in over the last four years and participated in the numerous workshops and meetings that have been held throughout the city.
The city's law enforcement policy, the financing of affordable housing, home ownership models, tenant protections and services, the right to return to other matters related to land use and infrastructure also takes staff time and exists within other referrals and other aspects of the planning department's work plan that have been held up in the queue pending the completion of the city's affordable housing model.
The city's affordable housing model has been a major challenge to the city's replacement and ignited decimation of Berkeley's black population.
Today, young professional middle-income households and intergenerational families like mine are locked out of ownership opportunities while struggling to hang on as renters far too often need to rely on substandard structures that fail to stand up to the muster of modern code.
I understand the rationale behind excluding the ESR in very high fire severity zone and I will be happy to take up the evacuation study as well as a forthcoming update to the safety element at the public safety committee and identify actual solutions toward the mitigation of fire danger.
However, to exempt wholesale the city's affluent high resource neighborhoods will be a dereliction of our commitment to the city's affordable housing model.
I also want to emphasize that the city's affordable housing model is a model of deferred maintenance and infrastructure without growing our tax base.
In closing, I embrace housing, I embrace families in my neighborhood, but I would be remiss if I didn't point out the outside of the downtown and the south side.
It is my district, council members, and members of the city council.
Thank you.

Segment 10

Council member Bartlett.
Thank you, thank you.
And I'm gonna say the same thing in a more roundabout way in my style, but I'll say the exact same thing as my colleague, Council Member Chaplin.
But first, a quick question for the authors.
Just, can you help me understand the floor area ratio changes? And Council Member Hahn just mentioned this, and help me understand because, just help me understand, please.
So, uh.
Whatever the hell this is.
Council Member Bartlett, the maximum density per acre standard, this is something that staff had originally proposed that the planning commission did away with.
The planning commission believed that regulating the building envelope itself was sufficient.
What the mayor and I are proposing here is to give neighbors and neighborhoods and communities some certainty about how many units to expect.
Because without this control, there could be potentially the micro units as little as 220 square feet.
And this provides a little bit more predictability in our opinion.
And we are trying to balance a lot of concerns.
Encourage housing with easing development standards while also having some consideration for neighbors and what they can expect out of this.
So, the R1, let's say that, 40 units per acre, resulting in five units on a 5,000 square foot lot.
And then let's go over to my district, which is R2.
50 units per acre, resulting in five units on a 5,000 square foot lot.
Six units.
No, R2 says five units.
They changed it.
But I have yours, right? If you look at the screen, that's the correct numbers.
Those are the correct numbers.
So, R2 is 50 units per acre.
Those things, I see, six units.
Okay.
So, in the area which is already zoned for multiplicity, duplexes, and already has the middle that's missing, and has people of color and all that business that we're trying to alleviate here and solve for, they get more units than the one with the similar family house that's wealthier and whiter? Is that? So, Council Member Bartlett, I totally hear what you're saying, and I do agree.
In earlier work sessions, asked our staff to collapse distinctions, which are, as we know, invented in 1916 and designed to exclude by race.
I'm open to doing 50 units per acre in the R1, but I'm trying to thread a needle here and get this over the finish line tonight, which is why we went with 40 units per acre in the R1.
Okay.
Okay, let's come back to this, I guess, but let's back away into this.
So, and by the way, this is really important to me.
You know, about a year and a half ago, I happened to see the house in the Claremont District where my grandfather lived when he came back from World War I.
He was a driver for a very wealthy guy in a very large mansion and was for sale.
So, my family went to the house.
We went to the servants' quarters in the upper deck, and we saw where he lived with his wife and a cook and other people, and they have little apartments in there.
And the house was amazing.
It was beautiful.
And it was a very palatial street, wonderful, the classical Claremont Street that you love.
And I made a commitment to buy that house one day, but of course, that 20% down of a $6 million house, I got to work really hard, right? But in the meantime, why not replicate those living units? Because after this, right, my grandfather took advantage of that neighborhood and he left that place and went down to South Berkeley and became the first black realtor and became the guy that brought in all these black people into Berkeley and other places, became very successful as a result of his interactivity with that neighborhood.
So, I know it works, right? And so, that's why I wrote an article calling for this in 2017.
And I believe, and this is why I ran for office, was to bring integration back into Berkeley.
And so, I've been really excited to see this, have it come together.
I remember the night we voted for this in 2019.
It was a tremendous night.
I gave a good speech that night.
It was a good one, you know, and this is our legacy, right? This, my district and the city is home of the Fair Housing Act, Byron Rumford, who my grandfather was friends with and worked with and was business partners with.
You know, this idea of zoning, the zoning protocols, they were called race zoning back in the day.
It was called race zoning.
And it was a big issue in the city and it rapidly spread across the country and around the world too.
And so, it's really wonderful that we are attacking it and we're addressing it.
It works in so many levels.
It works on economic level, you know, the resulting creation of these small units and their sale and rental.
There's a tax windfall for the city, which we will need.
It allows new developers, women and people of color to be able to move in and out of their homes.
And so, it's a great way of building a little small duplex if you're just starting out.
The social benefits, of course, as you mentioned, you get access to the community, you become ownership if we move that level of ownership as well, starter homes, which we've called for this council for years now.
And, you know, the demolition ordinance is great.
It protects people.
We have the strongest tenant protections and demolition ordinance in the country, the moral component and the overall sustainability of this community, especially if our ideas take root in other places.
Right now, America and Berkeley and everywhere else is not sustainable.
This is why you have radical people running for president and being supported everywhere because we've become so top heavy where the wealth is so upside down, this reverse pyramid, where the weight of wealth bears down on the poor tremendously.
We're at that point now.
And people think when I say wealth, I mean stocks and your salary.
No, wealth is land.
Wealth is land.
And so, the grip on land that we started here in your district where my grandfather lived, the grip on land we started there has resulted in this debt peonage system that we're trapped in.
So that we have to have crazy rent tenant protections.
We have to do everything we can think of to prevent more people from slipping out the cracks and becoming homeless.
And at the same time, you have a growing elderly population, the senior citizens living longer, getting poorer as they get older, unaffordable senior care stuck in these big mansions.
They can carve their houses up and stay in the home and have family, have people, whatever.
Again, I'm just wondering what we're doing here because looking at this map, it appears as if my district, which already bears the brunt of development, which already has apartment buildings on up and down Shattuck and Ashby and everywhere else, the Ashby Bar, we're doing great.
We are fulfilling our demand.
We are doing it.
And same with Councilman Taplin's district.
So are you, Councilman Castelrani.
Councilman Castelrani, the three of us, also, I see you looking over there, Igor.
Yeah, the four of us are doing it.
We're making housing happen.
We're making it happen nonstop.
We are fulfilling our duty to the future and to this community.
But it looks like what we're doing here today is just maintaining that status quo and exempting the very resourced neighborhoods from integrating.
And that itself is not sustainable.
So I'm really wondering what to do over here because I just, unless there's some way to incentivize other neighborhoods to receive the blessing of raucous development, you know, I'm having trouble deciding what I'm gonna do here.
Councilman Traga.
Thank you.
Well, first of all, and I did just want to reiterate all the incredible work by staff.
Thank you so much for working overtime for many years, many hearings on this proposal.
Thank you also to the mayor and Council Member Castelrani for coming together to put a proposal that I think does a great job of threading that careful needle.
And lastly, last but not least, thank you to all the members of the public.
My staff counted somewhere north of 1,000 written communications and that was just written communications alone, not counting all of the participation today.
And it does need to be kept in mind that not everyone had the luxury to spend hours providing public comment because those who could be most impacted in a good way by the opportunity to be housed closer to where they work were not able to be here.
So I will be supporting this motion.
Good question.
I will be supporting the mayor, Council Member Castelrani motion.
I do have a few suggested amendments that I will check in a moment to see if you would be friendly to them.
I don't have a speech written down.
I will just make a couple of general points.
As an immigrant from Ukraine, Berkeley became home for me by way of being able to live in rent-controlled housing, including for some time, the opportunity to live in what would be considered just two units above missing middle housing under this proposal, gentle density.
This is how Berkeley became my home.
This is what gave me the opportunity to serve this community that I love.
I want that opportunity for everyone.
And I was just going back to a letter that I think I may have sent as then chair of the Sierra Club Northern Alameda County Group.
February 23rd, 2021, the Sierra Club wishes to express its conceptual support for the resolutions to end exclusionary zoning in Berkeley.
We are in full agreement with the statement by the then Sierra Club Executive Director.
Adequate shelter is a basic human right, yet here in the richest country in the world, a shocking percentage, even of fully employed people, can't afford it or find it straining their budgets to the breaking point.
One obvious solution is to build more housing, and the Sierra Club strongly agrees with that goal.
But we need to do more than just build.
We need to do it in a way that's both forward-thinking and equitable.
That might make it more challenging to agree on housing solutions, but the extra effort is worth it.
Tonight, I look forward to voting in support of a little more process, but one that I think will help us get to a place that is many years in the making.
I would be very interested in working with staff, should they have the capacity to do a town hall in my district.
Thank you to all of my constituents who've reached out with your patience and understanding that I could not possibly do a town hall in the four days that the agenda and some additional proposals were out, but I very much look forward to taking the time, should we have a little more time after tonight, to do so.
At the same time, please do not confuse my support for additional public process with any desire to delay more housing or delays sake.
I want these amendments to be well-considered, should they pass.
I want there to be adequate time for everyone to look at them.
I would like to, of course, hold off a final vote until the evacuation map can be issued, but once we have the information we need to make a careful, well-considered decision, I will be ready to vote for it, and I think it is important that we do that with all due haste.
I wanted to see if the makers, maker and seconder of the motion would be open to three amendments.
One, you've already agreed to, I think you've agreed to having an off-agenda legal memo.
That was a request.
Oh, a request.
I would like to request that as part of that memo, you provide some information about SB9 conformance with respect to the proposal under consideration.
Absolutely.
I would like to see, and I was very appreciative of staff's assurance that this in fact conforms with the demolition ordinance.
At the same time, I think it would be good for the public to have that confidence as well, and so what I would like to request is whether staff in its analysis could just include something about how this conforms with the demolition ordinance, and I will be very specific.
I was here, I think in this very room, maybe at the Madel Shirex City Hall at several ZAB meetings where sitting tenants were basically forced to be evicted, no-fault eviction.
They were tenants in a single-family home that was going to be demolished to make way for a duplex, a quadruplex, I don't remember.
I want to make sure that whatever we do, that's why I supported changes to the demolition ordinance as well.
I don't want anyone to have a perverse incentive to evict a tenant in the last five years in order to make way for missing middle housing.
That's not what missing middle housing is or should be about.
So I wanted to ask if you would be open to that process amendment.
You're requesting inclusion in the staff report about how the demolition ordinance is related to this ordinance.
And I'm not sure if that's in compliance with the demolition ordinance.
That's fine, it's a reporting requirement.
Mr.
Quine, is there any issue with having some discussion of the demolition ordinance in the staff report? No, no, no, happy to do that.
That's fine.
And one of the things you mentioned earlier when you asked your initial question is that I don't know if we need to amend the middle housing ordinance to just reference the demo chapter and that those standards do apply.
I'm not sure if that's in compliance with the ordinance.
I'm not sure if that's in compliance with the ordinance.
And I'm not sure if Mr.
Chair could have some confusion about the applicability of the other provisions to this ordinance.
And so I don't know if we need to have some cross-reference in middle housing.
That's just something to consider.
Thank you, we'll take that into consideration and make sure that's clear.
Yeah.
Great, thank you.
And lastly, I wanted to see if the maker and seconder how this proposal deals with or addresses the principles of land value recapture that 2017 resolution.
But I want to be clear.
I actually believe that land value, there's more land value for the types of larger housing projects.
This is missing middle housing.
And I completely understand that there would be more limited if any capacity to embrace those principles.
I actually think that it would be good for us to just better understand holistically how these principles are imbued with respect to all types of multifamily housing that we approve.
And I want to also just note that to me, just the very act of building housing is in and of itself a community benefit.
So I just want to, because it was, I believe a council resolution that was passed in 2017.
I just want to see if this is something that could be.
I mean, I introduced the resolution, but land value recapture is predicated on feasibility and actually having land value that could actually go into community benefits.
And so if there is, if somebody does a below micro unit in one of these projects, then that's land value recapture.
They also are eligible for a density bonus.
But other than that, if they don't meet that threshold, I don't know what value is being recaptured.
Yeah, and I just, so to be clear, if that is the case, and I believe that it is based on the economics, I would just want the staff report coming back to us to address that so that there's no confusion on what we're actually talking about.
It is a council policy.
That when we do consider any upzoning or general plan amendment, we have to look at the issue of land value recapture.
So maybe we can just add a paragraph about that.
Absolutely, we can reference the work that was recently completed by HHS to update the feasibility analysis.
So yeah, we can certainly do that.
You know, if that's all I'm asking, that would meet my request and thank you for considering it.
But I don't want there to be confusion that we're expecting that a fourplex, you know, they're gonna have to do, you know, X number of BMR units and because there's a feasibility question here.
I'm not expecting that.
I can only speak for myself on the dice, but because what I'm bringing to you are questions that I have heard from numerous members of the public, including some who are my constituents.
And I think it would be really useful for a, you know, a staff report, a public document of some kind to just address things like that directly.
It's fine.
I mean, I can give you an answer now, which is that if they're not doing below-migrate housing, you know, we're not, there's no significant community benefits.
There's no impact fees, unless you're in a area where there are particular like associate fees or anything like that.
So yeah, I guess it's gonna be a pretty simple answer.
Right? When we talk about the affordable housing requirements and if they're subject to the affordable housing requirements, this is what they would have to do.
I'm okay with that.
Okay.
Yes, I'm accepting of that.
I think this reflects the answer that Mr.
Klein provided to you at the outset of this meeting, that the way that we are operationalizing the concept of land value recapture is through our affordable housing fee, which we are planning to finalize and move to a square foot basis.
So it is our expectation that these middle housing developments will be subject to that fee in some form.
Of course, we're gonna look at the feasibility and make sure that it's not excessive, but that's something that will come to us.
Maybe Mr.
Klein can talk about when it's coming to us, but that will be considered.
And this will be a key consideration of how that fee, you know, intersects with these units.
So if that's included in the report, I think that's- Is that okay? Sure.
And you're correct that consideration of modifications to the affordable housing requirements are advancing on a separate track.
You had a work session about that earlier, I think in the spring.
And I think there's expectation that that will be going to planning commission and housing advisory commission this fall.
So I don't know if we need to add it to the motion.
Are you just okay with doing that? Okay.
So we don't need to accept it as a fronting amendment.
Staff's agreeing to do it, just like they agreed to look at the things that Councilor O'Hanlon requested.
So, okay.
It sounds great to me and thank you so much.
Vice Mayor Weingraf.
Yeah, thanks.
And I'll try to be very brief because it's very late.
First off, there is no longer any single family zoning in Berkeley or any place else, as far as I know, because of SB 9.
So every parcel is allowed to, by right, build two units, if you do a lot split, two ADUs and two JADUs.
So a single parcel that used to be zoned single family now has the capacity to have six housing units on it.
So just so you know, last I looked at the numbers, more than 50% of the SB 9 projects that have been implemented have been in the hills.
So people are using SB 9 to increase density.
The other thing I want to point out, and we haven't talked about this a lot, it's kind of the elephant in the room, is the university.
In the southern part of my district, in the hills, we have incredible density.
We have foothill dorms, we have Cloyne Court, we have Kingman Hall.
There are so many kids living in these structures in the hills in the very high hazard fire zone.
And with only one street, 1st Avenue, which is divided, right, and only has a width of 18 feet to get out.
There's huge amounts of density by the university, but in the hills and in the very high hazard fire zone.
And frankly, I don't know what the university's evacuation plan is.
I don't even know if they have one.
I worry for these kids.
So I just want to point it out.
It's not like the hills doesn't have density.
And the perception is that everybody's living in very big houses on very big lots.
That's absolutely not true.
It's invisible, but many of the houses that you think are single-family houses are actually not single-family.
They're duplexes and triplexes.
They look like single-family homes from the street, but they're not.
And if you walk around and knock on doors, you'll see three mailboxes all over the place.
Anybody who's walked in the hills campaigning, for example, will see that.
So I'm sensitive to your comments, Ben, but there is a lot of uncertainty but there is opportunity to increase density because of SB9.
And as single-family zoning doesn't exist anymore.
Okay, Ben, I just wanted to bring up a couple of things because I'm very sensitive to this issue because I've been driving an electric vehicle now for 11 years.
And I know that Council Member Trago had this problem.
We don't have any parking minimums, but we're building all of this housing.
This is a plan, it's a blueprint for the future.
Where is everybody gonna charge their vehicle? Has any accommodation been made to consider this? It's a big problem.
And yet we have our climate action goals.
We want everybody to be, if they're gonna drive a car, we want everybody to drive an electric vehicle, yet we are not providing any way for them to do that in this plan.
So I would like some consideration to be given when you design and when you zone this for charging stations.
And I know I'm gonna leave it to you to figure out, to think about this and come up with some options, but I think it's foolhardy to move forward without addressing this issue.
And the other thing I just wanna say is, there's been a lot of talk about speculation.
There's been a lot of talk about lack of affordability in this proposal.
And it seems to me that we need to come up with some kind of safeguards for some of these things that nobody in Berkeley wants.
Nobody wants to see developers coming in and exploiting minority homeowners, buying them out and building ugly, dense structures.
I don't think anybody wants that.
So what kind of safeguards can we come up with to prevent that from happening? So that's just my final thought on all of this.
Thank you.
Mr.
Kleiner, Madam City Manager, any comments before we proceed? You know, we asked you for deliberation and direction on this and we got some fantastic comments and feedback and we have a lot of work cut out for us.
Very much appreciate.
All of your deliberations this evening.
Thank you.
Okay.
That's 172 page report.
Sounds like it's gonna be probably 200 pages now.
But it's important to have all this information because I think we need to know, the community needs to know all the different aspects of how this proposal relates to existing laws and the impact it's gonna have in our community.
And I appreciate all the suggestions.
I think these are all very important, relevant things for us to consider.
So, and I'm sorry.

Segment 11

assistance but they can't cook, but the substance motion by Linda par second by Humber It's the lot sooner time what I need ask you is to recommend a step to develop especially the planning board and you're.
But to defer to the next year.
So only our one age not the entire time so it was you're applying it to our 2 H R 2 H and R 3 H included so that's where all the students were.
Yes.
Okay so that's the motion substitute motion.
And if we can please call the actually yes we're getting to the point where we're getting to the point where we're getting to the point where we're exempting the R one age until we get the evacuation study.
I know that you had talked about accepting some of what we had proposed but not all of it's one to clarify if that's still on the table.
Yes, yeah, I.
I think it's important for us to make sure that all of the things that we have proposed other than the density maximums.
It's and to take no action on our one age rather than exempt it.
And have self-return with recommendations.
Okay so this is the subject motion of the para.
And if this prevails and we want my motion the motion.
Okay everyone clear.
We.
We have 3, 6, 2, go a go.
That's my next item.
that's.
Court did you catch capture all that stuff.
I actually have it written down I can repeat I think what I have was when graph friendly amendment opportunity have many workshops at the city in the time to now when this comes up.
I think that was all of it right.
Yes.
Make a comment.
Thank you is that.
Let's vote.
Thank you.
So I just want to point out that with a 5,000 square foot lot.
You get 9,000 square feet of building.
The dwelling unit.
Maximum right now allows 5 units so 9,000 divided by 5 is 1,800 square foot per unit.
I just.
Believe that you should be able to be smaller than 1800 square foot per unit.
I think that's a good point.
Yeah.
So council member Luna par they can choose to not maximize the building envelope and create smaller units they can still do the 5 units they they could be smaller though.
But they couldn't do more than 5 right, but that's what I'm saying I'm thinking that I'm I believe that there should we should be able to have more units that are smaller can they have more units that are smaller.
Yeah, I think that's a good question.
Possibility to increase the dwelling unit Max, you know, I'm comfortable with this coming back.
And we can consider whether to adjust the maximum density at that time.
So this is not a final vote sas can stop come back with an ordinance.
When this comes back whenever comes back in the next couple months after the tribal consultation.
We can consider.
This or any other.
This is not the first reading of the ordinance.
This is the first reading of the ordinance.
We're not taking final action now knowing that this is not the first reading of the ordinance not when it's not though.
I'm sure what people think we're not taking final action today.
This is to give staff direction to come back with revised ordinance.
The public is extended.
We're going to have workshops is going to be an opportunity for more input.
And so we can certainly consider that issue when this comes back.
Council members.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
And yes.
Okay.
Okay.
That motion carries that I move to adjourn the meeting.
I move to adjourn.
Is there a second? Second.
Any objection? No, we kept the public hearing open.
Any objection to closing the 3.30, adjourning the 3.30 special meeting? Hearing no objection.
Meeting is adjourned.