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I am writing on behalf of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) to express our serious concerns regarding the City of Berkeley’s 2023-2031 Revised Housing Element Update and Draft Environmental Report (Revised Housing Element Update and RHEU). Our comments address the defects in the promulgation of this ill-advised scheme, as well as the substance of its, now revised, content.  

Since 1974, our organization has advocated for the preservation of the wonderful legacy of architecture, history and aesthetics that enrich the City of Berkeley. Our diverse membership of over 1200 citizens includes renters, homeowners, Berkeley activists, architects, historians, professors, students, old and new residents, business owners and retirees. What we have in common is concern for the past and future of Berkeley and a desire to see that, as things change, these changes fit within the pioneering, creative, and often socially revolutionary architecture that typifies our wonderful City. They also want to see that new development respects the existing architecturally significant structures, streetscapes and landscapes that make Berkeley unique. 

BAHA believes that this Revised Housing Element Update will be used by outside developers to destroy much of what makes Berkeley special, including its inclusive family neighborhoods where renters and homeowners have co-existed since 1876. The many articles in the San Francisco Business Times and other pro-private development publications about how Berkeley is rolling out the red carpet for real estate developers who plan to construct high-rise, mixed-use commercial developments undermine the City’s stated purpose of creating housing equity in its latest RHEU. Put simply, we don’t believe any of the high-minded promises floated in the RHEU, which we regard as cynical attempts to mask what is otherwise a massive landgrab by private developers to extend their reach into the traditional residential neighborhoods in Berkeley. This residential area landgrab has the very real possibility of uprooting the last vestiges of our diverse city and destroying its wonderful existing structures and outdoor spaces.  

The choice of city planners to exceed the state required housing element by over 7000 units-- almost double what state law mandates-- is unjustified and highly irresponsible. Not only can Berkeley’s existing infrastructure not accommodate the proposed level of housing growth, but this proposed level of development will also necessarily exacerbate the very real threats to life and property endemic in the City at present. As explained below, there is no guarantee in the RHEU– notwithstanding the high-minded rhetoric – that much if any of the new proposed housing will be realistically available to lower income residents, the working poor, or needy families. The RHEU anticipates that 74% of new planned “in the pipeline” units will be for moderate or above moderate income residents. (RHEU C-2.) As for units dedicated to low income residents, the time limits built into the scant number of housing density bonus units mean even the few that may be created can revert to market rate after the relevant low-rent period has expired. 

Although it is lengthy, the RHEU contains very little information about the most important part of the proposed plan, namely where this new housing will be built. Table 5.4 asserts that planners found sites for 11,935 units, including 7,310 units on “opportunity sites.” Figure 5.2, “Residential Site Inventory,” designates numerous “opportunity sites,” with no explanation as to the basis by which these parcels were identified and little information on the structures that exist on and adjacent to these locations. The RHEU states only that planners use “objective criteria” and “local knowledge,” to select the opportunity sites (RHEU 100). The description of what planners did – offered at page C-14 -- is likewise uninformative: they looked at an “interactive online web mapping platform” and annotated the maps, "annotating existing use and providing additional 

justification for consideration.” RHEU C-14. Exactly what constitutes “additional justification” was not disclosed. Because Figure 5.2 fails to identify city landmarks, parks, schools, and open spaces, it is virtually impossible to tell the impact of these “opportunity sites” within the given neighborhoods, much less assess the basis upon which they were selected. For example, without an overlay of AC Transit routes, it is impossible to tell which of the sites -- -pipeline and opportunity—are near public transportation. Figure 5.1 is similarly flawed. Rather than provide street addresses for the “opportunity sites,” the RHEU provide APNs, which makes identifying existing structures and adjacent structures very difficult for a dedicated reader and impossible for the average member of the public. The absence of information about this key aspect of the RHEU is both striking and highly suspicious. 

As for landmarked properties, parks, and open spaces, all are effectively ignored. Notwithstanding the fact that several landmarked and landmark eligible properties are earmarked for demolition under the RHEU plan, the cumulative impact of these demolitions is not examined. Likewise, the individual and cumulative impacts on parks, creeks, and open spaces near the new dense planned developments are ignored. 

RHEU & DEIR Fail to Consider Alternate Sites for Construction in High Fire Danger Zones  

By proposing significant housing growth in areas already challenged by climate change (see Figure 5.2) – including areas of increased fire danger – without performing the required analysis of alternative building sites, city planners have failed to satisfy basic legal requirements thereby undermining their overriding consideration findings. Among other things, the RHEU contemplate new, expansive high-density development in already densely populated hillside areas where narrow winding streets are the norm. These plans, which are in Very High Fire Severity Zones, necessarily increase the fire danger to residents of these areas both directly (by inhibiting already strained evacuation routes and straining existing utilities that are in many cases decades past their useful life) and indirectly (by necessitating the cutting of old growth trees and increasing pollution due to construction and tail pipe emissions).  

At present, in the event of a large earthquake on the Hayward fault or large fire in the Berkeley hills, Berkeley’s current fire services will be unable to save either life or property in the Very High Fire Severity zoned areas and the Hillside Overlay more generally. City officials have acknowledged this potential catastrophic scenario in their communications with CERT groups, filings in connection with UC’s LRDP, and community meetings over the past few years. Increasing development in these zones will only exacerbate the disaster waiting to happen. The RHEU’s failure to consider alternate building sites in light of the present situation renders the overriding consideration findings null and void. The DEIR is similarly flawed and, therefore, must be redone to address these issues and evaluate alternate sites. 

Failure to Consider Aging Infrastructure and Impact of Development on Same 

The law requires that the city consider the analysis of governmental constraints on the improvement and development of housing. Nowhere in the RHEU does the City address the adequacy of the City’s aging existing infrastructure – including emergency services, emergency service access routes, sewer lines, waterlines -- and private utility infrastructure to support its existing population much less the proposed population growth and development density contemplated in the RHEU. The fact that some areas of the city still used the original hollowed out Redwood trees for underground sewage should cause the public to question whether city infrastructure really can accommodate the thousands more units than called for by state law. 

City officials have admitted in connection with Measure L that existing infrastructure –including roads and sewers – are failing and or soon will fail completely absent an infusion of cash via the proposed bond measure. Neither the RHEU nor the DEIR adequately address the impacts of the proposed housing elements on the city infrastructure over the next 10 years. Without doubt problems with the existing infrastructure constitutes a housing constraint. By failing to address this very real constraint, the RHEU and DEIR are demonstrably in adequate. 

RHEU and DEIR Fail to Consider Impacts on Landmarked and Historic Structures and Areas 

Much of Berkeley’s existing housing stock is in aging buildings, some of which are landmarked, historic and/or rent controlled. The RHEU acknowledges this fact. Significantly city planners favor demolishing older structures where the floor area ratio on the lot is small. As long as a building was over 40 years old and its parcel “is underutilized based on existing Floor Area Ratio (FAR),” planners felt free to designate a property an “opportunity site,” namely one that could be demolished in favor of more dense housing. Their justification for disfavoring older houses and designating them as “opportunity sites” was that, “Buildings older than 30 years typically require significant systems upgrades and often do not meet ADA requirements.” Under this logic, many of the city’s landmarked houses could be under the proverbial chopping block. Moreover, creating denser housing on lots where older houses have taken up little lot space (stated as FAR) likely will mean removing mature trees and gardens.  

Nowhere does the RHEU provide the required and promised analysis of this existing housing stock at the street or neighborhood level. Instead, the RHEU promises that at some point the future – with no dates provided – a survey of existing structures will be undertaken. We are told that this “survey” will have some connection to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), but no specifics are provided.  

Despite these empty promises of a future survey, the RHEU makes many ill-informed assumptions about Berkeley’s existing housing and ignores the impacts of the proposed new construction on the existing housing where Berkeley citizens are living and working every day. By way of example, the RHEU ignore the importance of single-family homes in the San Pablo Park area to the economic empowerment of generations of Berkeley’s African American residents and the more recent trend of gentrification and densification (tearing down to build up) of that area that is decimating that once thriving community. 

Likewise, the RHEU maps potential development sites without indicating on the maps the proximity to existing and potential city landmarks. Because the city’s wonderful, landmarked buildings are not even mentioned in the RHEU or reflected on the maps to showing potential development sites, city planners have fundamentally misled the public about the true impacts of their development schemes.  

The RHEU also makes unsupported assumptions about wealth, class, and race within the Berkeley neighborhoods where development is proposed. These assumptions are misleading and mask the very real impacts that the proposed development will have in the existing fabric of this City. Before asserting that any proposed development will make Berkeley “more equitable,” city planners must analyze (a) the current racial and economic makeup of the Berkeley neighborhoods where development is proposed (ideally over a 40-year period) and (b) the safeguards or guarantees that the proposed developments will make that neighborhood “more equitable.” Generalities must be avoided; instead, planners must provide actual statistics including race, age, disability, and gender, to support their assertions that the creation of largely market rate housing will make a given neighborhood more diverse and, where they claim it, more economically accessible. 

Junk-in/Junk Out: the Failed RHEU Planning Process 

Because the process by which the RHEU was created was outcome-directed, slapdash, and deeply misleading, we regard the RHEU as fundamentally flawed. We also view the comment process with deep cynicism and believe it to be fundamentally illegitimate given how weighted towards further large-scale development the dialogue has been to date.  

The RHEU and DEIR should have addressed how the city can fulfill the state’s mandated housing element separate and apart from the much larger, more ambitious program proposed. Because these documents do not set out the option of fulfilling the minimum state requirement, Berkeley residents have no means of comparing the proposed large-scale development with that actually required under the new state housing mandates. For example, residents may have preferred a housing plan that satisfies the state mandate but that allows additional units to be built in future if certain parameters have been met. By failing to set out a plan for meeting the minimum housing construction within the state mandate, the RHEU and DEIR fail to provide important benchmarking.  

The RHEU promotes large-scale residential development on the basis that it will generate needed low-income housing, yet upon careful examination, little low-income housing is guaranteed. Instead, planners have made aspirational projections as to who will be able to afford the projected units without fully disclosing the lack of guarantees that the units will indeed be available to lower income residents. Nor is there any meaningful analysis of the impact of the proposed development on existing lower cost housing. As noted above, the RHEU lacks actual demographic statistics for each impacted neighborhood. It also fails to provide an analysis of the demographics of the newly created units. Absent this baseline data, its statements about impacts on existing and future housing stock are flawed and without proper foundation. 

BAHA remains disheartened that the needs of existing Berkeley residents, who favor human-scale structures that blend with existing buildings and can house families and multi-generational cohorts, have largely been ignored in favor of dense high-priced developer specials for (largely) single commuters or students many of whom reside in Berkeley for only part of the year. Berkeley’s recent housing building boom has largely been high-cost student housing. While the new $2000- $10,000/month apartments may fulfill some UC students’ needs, this is hardly the kind of housing that the average Berkeley citizen can afford. Furthermore, most of these new apartments do not feature layouts and floor plans that can easily be occupied by a multi-generational family. Instead, they are designed to be occupied by a specific type of person – a single student living alone or with other students. By developing units and marketing units to students (who necessarily will occupy their units only when enrolled as a student), the large out-of-state private dorm developers are effectively doing an end-run around Berkeley’s rent control. This practical reality is a far cry from the housing equity for existing and new long-term residents that Berkeley city planners are touting in the RHEU. 

BAHA recommends that city planners go back to the drawing board. At a minimum they must: 

• Provide a meaningful analysis of alternate sites for constructing housing slated to be built in RH-1 and other fire zones;
• Evaluate the constraints on housing overall including the existing, failing city infrastructure;
• Evaluate the impact of the proposed development on city infrastructure;
• Evaluate the impact of building the proposed additional housing in areas where emergency evacuation is difficult and/or the existing fire risk is high;
• Provide a thorough analysis of existing housing stock on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis rather than relying on generalities;
• Provide support, on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, for their assertions that planned housing will make housing in each neighborhood more “equitable”;
• Explain what “objective criteria” were used to identify the opportunity sites;
• Identify the opportunity sites by address and describe the cultural and environmental impacts of developing at these addresses;
• Provide information about the proximity to landmarks, potential landmarks, and historic areas and the impacts on those landmarks of the proposed developments;
• Be transparent as to the existence or lack of guarantees that any given proposed development will have low-income housing;
• Provide a plan for meeting the state mandated new housing so that citizens can better understand the costs and benefits of constructing more than the mandated units.