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Segment 1

Okay, hello everyone.
Good afternoon.
I am calling to order the special meeting of the Berkeley City Council.
Today is Tuesday, October 28, 2025.
Happy Halloween week to everyone.
Can you please take the roll, clerk? Okay, council member Kesarwani? Here.
Taplin? Present.
Bartlett? Here.
Tregub? Present.
O'Keefe? By the skin of my teeth.
Council member Blackaby is currently absent.
Council member Lunaparra? Here.
Humbert? Here.
And Mayor Ishii? Here.
Okay, quorum is present.
All right, very good.
Well, we have one item on our special agenda tonight, and that is the Ashby-Bart East Lot Transit-Oriented Development Request for Proposal Framework.
And so I am going to start us off with a presentation.
Actually, I'm not starting us off.
The staff are going to start us off with a presentation.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mayor Ishii and members of the Council.
I'm pleased to introduce the topic of today's meeting, which is a study session on the Ashby East Lot RFP process.
And by the way, I'm Margo Ernst, the Manager for Housing and Community Services.
This project is a result of a nearly decade-long effort in collaboration with BART and the community to advance transit-oriented development at the North Berkeley and Ashby-Bart stations.
I'd like to acknowledge the efforts across departments, especially HHCS, Planning, City Attorney's Office, and the City Manager's Office.
Many of the staff who have contributed are here today and will assist in answering any questions you may have, including my colleagues at the table, Director Klein, who will be participating in this afternoon's presentation, and Deputy City Manager White, who has provided leadership and support to this project.
I'll now introduce Kirsten Dissinger with Street Level Advisors, who is managing the project and will lead today's presentation.
Thanks, Margo.
Hello, Kirsten with Street Level Advisors.
I support HHCS's work on both BART sites and some other policy matters.
I have a background in affordable housing development policy and planning.
I'm joined today by my colleague Rick Jacobus.
I'm really happy to be here to gather your input on the eSlot Developer Selection Framework as we move toward implementation and getting housing built on the eSlot.
Today, I will quickly review the background on the eSlot.
The focus of the presentation today is on the eSlot Developer Selection Framework.
The framework is included in the staff report.
I'll explain the steps we took to create the framework and the content, the eSlot project requirements, goals, and the selection process.
Director Klein will provide an overview of the proposed design guidelines.
Is it possible to pull your mic a little bit closer to you or something? Absolutely.
Yes, thanks.
So the design guidelines, which will be embedded in the RFP.
We'll end today's discussion with an overview of the selection process and next steps.
It's the City's intention to release an RFP and NOFA early in the new year.
The schedule will be finalized once the City has completed coordination with State HCD on compliance with the Surplus Land Act.
My goal is to keep this brief because we're expecting a really good conversation and community input today.
This is a special moment for the City of Berkeley as we advance the third transit-oriented development project on the BART site.
The City has worked in close partnership with BART, the community, and the community to develop a vision for the Ashby-BART station.
There are many parallels between the City's work at North Berkeley and Ashby.
The key principles, such as a focus on affordable housing, high-density transit-oriented development, and a consideration of public open spaces, are central to the vision for both stations.
Unique to the Ashby site is that BART owns two developable parcels, the larger West Lot and the nearly two-acre East Lot.
Consistent with the Council-approved exchange agreement, the City will acquire the East Lot for future development.
City ownership of the East Lot is the impetus for today's working session.
Unlike the North Berkeley BART, on the West Lot or the West Lot, where BART will maintain ownership, on the East Lot the City will be the property owner.
The City will solicit and select a development team, and the City has the opportunity and responsibility to define and implement the use of the East Lot.
Just a little bit on the background, the City and BART have been closely collaborating over the past several years to bring transit-oriented development to both sites.
While the two stations follow similar steps, North Berkeley is ahead of Ashby.
North Berkeley developers' selection began in 2022, and the development of the first phase is anticipated to begin in 2026.
Additional time was needed for the City and BART to negotiate the exchange agreement at Ashby.
So just zooming in on Ashby milestones, really the work started in 2018 with the state legislation that focused on TOD and the station areas.
The City Council committed $53 million to the BART sites of housing trust fund dollars, of which $8 million will be available for the East Lot.
And between 2018 and 2022, the City and BART approved an MOU in a state-approved joint vision and priorities, or JVP, which establishes requirements, goals, and resources for future development.
Late last year, Council and the BART Board approved the exchange agreement, a real estate agreement for Ashby BART, including project requirements for affordable housing and other community benefits.
BART has advanced work on the Ashby West Lot, issuing an RFP late in 2024, and selecting a development team over the summer.
We're here today to advance the work on the East Lot.
And I just want to zoom into the East Lot for just a minute to get familiar with the site.
It's behind Ed Roberts Campus.
It's just under two acres.
It's bordered by Adeline, Woolsey, and Tremont.
The site currently provides and will continue to provide vehicular access to the Ed Roberts Campus.
And currently, BART owns the lot and is operating rider parking on the lot.
This year, HHCS has begun work to advance the implementation phase for the East Lot.
The next step is to solicit a development team.
We are seeking your input on the framework, which HHCS will translate into an RFP, or a request for proposals.
What will the RFP include? A development RFP explains to prospective developers desired outcomes, constraints, and considerations.
It can be a lengthy document, as it provides a list of information development teams must provide, such as a site plan, a financial plan, and details on their team.
It will include an overview of the selection process, spelling out timelines and steps, such as interviews and public presentations.
Specific to the East Lot RFP, it will include threshold requirements, which are required project elements, and other requirements, such as East Lot design standards.
And the East Lot RFP will include evaluation criteria and project goals, which signal to potential teams how proposals will be evaluated.
The East Lot is public land.
The City, through various planning efforts, has identified many goals for the East Lot.
The City's goals for the East Lot are ambitious, and to be clear, no one project could achieve all of the goals included in the framework.
The framework intends to balance the many laudable potential uses for the East Lot within the constraints of what might be feasible.
Our intent is to create a healthy competition among development teams and encourage feasible proposals that walk towards the City's goals.
The two main constraints on the East Lot are space and subsidies for affordable housing.
Architects and developers will complete technical work to develop feasible proposals that must meet the project requirements and will also service the City's goals.
Next, I want to describe the steps HHCS undertook in collaboration with Planning, City Manager, and City Attorney to develop the framework before you.
As a first step, we reviewed the recent plan documents, especially the Exchange Agreement and JVP, both approved by Council and the BART Board, and both established goals and requirements for the East Lot.
The majority of the elements in the framework come from these foundational documents.
The requirements and goals identified in the Exchange Agreement are binding terms.
The City committed to incorporating these..
The City..
Just a minute.
Okay, so we're talking about what's in the Exchange Agreement and how those terms are binding.
So the City committed to incorporating these elements in the future development of the site, and we are not anticipating further input on those today.
Other goals and aspirations identified in the community planning process, especially those detailed in the JVP, are also incorporated into the framework.
The goals and aspirations identified in the Exchange Agreement are binding terms.
The goals and aspirations identified in the Exchange Agreement and those detailed in the JVP are also incorporated into the framework.
While these are not legally binding, they reflect outcomes of years of community conversation, staff work, and Council agreements with the BART Board.
The framework and the staff report indicates with bold font when elements originated from the Exchange Agreement and with italics when they originated from the JVP.
So the framework and the staff report indicates with bold font when elements originated from the Exchange Agreement and with italics when they originated from the JVP.
So there were three policies, programs, and related requirements like the Housing Trust Fund Guidelines, the Housing Preference Policy, and the Zoning Code, and those were tucked into the framework.
And then we had our draft framework.
And our next step was to hold a stakeholder meeting.
Healthy Black Families, Black Repertory Theater, Baobab, LBA, South Berkeley Now, Gray Panthers, the Lighthouse, East Bay Center for the Blind, and the host of the meeting, the Ed Roberts Campus.
HHCS informed community representatives of the proposed developer selection process and timeline.
We engaged community members on the requirements and the goals for the site.
This slide identifies key themes discussed during the meeting.
The staff report includes the complete comments from the meeting.
The developer selection framework presented to you today incorporates input from this session.
Okay, we're going to get into the actual framework itself.
So we're going to start with the thresholds.
Those are the requirements.
They're not flexible.
They're terms of the City and BART's Exchange Agreement or City Policy and Proposers must achieve these outcomes on their project.
And if they don't, they will not advance through the selection process.
The first is a minimum of 300 bedrooms.
The second is a minimum level of affordability of 35%.
I'm going to do a lot of percents.
So of which 20% must be reserved for extremely low-income households.
And that would mean 7% of the whole project.
And then the remainder of the affordability should prioritize low and very low and average at most 60% AMI.
If anyone needs that again, I can do it again.
It also includes a community benefits fund with a minimum of $150,000 annually for the South Berkeley and a minimum developer experience as described in the City's Housing Trust Fund guidelines.
Those four elements all projects must achieve.
Next, we're going to talk about requirements and goals.
So goals are things people are striving for within their proposal and requirements are things they must do.
And I'm going to look at them topic by topic.
This first slide, the next slide, the housing commitments shows commitments that the City of Berkeley made in the Exchange Agreement, both around the requirements that we just discussed and also the Exchange Agreement included a few housing goals.
So for example, on density, the requirement is 300 bedrooms, but the goal is to maximize density.
So proposers will be asked to show how they are striving towards that goal.
And the second housing commitment, again, the 35% affordability, but there is a goal of 50% affordability and respondents will be asked to show how they could make their project 50% affordable, what additional subsidy or approach might be necessary to achieve that.
Again, these four elements all come from the Exchange Agreement.
And so the City in previous actions committed to including them in the RFP.
Beyond affordability levels and Berkeley's local preference policy, the planning process identified several potential priority households for the E-slot.
The JVP and more recently the stakeholder working group this summer identified a few different ones that are shown here.
Serving households, seniors, families, and people with physical and mental disabilities or formerly homeless people.
Prioritize housing for people with disabilities in response to the proximity of the Ed Roberts campus.
We added a goal of development team having a creative approach to universal design.
And also the goal of homeownership opportunities with the goal of building equity within the homeownership.
These are not project requirements.
Proposing teams should strive to respond to these housing priorities.
While we don't expect that the E-slot has the space or financial resources to achieve all of these priorities, we are challenging development experts to propose a feasible approach that incorporates requirements, site constraints, and moves towards these goals.
At the core of the work at the Ashby BART station is Berkeley's commitment to reparations.
The exchange agreement includes a threshold requirement and goal to advance reparations.
We talked about this already, but the project will be required to make minimum contributions of approximately $150,000 a year to the South Berkeley Community Fund.
This is detailed in the exchange agreement including an annual escalation and a start date of roughly four years after the housing is built.
Additionally, and this is where the goal comes in, teams will be asked to describe how their proposed project would address the negative impacts to African-American residents, businesses, and cultural institutions displaced by the Ashby BART.
Again, this is an invitation for developers to respond to this prompt and thoughtfully, meaningfully responses will be rewarded with additional points.
Next, we're going to talk about the development team.
The framework includes detail on requirements for the development team.
The requirements are a means to protect the city's investments in the east lot, including the land, the use of housing trust fund dollars, and the community planning work.
Many of the development team requirements parallel the city's longstanding requirements for use of the housing trust fund dollars.
These requirements are the city and community's means of ensuring that housing will get built in a timely and efficient manner.
I referenced earlier that both financial feasibility and lot constraint and lot size constrain the ability to meet all the different goals we just talked about.
I want to spend a few minutes walking through a few key goals and exploring how the city team differentiated between what a project would be required to do and what a project would be asked to strive towards or what the goal might be.
We're going to start with the 50 percent affordability or the affordability requirement.
At both North Berkeley and East Lot, the requirement is for 35 percent affordability.
This came from the JVP, which covered both sites.
At the West Lot, the RFP required 50 percent, and that was more a product of the land exchange than a changing threshold.
The city has committed $8 million in housing trust fund dollars.
They'll offer a land discount for the affordable units, and the market rate housing will be required to contribute funds to support the affordable housing.
In the 35 percent scenario, we are able to generate a local match at amounts matching or exceeding levels that have successfully leveraged state funds.
I have to take this off.
So you can see that at 35 percent, we anticipate the local match would be $200 to $230,000 per affordable unit, and that is a really competitive spot for the developer to try and attract and secure those state funding necessary to get to the construction.
In contrast, with the 50 percent affordability, the $8 million is still there from the housing trust fund.
However, the developer market rate contribution would go down because there would be fewer market rate units.
So we're estimating that the local subsidy would be closer to $165 to $195 per unit.
That means that the developer would need to be seeking more subsidy per affordable unit and also a greater total subsidy because there would be more affordable units needing more dollars each.
So our concern with making 50 percent a requirement is we may create a project that developers can't finance.
We are asking development teams to use their expertise and show us how they might be able to get there and if they can get there.
And the 50 percent affordability goal will be heavily incentivized.
The next goal I want to talk about is homeownership.
Affordable homeownership can be a valuable opportunity for households to build equity.
New construction of affordable homeownership has higher costs.
It has limited subsidy sources and it generally serves a higher income.
Usually ownership is $80 to $120.
Some programs go below that whereas the goals for the slot range lower for the rental product.
So we don't have the federal and state programs to provide the majority of the dollars and there are not really any other programs.
There's the one small state program that would help homeownership at 80 percent AMI but or below.
We still wanted to take a closer look at this because we do believe that equity building is important.
So we imagined a project on the site where some of the affordability was achieved through rental.
There was a market rate component and then 63 units were affordable homeownership.
And then we looked at spreading that 8 million dollars of local subsidy and the developer contribution across both affordable buildings.
And our estimate is that there would be about $160,000 for each affordable homeownership unit.
But the developer couldn't take that and try and leverage outside state sources because there aren't sources to match the way we could with the rental product.
So it would leave a gap of about $695,000 for each unit.
So in this scenario we imagined it would be a gap of $16 million for the whole project.
For that reason the difficulty of financing and developing affordable homeownership we wanted to leave it as a goal but resist the requirement there.
Okay and then the last goal I want to focus in on is the clear stakeholder support for responding to the Ed Roberts campus and requiring accessibility.
Teams will be asked to have a creative and innovative approach to universal design and they'll be asked to include a design team with demonstrated universal design experience and expertise.
We were concerned creating a more specific requirement could unintentionally create a conflict with density requirements, affordability requirements, or the overall financial feasibility of the project.
We don't have the technical work to kind of draw a line there so we're asking developers to maximize housing for disabled communities.
We're looking for proposals that are feasible grounded in technical analysis such as site design, cost estimates, and reviewing possible funding sources to support the development.
Again we're making an invitation to the teams to compete for the site.
Next Director Klein from the planning department will present on a series of design guidelines specific to the east lot.
These design guidelines will be embedded in the future RFP.
Our approach here is similar to the approach on the west lot where the design guidelines were provided with the RFP.
Thanks Kirsten.
Good afternoon council members.
So for the North Berkeley BART station the city developed detailed objective design standards to help shape that project and those were formally adopted by planning commission and city council and we're pursuing the same approach for the west lot.
For the east lot we're taking a different approach that's because as you just heard from Kirsten for the east lot we're going to own the land and so we will have the opportunity to leverage our ownership of the project to shape the design so the design the actual design of the project will be subject to a community process and approval.
So for the design standards we're including just a few simple design standards in the solicitation to help complement the existing RBMU zoning and that's that are consistent with the years of planning efforts that we've conducted for this project.
I'm going to give you a brief overview of those design standards now.
The complete design standards are available as an attachment in the staff report.
It's pretty short it's just a three-page document.
Let's go to the next slide.
You can see here the guiding principles for the for these design guidelines.
So first firstly ensuring access and loading not just for the project but also for the adjacent Ed Roberts campus.
Supporting pedestrian friendly streets and creating great open great new open spaces.
Maintaining neighborhood scale transitions so transitions between the this site is obviously going to be a lot denser than the surrounding single family homes so trying to facilitate transitions and requiring high quality design but also you've heard us emphasize feasible delivery.
We don't want to impose any design standards that are going to render this project unable to deliver.
Next slide.
So here are a few examples of the of design standards related to site planning open space and streetscape.
We're going to maintain the access drive from Adeline street to Woolsey as you'll see on a site diagram in just a moment and we're also going to require that any that new public open space be provided along public streets so that they're publicly accessible.
And just we have just a few standards related to building form massing and facade design so that includes a 10-foot setback for any ground floor residential and a 15-foot step back above the fourth story.
So again that's about creating those transitions between the dense part of the project and the single family zones.
And here's a diagram and you can see a lot of the of those standards that I just went through pictured on this diagram including the the access drive.
The Ed Roberts campus does actually have an easement on the property for access so that that drive provides accessibility loading and also four to six ADA loading spaces.
I'm going to turn it back over to Kirsten now.
Thanks Jordan.
Next I want to spend a couple minutes just talking about the process once the proposals come in how will a developer be selected and we are paralleling the process that was done on the west slot.
So there will be an evaluation committee we're proposing that committee includes city staff with subject matter experts, staff conversant in development, planning and affordable housing finance, a community member and one community member similar to the structure in the west slot evaluation committee.
The proposals will be evaluated a subset of teams will be interviewed by the evaluation committee and a subset of the teams will be invited to make a public presentation before a recommendation is made to the council and the council would approve the selected developer.
We've been talking a lot about the RFP just like on the other sites we'll be pairing the RFP with a NOFA or notice of funding availability and that will be a portion of the previously reserved 8 million dollars of housing trust fund.
Today HHCS seeks authorization to utilize up to $500,000 of those funds to implement the exchange agreement and potentially take title of the east slot.
This would be an allocation of a portion of the 8 million previously reserved for the east slot.
This authorization will enable the city to acquire the site from BART prior to issuing the RFP if that is deemed a necessary step to comply with state law.
As with the developer solicitations for north Berkeley and the west slot the RFP will also be issued with up to 1 million dollars to support pre-development activities.
Okay let's just take a quick look at timeline and next steps and then we can get ready for our questions and discussion.
As I said it's the city's intention to release an RFP and NOFA early in 2026.
This could be delayed if surplus land act compliance necessitates that the city hold title to the land prior to issuing the RFP.
As you may know the surplus land act is intended to ensure that public lands are prioritized for housing development especially affordable housing as is contemplated for the east slot.
Staff are coordinating closely to assure Berkeley's selection process aligns with statutory requirements.
It is the city's preference to delay site acquisition enabling BART to continue to operate the site as transit rider parking until the development team is ready to begin construction.
The city will continue to coordinate closely with HCD and BART with the intention of assuring compliance and optimal project outcomes.
Okay so after the RFP is issued either in the new year or shortly after that we expect the process to take about six months before we're selecting a developer.
That's very similar to what took place for north Berkeley and the west slot.
As I said those steps would include interviews, public presentations, an evaluation and then ultimately the approval of this council.
Once that's done the developer would lead a community planning process and also enter into negotiations with the city for the land.
So the vehicles for that would be an exclusive negotiating agreement and a ground lease or sale if so desired.
That phase we're estimating to take I can't actually can't see that with my glasses on.
We're waiting for that to take a few years which would lead into construction.
Thank you oh there you go we're almost done.
Okay so for north Berkeley it took four years from solicitation to the anticipated first phase of construction.

Segment 2

Segment 3

One Person.
Additionally, you know, what if something happens to that one person? You know, if you have three, then you at least have two people left on that panel.
So that is my total comment.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks, Kelly.
Next is Deborah Matthews.
Deborah, you should be able to unmute.
There she is.
She's unmuted.
Thank you so much to the council, to the mayor, and to city staff for this special meeting tonight.
I'm Deborah Matthews, real estate broker, 40 years here in Berkeley, and a co-founder of South Berkeley Now.
I will speak to the housing priority of home ownership, which equals reparations.
When we weaken opportunities for home ownership, this widens, not narrows, racial and economic divides.
Here in Berkeley, the cost of lost ownership has been devastating.
A 2022 report commissioned by former mayor Jesse Aragon estimated that Black ownership in Berkeley lost an average of $676,000 in wealth per household between 1960 and 2020.
The east lot of the Ashby-Bart development offers an opportunity to accept the challenge to do it right, to blend forward-thinking housing strategies with opportunities for new ownership.
Ownership is the one of the few tools we still have left to close America's racial wealth gap.
As California leads the way in housing reform, we must remember that ownership is equity in protecting ownership.
I'm sorry, your time is up.
Thank you.
I appreciate your comment.
Next is Willie Phillips.
Willie, I see you're unmuted.
You should be able to speak.
Willie, can you hear us? We can come back.
Next is Brianna Morales.
Hi, thank you.
My name is Brianna Morales, and I'm the community organizer with the Housing Action Coalition.
We're a supported non-profit that advocates for more homes at all income levels across California, and we're just here in support to see this BART station make room for housing.
This is a rare opportunity to deliver lasting public benefit on valuable public land, building housing, mixed income, or affordable.
Next to BART means fewer people commuting long distances, fewer cars on the road, and real climate benefits.
Denser and full housing is one of our best tools to fight urban sprawl and emissions.
And of course, this is also about the workers and families and seniors who are just trying to stay rooted in Berkeley, and this project gives them a real chance to live in a walkable, connected neighborhood in Berkeley with access to jobs, transit, and schools, and not pushed out or out of the region altogether.
We talk a lot about our housing element goals and the fact that California is in a housing crisis.
Sorry, Brianna, your time is up.
Thank you for – Thank you so much.
Next is David Scheer.
Hi.
It's great to see the work at Ashby BART moving forward.
I'm looking at this in the context of the social housing study from a few weeks ago.
I don't know if this is the time or if this is the project, but given some of what's been talked about tonight and where we are in the process, it does seem like an opportunity potentially to pilot and experiment with some of the ideas around meaningful tenant governance in the administration of the building.
So I think that's something to think about.
As far as affordability levels, the building is going to need to generate enough revenue to support its ongoing maintenance and operations, and I hope that we are taking into account the long-term financial health of the project when we are choosing between proposals.
We don't want building managers a few decades down the road biasing towards higher-income qualifying individuals because that's what they feel like they need to do to make the numbers work.
So I hope we're thinking about it that way.
Thank you.
Okay.
That's the last speaker.
Did we lose Willie? Willie doesn't have his hand raised anymore.
Actually, he's not on anymore.
Is there anyone else who has public comment online? No.
No more hands raised.
Yep.
Okay.
Okay.
All right, then.
So moving on to council comments, did you want to start again? Yeah.
I'm going to go back to Council Member Bartlett.
Nearing the end of our odyssey here, 10 years.
It's on Planning Commission going through this stuff.
And so this, of course, is a really wonderful chapter to be at.
And RFP is a really great framework.
We went through this before.
Some of my comments, you'll know.
But I think in general, though, I would like to really kind of hone in on some of the other aspects of this project and some of the elements I think should be accentuated and sort of put forward as central points to be strived for in its development.
So in short, economic justice and wealth building should be front and center here.
Okay.
We know from, again, the Equitable Black Berkeley Report.
That's a mouthful.
Equitable Black Berkeley Report, the redlining alone, redlining, suffocation of equity in an organized basis in the city costs as much as $700,000 in adjusted monies per household.
And that includes those who moved away and those who stayed.
And in total, right, not just the site here, but in total, that's $3.2 billion in wealth disparity.
You know, including all these redline neighborhoods versus not redline neighborhoods.
So let's hone in on the district, on where the site is.
And this is a rough, rough guesstimation of the area right where this was, right? And this is a bustling economic zone, lots of houses.
Hear lots of stories about what it was like, how great it was.
You know, so the 1971, and BART, of course, was, this project started 1972.
So the year before it began, the median sale price for homes was around $26,000, maybe $27,000.
I wish it was that way right now.
And now this year, in 2025, the median sale price is about $1.3 million in that exact area.
And the east lot itself, in this sense of the east lot alone, roughly 55 lots, plus significant commercial corridors on either side, on one side and one corner side, with lots of jobs, lots of stores.
This is not unlike the commercial corridor in Sacramento that they bulldozed for the Byron Rumford homes, right? So fast forward, of course, 50 years, and you see we're living in the result of that deficit.
We see the wealth disparities, we see the poverty, et cetera.
We see, you know, people unable to buy their kids' houses, like their peers in this town, because their parents that were robbed of this equity.
And this, of course, is echoed everywhere.
So when we talk about repair, and I said this before in the west lot, right, many, many times, we love to call that repair and whatnot, and it's not, it's an apartment building.
There's no, there's actually no correlation between repair.
It's nice.
I'm pro-housing, of course, we love housing, but it's not repair.
Not at all.
And so thinking about actual repair, especially when we control the lot, I think is very important.
And, you know, the corresponding and the correlation to the Ed Roberts campus is wonderful, support that, love universal design, very proud to host, to be the home of universal design in this world, South Berkeley, very proud of that.
And so not to say we can do one or the other, but it should be infused.
If you're going to use it, it should also be infused with the economic justice of the black people who were robbed there.
My mother almost had a coronary when I showed her this plan.
She's like, what are you talking about? Right, so let's, you know, let's be real here.
And understand, of course, we know this, the economic limitations of the site is pretty small, right? Only so much we can monetize in that little area.
And of course, housing's expensive.
And there's all these issues around the cost of building and maximizing the number of people we can help with the number of ownership entities we can create.
However, two things, we know that in the fires of LA, because the LA fire, there is basically an arms race to bring in the new building materials, methodologies.
Let me go on, please.
Methodologies into California and the country to California.
So many of your cost projections are actively being confronted right now by the building industry right now.
And so by the time this thing breaks ground, who knows what cost curves we can meet? Also, different financing tools.
We know that ownership is the number one element being driven right now in the housing advocacy community in this country and in the state.
And so many, many proposals are winding its way through the different bodies to incentivize ownership, to create starter home tax credits, et cetera.
The same is used now for affordable housing development, but for ownership, all that's coming.
And so by the time this building gets built, I do think we will have a stronger chance at achieving affordable home ownership.
And this is by far what the community has asked for repeatedly the most.
They want it.
We know we need it.
It's out of reach for everyone.
But particularly again, thinking about what was robbed from these people and their descendants and their associates and the neighborhood as a whole, and the community as a whole, the city as a whole, robbed of all this vitality.
And we can bring it back.
And so a quick couple of points here.
I do think we should have three members of the community on board here.
I've served on numerous RFP committees before I was elected, and they're fun.
They're great for people to get involved and learn how processes work, like a miniature commission.
And in this instance, we have you know, strong vested interests from the community that may be divergent.
It's important to not be captured and to allow three different people to get in there and mix it up.
And I think we'll benefit because I want someone on there who wants ownership.
I want someone to fight as hard as they can to produce ownership on that site or devise a mechanism to capture revenue and shift it somewhere nearby to create a new program.
We have lots of ideas for programs for ownership, lots of them out there, but let's do it.
Let's drive it forward from here.
That would be the karmic sense of development this property demands because we did not get it on the West Lot.
We didn't get it.
Okay.
And that was the one to do it.
That was huge.
But BAR controlled it.
We couldn't do it.
I fought for that for years.
So this is our last stand.
And let's make it count.
So I want you to consider going back into RRP and punching up the ownership and urging the developers.
They call me all the time, too.
These people call me all the time.
They can do this for this much cheaper.
They're out there.
Let's let them fight to get this contract, this super high profile development deal.
Let them fight to get it.
And on that end, this goes along with the new developers, the new ideas, the new people, which ties into our economic justice element.
Let's get some new developers in here.
People who come from historically red line communities, they can't get a job.
You should see the talented black architects and developers and finance pros out there trying to get in the game, but they can't get in.
And we know this from our 2016, 2017, we passed the Bindex.
That's not my name for it.
They call it that.
The Inclusion Diversity Index.
We have a pension for choosing established players, large entities that are not facilitating the on ramp of new people and diverse money.
And now, as you see, in general, all the wealth is bound up in a few hands.
So it's almost like there's a continuation of 1972.
When you wipe out their wealth, move it up here and keep it there.
So let's take this moment to do our part to undo the momentum and create a new momentum that's born of economic justice and access and true reparation.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member.
And you already did this.
So thank you very much for setting the stage.
I just will.
I remembered that when we had to have this conversation about how we were going to go through this, one of the things we were talking about was what kinds of guidance would be helpful.
And you've already done it in the right way.
So that's great.
But just in terms of discussion, these are questions here to be thinking about in terms of giving your comments and giving feedback on we have the, there are threshold requirements, and then there's framework that we've gotten from the community.
And so giving feedback on what you all think are priorities is really helpful.
And so that's a and so that's affordable housing priorities.
The evaluation committee is our Council Member spoke to.
But also, and actually, this wasn't on here at the end of the slides, but in the stakeholder engagement, just seeing what you all think about those pieces of it as well.
So just to kind of give you some structure.
Council Member Humbert.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor.
First, I want to thank staff for all your really good hard work on this.
And I know there's going to be a lot of good hard work in the future.
I want to join essentially 100% in Council Member Bartlett's comments.
I'm not going to try to match him.
He's a hard act to follow.
But I want to thank him for his prodigious efforts on this process over the years and for his really creative thinking about how we can get to where we need to go in connection with his statement.
And I wrote it down.
Economic justice and wealth building should be front and center in this process.
I agree with that.
As our president might say, 1000%.
I'd love to see ownership opportunities to help create the intergenerational wealth of which this community that lived around here before 1972 was clearly robbed.
So absolutely agree with Council Member Bartlett on that.
And that's my main comment.
I also want to thank our commenter, Deborah Matthews, who's worked on this process for a long time.
I want to thank her for her very astute and thoughtful comments tonight as well.
Thank you.
That's all I have.
Thank you.
Other Council Members? Council Member Cassarwani.
Okay.
Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
Thank you for the presentation.
Oh, I'm just seeing these.
I didn't realize you had prompts for us.
So okay.
So I just I just generally want to thank you because I think this is generally covering the topics that I think are important.
And obviously, as the Council Member representing the neighborhoods around the North Berkeley BART station and seeing that process successfully lead to the land use entitlement for a project that I think the vast majority of the community is supportive of.
I'm sort of looking to see how this compares to what we had, you know, for the North Berkeley BART.
And so in terms of, I just want to say that I think the goal of 50% affordability is good and setting the minimum at 35%.
I think that aligns with what we did in North Berkeley.
And I do appreciate the the slide on page 16 showing the trade-off there.
Obviously, if you have greater affordability, there is less of a market rate developer contribution that can go towards there is less of a market rate developer contribution that can go towards other benefits.
So I think that is appropriate to leave that as a goal.
The home ownership goal, I think that that is also appropriate as a goal.
I do want to recognize that there are some, in my mind, some significant trade-offs with this goal.
One is that it serves a higher income household of 80% area median income.
And, you know, so I think that's important.
And I do want to just note that the some of our other policies are trying to serve that middle income population between the 80 to 120% of area median income.
You know, the significant one being the middle housing ordinance accompanied with the subdivision referral that I hope that will come back to council to give people an opportunity at higher income levels to be able to buy that starter home.
And so I'm not saying that we shouldn't be doing this here.
I think it's a valid goal.
But I think, again, it's good as a goal and not as a requirement because I think we need to be flexible in terms of how we do that.
And I think those are really my main comments.
I wanted to also just note that I thought the design guidelines, I think those appear on page 23 of the presentation, that those seemed reasonable.
Again, I was looking to how they compared to North Berkeley BART, which is also adjacent to a residential neighborhood as the east lot is.
And so I think the setbacks of 5 to 15 feet, that aligns with what we did in North Berkeley.
We also had upper story step backs.
So that also makes sense.
And I think having that the 300 minimum bedroom count, that is going to be a requirement, correct? So I think that's important because when we go all the way back to our joint vision and priorities, we talked about having a significant number, not thinking so much in percentages.
For a long time, we were talking about 100% level of affordability.
But I think we've come a long way in realizing what is realistic and practical and delivering homes in a reasonable timeframe is also important.
People can't wait 20, 30 years for the site to get developed.
They've already been waiting a very long time.
So I just want to appreciate how far we have come.
And this site, the Ashby lots, they were much more complex than North Berkeley site.
And that is why it has taken so long.
There were air rights that the city held for the Ashby station.
And so the reason why we've now acquired this east lot is because we entered into negotiations with BART so that they would be able to take full responsibility of developing the west lot, which is what we're not talking about.
And then we could take responsibility for this lot.
So this is an incredible opportunity for us.
And I'm just looking at the last question here.
Does the evaluation process ensure robust review of proposals? I think so.
I want to make sure that in addition to the community representation, that we make sure we have expertise on the panel that reviews these proposals.
Because there's, you know, in my mind, I'm still finishing my thought here.
I think there's going to be significant technical detail in these proposals.
So I want to make sure that we are equipped to be able to evaluate each of them fairly and responsibly.
And so that would be my request, that we make sure that we have, you know, that expertise on the panel as well.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Other council members? Go for it.
Yeah, go ahead.
Thank you, Mayor.
I just want to say briefly, I just want to thank staff, of course, for all the work.
And I also just really want to thank Council Member Bartlett.
I plus one to everything you said.
Not only because you are the council person for this district, so that's something right there, but also you spent a huge amount of time on this and everything you said was really reasonable and great.
So just wanted to say thank you and yes.
Okay, Council Member Lunapara.
Thank you.
Yeah, I wanted to echo what some of my colleagues have been saying.
I also want to thank Council Member Bartlett for all the work that he's put into this and for trying to do the very difficult task of bridging all the different stakeholders, which is what makes Ashby particularly, you know, harder than North Berkeley.
So thank you and great job.
I do have questions about the building form objective standards part, but this might be bigger than this project.
I guess I'm curious what the goal of some of these standards are.
For example, having the maximum continuous façade length be 170 feet, which I guess creates the like back and forth type of building and why it can't be more than a single or 80% of the façade be a single material.
Just I don't, what are the goals of that, of those standards? Well, high level goals that we talked about in the presentation, one of them is to ensure that the pedestrian experience is positive.
And, you know, one of the examples, the maximum façade length, sometimes when you're walking next to a long, continuous façade, it really feels oppressive.
We have on the line, Chris Sensenick, who is the design professional that assisted the city in the development of these ODS.
So I want to turn it over to Chris to talk a little bit more about the thinking of the standards that you mentioned.
I think you're muted.
Yeah, Chris, you're muted.
There you go.
Sorry about that.
Thank you, Jordan.
Yeah, I think you hit it on the building length.
You know, it's, you know, this is facing a bunch of smaller buildings and homes and to minimize that distance without a break to make the building feel smaller.
And the purpose behind the materials is to really provide more variation and human scale details and so that you don't get a 100% stucco building.
Okay, thank you.
I also, I'm curious if the thought process is, do we think that there would be any ground floor commercial or do we anticipate that being residential? So I can say the ground floor non-residential uses are permitted, but we're not requiring it in the solicitation.
Okay, that makes sense.
I think something, if a developer does choose to have ground floor commercial, I think it would be great for, to also incorporate some of the same ideas of right to return for some of the businesses that were displaced by the BART development.
Also some long-standing businesses in the area that are at risk of displacement.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Bacoby.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
I'll be brief.
Thank you to staff again, consultants for the presentation.
What I appreciate about the process is that we lay out clear threshold requirements.
We lay out strong goals, but then we leave a lot of flexibility and creativity for the developers to come back and say, here's what we think we can do.
And I think as you wrote a lot of the document, there's a lot of language about looking for that kind of creativity and inspiration to really try and wow us about what's possible.
Because we don't know what's possible, but we are looking to work with partners who have a big vision for what is possible.
And that's part of the evaluation process.
So I really, I like that.
We're not being too prescriptive.
We're laying out goals, but not being too prescriptive.
I also want to thank Council Member Bartlett for his leadership.
And, you know, I think we all acknowledge up here that it's, it's really impossible to fully right the past wrongs.
But we are trying to do our best to, to acknowledge and then do whatever we can do to help repair some of the damage done in this process.
And again, I think it's really important for all of us to be mindful as we go through this, that that's still centered.
And that's kind of a key goal of this.
It's not, of course, developing more affordable housing is an important goal, but also centering the community that has been affected and that will benefit from this work is really important.
And so just to keep reminding us of that in the RFP and then to Council Member Bartlett and the team to keep us honest about that as we move forward.
So thank you very much.
Thank you.
Other Council Member, oh, Council Member Trako, I see you online.
Yeah, thank you so much.
I wanted to also thank staff for not just the comprehensive presentation, but the comprehensive body of work that they have done over many years and will continue to do.
And of course, would like to thank Council Member Bartlett for his leadership on this project.
And I would like to thank the community members that, you know, nothing about us without us is a quote that still rings with a clarion call in my head as I am thinking about the public comments that we heard today.
I did have a question that I have not yet asked of staff.
First, can you please remind me, I know in previous renditions there was a commitment to provide a space for the farmer's market to use.
And I understand that the farmer's market has gone through perhaps some ownership or management changes since then.
But I'm wondering if this is on the East Lot or did it move to the West Lot? So I think you're referencing the Berkeley Flea Market.
Sorry, yes, the flea market.
Yeah, it's really the West Lot project in combination with City Right-of-Way that will be providing a future home to the flea market rather than the East Lot.
Okay.
Yeah, I am clear on the trade-offs.
And I think, I mean,.

Segment 4

I would like to associate myself with comments that have been made about the opportunities.
This is already an ambitious project, and I all too keenly and somewhat painfully recognize that there is perhaps no level of ambition on this project that may truly make the South Berkeley residents, whose ancestors were negatively impacted by gentrification and displacement starting or perhaps continuing in the 60s and 70s up to now, that it might not make everyone fully whole.
And yet this is an invitation and a challenge to all of us to think deeply through this and do the very best that we can to build something that is emblematic of Berkeley's full vision and creativity that our community demonstrates.
And it is with that in mind that if I was going to make an overarching comment and request, and this is what I'm going to do now, it is to look at, I've heard loud and clear from the community and even before that, I understand the reason to have five members in an advisory committee and to have perhaps the city of Berkeley have a majority that's three that may leave one member of the community, but I don't believe that that is enough.
And there is no single member of the community that can authentically speak for the lived experiences of everyone in that community.
And so I would really like for us to think through what might be possible to increase the composition of community members to at least two.
And if that means expanding the overall number of committee members to seven or some other odd number, then I would fully support that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
Look at this.
We might end on time.
Okay.
Other comments? Just want to make sure.
Oh, yes.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
I didn't, I can't remember if I mentioned this in my comment, but if I didn't, I just want to thank staff, the planning department so much.
Thank you for all of your work.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay.
So final comment.
And of course, also want to say thank you again.
I think I said it earlier, but again, again, thank you.
I know this is a lot of work and I really appreciate, I know it wasn't intentional to leave out Friends of Adeline.
I know that Friends of Adeline has been involved throughout this process.
And I know because we've been having conversations where you mentioned all these different organizations and groups and individuals that you've spoken with and all the comments and feedback.
So I just want to make sure the community really knows that this team has been really listening and worked very hard to make sure that those comments were put into this document.
So I just want to make sure folks know that.
I've lived in South Berkeley most of the time that I've lived in Berkeley.
I'm very connected to the South Berkeley community.
And many of the folks in the audience are neighbors that I see quite regularly, literally walking down the street.
So I'm really grateful for you all being here and just your comments and your thoughts.
And of course, to council member Bartlett as well for his work and his passion on this topic, because we do really understand that this BART station really impacted the community.
And we can't talk about this project without talking about racial justice.
So I'm really grateful for folks bringing that into the room, into this space.
Let's see.
So in terms of these questions, I do really feel like this framework does show us what the community is asking for.
It brings in, of course, the priorities that we have.
And I agree with folks that have said that I think what's going to be challenging is figuring out which priorities are more important.
So let me tell you, I also agree that we need to increase the number of community members.
I think one is just not enough.
There are so many different community members who have been engaged in this process.
And so I'd like to see us increase that number.
I have a couple of questions.
Is there a reason that BART needs to be included? That question was asked by a community member and I'm curious if it was a requirement.
Actually, it's not prescriptive.
It was kind of a decision that the steering committee, the team of agencies made because BART has recently reviewed two very similar RFPs and the staff there have a lot of expertise in sort of thinking about this master development finance.
So I think our team perceived that as a benefit and almost like extra support for the technical staff in the city.
Absolutely.
That totally makes sense.
That's why I asked the question because I figured there was some reason.
So I think that that makes a lot of sense.
And given that it's above BART, there are things that will interact with each other.
And so I think that's important and really valuable as a perspective to bring in.
As Council Member Keserwani mentioned, having the technical expertise is important here too.
And the other question I wanted to ask that was brought up by a community member, which is how will our affordable housing preference policy play into this project? Could you speak to that? Yes.
So the city's affordable housing preference policy would apply to the affordable rental developments in the project.
It is specific to rental housing.
We have typically, when there is other financing in the project that is not, if it's not just local funds or like the BMRs that are privately financed, but if there's other state or federal funds, we typically do, we do have to get, we do a fair housing analysis and determine the percent of units that the preference policy can be applied to.
And we have to get authorization from the state.
And I think in the past recent projects that we've done, it's been about 75%.
I am actually going to defer, does that, I don't, Rick Jacobus is here and may recall if it was 75%? Okay, not sure.
I think it was, I think it was 75%, but I can verify that.
Sure, that would just be helpful for the community.
I know folks were asking about right of return and you know, this policy is similar.
So I just wanted to make sure I brought that up.
And then I know we've been talking about home ownership and that piece I think is really interesting.
I think, you know, it's interesting that it's in there.
I think I'm concerned about the trade-offs between affordable housing and ownership.
So I just want to say that.
And then the last thing that I think is really important is the universal design piece.
So right now this is written in here as a priority, like as something that we're interested in having.
And I just want to set the stage a little bit to say that I got a chance to visit the Kelsey, which is in San Francisco, which is a universal designed building.
And it was amazing.
I think that something I want to highlight for folks is that universal design is for everyone.
It's not just for folks.
It's not just to be accessible for folks who have disabilities.
And I think especially about the folks in our community who are aging.
We have a really large aging population rapidly growing.
And I love that we have that in our community.
It's amazing.
But we need to make sure we have housing that's safe for people to live in.
And it also goes for folks who are pregnant or just generally need more accessible design.
So given that the Ed Roberts Campus programs and services are right there, I think we really have a special and unique opportunity to have complementary services and support housing and support for folks also with disabilities.
And so I would like to see this as a required element in the design standards.
So, oh, and Councilmember Casarani, did you want to add something? Yes, I made an error in not thanking Councilmember Bartlett for his leadership on this for over more than a decade.
So I want to make sure I did that.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Well, thank you all.
I think that you actually have something for us to vote on that we need to.
Yes, we need.
So can you speak to that? We'd love for you to take action on the resolution.
Sorry, say again? We'd love for you to take action on the resolution.
So I'm just pulling up the resolution itself.
So the action on here is to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to, or designee, to expend housing trust fund dollars to acquire real property at the Ashby-Bart East Lot in accordance with the exchange agreement authorized by Ordinance 7-939-N.S.
So is someone, would someone like to make that motion? Moved by Councilmember Bartlett.
Second.
And we have someone on line, so could you please take the roll? Okay, on the motion to adopt the resolution, Councilmember Casarani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Trageb? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humber? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Okay, thank you, staff.
Thank you so much, appreciate it.
So for folks that are here for the six o'clock meeting, it is nine minutes until then, but we've been sitting for almost two hours, so I want to give us a little bit more than nine minutes, so we will be back in 20 minutes.
Okay, thank you, everyone.
Do we need to adjourn? Is there a motion to adjourn? Oh, yes, we do need to actually adjourn.
Thank you.
Second.
Okay, can we have a roll, please? Okay, to adjourn the meeting, Councilmember Casarani? Wait, folks, I'm sorry, we're taking a vote.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Trageb? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humber? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
All right, meeting is adjourned.
Recording stopped.