Public Comment

On Thursday June 2, the Berkeley City Council will be voting both on zoning, and on what they want in a Joint Vision and Priorities (JVP) Document, for both the Ashby and North Berkeley BART stations. This JVP document will help guide the development process from developer selection through construction.

I would encourage people who want to see more affordable housing built in Berkeley to write to the City Council soon, before minds are made up, to urge them to do two things:

First, the Council should support a JVP that calls for 100% below market affordable housing to be developed in phases at both BART stations. Future Requests for Qualifications (RFQs) should make clear that the developers sought for the projects are those who are experienced at building projects where 100% of the units are below market affordable units. The housing built should be affordable to households whose incomes range from extremely low income (30% of Area Median Income and below) to Low income (up to 80% of Area Median Income)

The City Council should reject the alternative approach of selecting, via the RFQ process, market rate developer-led teams to develop each site, with a publicly funded non-profit developer in a junior partner role, allowed to develop only a small portion of each site. The work of the Unity Council in the development of Fruitvale BART station should be taken as a model of how affordable housing can be developed at a BART station. Expensive market rate high-rises, such as the one found at MacArthur BART, are not what Berkeley needs.

Secondly, the City Council should adopt the City staff zoning recommendation and set a maximum height of seven stories at both stations, a height appropriate for affordable housing.

You can send e-mail to the Council at council@cityofberkeley.info

Implement the Adeline Corridor Plan Goal

The Adeline Corridor Plan set a goal of “100% deed-restricted affordable housing” at Ashby BART with priority given for housing affordable to very low and extremely low income households. It also has as a goal that at least 50% of all new housing in the plan area built over the 20 year life of the plan should be income restricted affordable housing. This latter goal has no chance of being achieved unless all the housing built at Ashby BART is below market affordable housing, since market rate developers provide typically no more than 10% below market units, the number needed to qualify for the state density bonus. The City Council should respect the goals of the Adeline Corridor Plan, which was the product of extensive community input over a period of more than five years.

To provide some context for why affordable housing is needed in the BART station areas, we can look at the situation of those living in those areas. Median income of tenant households in South Berkeley near Ashby BART fall within the very low and low income range according to estimates from the most recent Bureau of the Census American Community Survey data for four South Berkeley Census tracts (which together include the area from MLK Jr Way to San Pablo between Dwight Way and the Oakland border). Half of all tenant households in this area have incomes of $50,000 or less. For a 3 person household, the 2021 income limit for a very low income family of 3 is $61,650; that is 50% of the Area Median Income (AMI) for that size of household. 

Median tenant incomes are somewhat higher in the two census tracts nearest the North Berkeley BART station. Estimates of median income indicate that the median tenant household is a low income household, but over a third have incomes under $50,000, making them very low income households. 

Low Income Residents Are Being Priced Out of Berkeley 

The recently released study by the Anti Eviction Mapping Project, entitled Densifying Berkeley: Potential Impacts on Displacement and Equity, shows that “low-income residents are being priced out of the city en masse”. They also conclude (page 33) that “because of the shortage of affordable options, 70% of low-income households (earning 80% or lower AMI) occupy housing outside of their income, and are therefore not adequately housed.” They are paying more that 30% of their income for housing, with substantial numbers paying over 50%. By contrast, moderate income and above moderate income households can afford the housing they are living in. The City should focus on people in households with incomes at 80% of AMI and below. 

New market rate housing is way out of reach for low and very low income households, not to mention extremely low income households. With two bedroom rent controlled units having a median rent for new tenancies of $2900, even available rent controlled units are out of reach. The 80% AMI upper income limit for a low income family of three, which would need a two-bedroom unit, is now $98,650. Such a family could afford a housing cost (rent and utilities) of at most $2466. The affordability standard is that housing is affordable if housing cost (rent and utilities) amount to no more than 30% of gross income. Using this standard, at 50% AMI, the upper limit of very low income, a three person family could afford a housing cost of $1541 a month. 

That housing for low, very low and extremely low income households is in high demand can be illustrated by the fact that there were 1000 applicants for 34 units at the recently opened Jordan Court senior housing in North Berkeley, which is affordable at 20% to 60% AMI. By contrast people who can afford the units in Berkeley’s newer market rate buildings have many units to choose from. Newer buildings typically have vacancy rates over 5%. And the market rate high rise at MacArthur BART recently advertised 7.8% of its units as available. 

Affordable Housing, Not Market Rate, is Urgently Needed 

The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project report includes a table showing progress toward meeting the Association of Bay Area Government’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) plan goals for different income levels. For the six years 2015-2020, the City has permitted a total of 2709 units. 2476, or 91.4%, of those units are market rate units for people with above moderate incomes. For three person households that means incomes above $135,650. 2 bedroom units in new market rate buildings typically rent for over $4000 a month. That level of rent is affordable to people with household incomes over $160,000. These units are completely out of reach for low income people. 

The 2476 units permitted amount to 177% of the RHNA goal for above moderate housing. When data for the entire 2015-2023 RHNA is reported, it will certainly show that more than the double the number of above moderate units called for by RHNA have been permitted. By contrast, Berkeley has permitted only 32% of the very low income RHNA; and only 14% of the Low Income RHNA. The City is not only failing to meet the current Low and a Very low income RHNA goals, it has also failed to meet those goals in the two previous RHNA periods extending back to 1999. No wonder there has been displacement and demographic changes in Berkeley. 

Building market rate housing does nothing to keep low and very low income families from being priced out and displaced from Berkeley. The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project study found that “increasing the overall housing supply has not decreased the probability of displacement.” That is building lots of market rate units does not help. The thing that can decrease displacement is building and creating more publicly funded below market affordable housing. The affordability crisis can be successfully addressed by non-profit affordable housing developers using public funds to build housing that Berkeley’s rent-burdened tenants can afford. (Acquisition of existing housing and its conversion to permanently affordable housing can also play a role.) 

Public Land for Public Benefit 

There is no better place to build new affordable housing than on public land. The cost of acquiring land to build on, especially in today’s overheated housing market, adds substantially to the cost of building below market affordable units. When non-profits build affordable housing on public land, land cost can be reduced or eliminated altogether. BART has adopted a policy of discounting land cost by up to 60% below fair market value for affordable housing projects. It’s hard for the nonprofits who build affordable housing to compete with market rate developers for expensive private sites. By prioritizing public land like BART stations for affordable housing, the city can make sure that available local affordable housing funds stretch as far as possible and produce the largest possible number of affordable units. 

Some recently permitted below market projects in Berkeley have been on land owned by churches or nonprofits (e.g. Jordan Court). But there is not a huge amount of church and nonprofit owned land in Berkeley. Public land has a big role to play if the City is serious about building more affordable housing. The two largest below market projects in Berkeley in recent decades, Oxford Plaza in downtown, and the Berkeley Way project now nearing completion, were both built on city-owned land. And use of public land is not new in Berkeley. In the 1980s, scattered site public housing was built on surplus public property, and Redwood Gardens housing for seniors was created on land that was formerly used by the state-run School for the Deaf and Blind. 

It’s appropriate to use public land for things that the private for-profit sector does not do well, and building affordable housing for low and very low income people is one of those things. Plenty of market rate housing is being built in Berkeley now, and market rate developers will continue to build in Berkeley as long as there is demand for the high rent units they build and it’s profitable. Public land should not be squandered on market rate development, but should be reserved to help meet the enormous unmet demand for low income housing. 

Our economy generates some jobs that require higher education and pay well, such as tech industry, and professional and managerial jobs. People like this can often afford market rate housing. But it also generates a lot of low wage service, clerical, blue collar and sales jobs that don’t pay well, and that provide incomes that fall way short of what’s needed to afford new market rate housing. If we want a city that is diverse and if we want to address the problems of displacement and gentrification, we have to build more housing for the lower income part of the Bay Area work force. Public land needs to be prioritized for that purpose. 

100% Affordable at BART to Meet RHNA Goals 

The upcoming 2023-2031 RHNA Plan calls for 2446 very low income units and 1408 low income units in Berkeley. As the City has not been able to meet the 2015-2023 RHNA goal of 553 very low and 442 low income units, it’s highly unlikely that it will be able to fully meet the 2023-2031 RHNA goals. However, if the BART sites are reserved exclusively for housing for people at 80% of AMI and below, it’s possible that the City could come close to achieving half of the RHNA goal for these income levels. 

The City will need to provide substantial local affordable housing funds to enable non-profit affordable housing developers to leverage other public funds and tax credits to build affordable housing. The City has Measure O bond funds, Measure U-1 revenue, and revenue from the paying of affordable housing fees by developers who decline to meet the city’s inclusionary requirement with 20% units on site. The City is considering another bond measure that would appear on this fall’s ballot. Such a bond measure could include funds earmarked for development of affordable housing at the Ashby and North Berkeley BART sites. It could also help fund a public plaza. $150 million for affordable housing could leverage enough other public funds to provide 750 affordable units, perhaps more. 

Practically speaking, development of BART sites will have to be phased development. As is noted in the Adeline Corridor Plan, only a tiny number of affordable housing projects funded in California have had more than 250 units. Some BART stations have had a project in one phase for seniors, followed by another phase with a project for families or vice versa. Some advocates of market rate high-rises seem to think that BART sites can be developed all at once. But even bad market rate dominated projects like MacArthur BART have been developed in phases. Construction of the first phase there began in 2011 and the last building completed was not occupied until 2020. Berkeley will not be able to build all the affordable housing it needs in the next ten years. It will still need affordable housing in twelve years, in fifteen years and later, and it will need workable sites for that housing. Phased development will allow time to address access issues – if parking for commuters and others is reduced over time, alternative ways of accessing the BART sites can be developed. 

Zoning 

The City Council should follow the staff recommendation and set a seven story maximum height for buildings at both BART stations. 

Higher building Costs: 12 story buildings cost substantially more to build per square foot than 4-6 story buildings. Non profit affordable housing developers rely on public funds, including local funds from Berkeley’s Housing Trust Fund and Berkeley’s Measure O bond funds. They don’t build more expensive 12 story buildings, which would be a bad use of public money. Affordable housing built downtown on Oxford on the former public parking lot, and now under construction on the City’s Berkeley Way parking lot, are both six stories, a height that works for non-profit developers, who want to make efficient use of public funds. 

A recent report by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation about construction costs states: 

“Building with steel and concrete costs more. Type I projects, which are typically over 5-7 stories and constructed with steel and concrete, cost an average of $65 more per square foot than other types of construction, like Type V over I (i.e. wood frame floors over a concrete podium).” 

https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Hard_Construction_Costs_March_2020.pdf 

Non-profits have developed housing at a number of BART stations, including San Leandro and Fruitvale BART. None of the completed affordable housing has a height greater than six stories and four and five story buildings are more common. Affordable buildings are in the planning stages at Lake Merritt BART that would be 7 stories. 

100% Non Profit Development to Maximize Affordable Housing at BART 

Some people have argued that the greater the number of total units built, the greater the number of affordable units there will be. This is definitely not the case. What is true is that the greater the share of available developable space that is provided to non-profit developers to develop, the greater the amount of affordable housing there will be. And you get the maximum amount of affordable housing when non profits are chosen to develop 100% below market projects on 100% of the available space.  

Only a tiny proportion of the affordable housing built at BART stations to date has been built as inclusionary units in market rate buildings. At MacArthur BART, which exemplifies the kind of BART station development we don’t want to see in Berkeley, there is one publicly funded affordable housing building with 90 units. There are also two market rate buildings, one of them a high-rise, with a total of 787 units. One of the buildings has no inclusionary units at all while the high-rise has just 11% below market units. Had the site of the high rise tower been developed by affordable housing developers instead of market rate developers, with the same building footprint and same number of units per floor, but capping the height at 5 floors of housing, the number of affordable units would have ended up being 135 in that building instead of 45. Who develops the building is more important than building height in determining how many affordable units are created. 

Negative Environmental Impacts of High-Rise Buildings  

High-rise development has negative impacts with respect to climate change because 12 story and taller buildings use a lot more concrete and steel. Cement is the main component of concrete, and the manufacture of cement is very energy intensive and is responsible for an estimated 8% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Wood frame construction of four to six story buildings, with less use of concrete, has fewer negative environmental impacts. 

High-rise buildings also consume more energy per square foot than 5-7 story buildings; electricity use increases with height. More electricity is needed for elevators, fans and pumps to move people, air and water. https://phys.org/news/2017-06-high-rise-energy-intensive-low-rise.html 

Most of the city’s non-profit built affordable buildings have rooftop solar panels that provide hot water and, in some cases, electricity. Using solar panels to help meet a building’s energy needs is not very practical with high-rise buildings. Solar panels also reduce building operating costs which contributes to the building’s affordability. 

Depending on how they are located on the site, 12 to 18 story buildings could definitely shadow neighboring buildings. The reduction in solar access from shadowing would result in higher heating and lighting bills for those affected, and with it increased energy use; not what you want if the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Depending on their location, high-rise market rate buildings could shadow rooftops with solar panels. The JVP for the BART sites should specify that shadowing of buildings, both on the site and near the site, should be avoided. 

To reiterate, public land should be used for public benefit, and the BART sites should be reserved for below market affordable housing built at a scale that works for nonprofit developers and minimizes negative impacts on the environment and on residents of nearby neighborhoods. 

The agenda for the June meeting is not yet available but you can find the staff report for their April 19 worksession here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f0v7w3m4va6sr6z/2022-04-19%20Worksession%20Agenda%20Packet%20-%20Council%20-%20WEB.pdf