Berkeley's Planning Commission is considering when and and how to implement SB 79 — and your voice can help. SB 79 is California's landmark transit-oriented housing law, signed last year after nearly a decade of advocacy. It requires cities to allow mid-rise apartments near major transit stations like BART — exactly the kind of infill housing that lets people live without a car, shri…
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Moraga has taken a number of positive actions recently, from adding bike lanes and senior housing to approving new grocery stores. Unfortunately, town leadership is facing backlash for these positive changes. Let's show our support so that Moraga can continue approving new housing, encouraging sustainable transportation, and making the city more affordable.
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Berkeley is a city of contrasts. It has built thousands of new apartments in the last five years, yet it also exhibits extreme differences between its exclusive, tree-lined neighborhoods and its formerly redlined neighborhoods. The city was at the forefront of integrating its schools, but it is also where single-family zoning, for racialized reasons, began. It was a hub of social protest in the 1…
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Walnut Creek has built fewer than 300 homes in the last three years, far below the regional housing targets it's required to meet. Because it's built so little housing, the state's Builder's Remedy provision allows developers to propose housing projects that can be approved even if the city objects. The Mitchell Drive Townhomes project would convert a 22-acre office park into 422 new homes, incl…
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The project at 6230 Claremont Ave aims to build nine stories of senior housing in Rockridge. We think this is a wonderful way to provide housing for seniors who can be particularly vulnerable to homelessness. Locating seniors near BART, shops, and grocery stores can also provide independence for people who can no longer drive.Unfortunately, some are organizing against this project, so we need to …
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Vista Verde is a shovel-ready affordable senior housing project that has already been approved by the City and is waiting only for bond financing to break ground. The project is receiving opposition from a labor union because it selected a different bid for constructing the project. Note that the bid the labor union wants the developer to choose costs an additional $15M, which would make the proj…
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Sierra Gardens will bring 87 affordable homes to Walnut Creek—homes for teachers, nurses, service workers, and others who work in Walnut Creek but can't afford to live there. The project is requesting standard density bonuses and modest waivers, but it's getting pushback because it'll be taller than the surrounding neighborhood. Planning commissioners need to hear from community members tha…
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Dear Mayor and Council,We are writing to you as young families living in and around the Elmwood. College Avenue is our backyard. We’ve experienced the struggle to find housing and know firsthand the negative effects that the housing crisis has had on the fabric of our community. That is why we support legalizing mid-size apartment buildings on College Avenue.It takes a village to raise a child, b…
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Berkeley is a city of contrasts. It has built thousands of new apartments in the last five years, yet it also exhibits extreme differences between its exclusive, tree-lined neighborhoods and its formerly redlined neighborhoods. The city was at the forefront of integrating its schools, but it is also where single-family zoning, for racialized reasons, began. It was a hub of social protest in the 1…
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Approve Housing in Piedmont, CA!Piedmont has approved far too little housing for decades, pushing demand and displacement into surrounding communities. The 930 Moraga Ave project is a chance to change course—responsibly adding 132–199 homes on an infill site in a high-opportunity area. On September 8, 2025, the Planning Commission recommended City Council approval of: An Addendum to t…
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Berkeley is a city of contrasts. It has built thousands of new apartments in the last five years, yet it also exhibits extreme differences between its exclusive, tree-lined neighborhoods and its formerly redlined neighborhoods. The city was at the forefront of integrating its schools, but it is also where single-family zoning, for racialized reasons, began. It was a hub of social protest in the 1…
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Oakland has proposed Objective Design Standards (ODS) that would place costly requirements on new small-scale apartments, i.e. one-to-four story buildings. Some of the more expensive rules include:Requiring massing articulations that break up the facade of the building (even though small-scale projects don't need to be broken up!)Banning exterior-access corridors, which have been used to get more…
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June could be the month that we end single-family zoning where it began! Berkeley's Elmwood neighborhood was one of the first places in the country to institute single-family zoning, and it was done for overtly racist reasons. (You can read more about it here.)Fast forward to the 1970s, Berkeley all but stopped building housing. For three decades, Berkeley permitted fewer than 100 new dwelling un…
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Back in December, Berkeley's Zoning Adjustments Board issued a use permit for a proposed housing project at 2274 Shattuck, site of the former UA Regal Theater. A short two-block walk from Downtown Berkeley BART, this project would provide 227 affordable-by-design units, as well as 23 subsidized units which would be affordable to those with very low incomes. The developers would also preserve the …
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June could be the month we end single-family zoning where it began! Berkeley's Elmwood neighborhood was one of the first places in the country to institute single-family zoning, and it was done for overtly racist reasons. (You can read more about it here.)Fast forward to the 1970s, Berkeley all but stopped building housing. For three decades, Berkeley permitted fewer than 100 new dwelling units p…
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Make Homeownership More Feasible in BerkeleyAttainable for-sale housing is an important but unmet need in Berkeley. What's more, while we're looking forward to a potential upzoning to allow for Missing Middle housing throughout most of Berkeley, it will be very difficult to sell these units individually without changes to city ordinances.Thankfully, in the past two years the California legislatur…
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2274 Shattuck, two blocks from BART, is a shuttered movie theater, but it could become 227 naturally-affordable homes, with 23 units designated to be affordable to Very Low Income residents. Unfortunately, some people are organizing to block the project on the grounds that the building is a landmark. We, however, believe the housing project is the best way to preserve what remains of the original…
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The Alameda Food Bank needs your help!Urgent request: The Alameda Food Bank’s new facility is threatened by a frivolous CEQA lawsuit aiming to halt construction and revoke the city’s project approval. The City of Alameda fully supports the Food Bank and will defend the lawsuit, but this legal battle could still end the project if it drags on, as the Food Bank cannot afford the legal costs.This la…
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Berkeley is the city that started single family zoning, and now it's time for Berkeley to undo that infamous legacy. As Mayor Arreguín acknowledged in BNHCA’s forum on exclusionary zoning, Berkeley established single-family zoning “with racist intent”. We now have a chance to undo the sins of our past, and we need to do so with urgency.Berkeley’s Housing Element commits the city to changing zonin…
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Berkeley will be considering a demolition ordinance at its June 25th city council meeting. As it stands, the demolition ordinance would likely make most housing projects infeasible, due to stringent demands on requiring below-market-rate units in new construction to replace existing units, even ones that were hitherto market-rate. While we highly value protecting tenants and want to see developme…
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Berkeley City Council is voting on Tuesday whether to:Reserve 24.5 million to fund affordable housing at North Berkeley BARTEnact the North Berkeley BART Affordable Housing Compliance Plan.We would like to urge the city to move both of these forward to enable affordable housing at North Berkeley BART, ASAP.
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This Tuesday, March 26th, Berkeley City Council will vote on a demolition ordinance. The goal of the ordinance is to codify when existing buildings can be demolished and turned into larger apartment buildings.This ordinance is key to both the Southside upzoning that council recently passed and the upcoming Missing Middle legislation. Both initiatives seek to densify Berkeley while replacing our a…
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An average of 694 people are injured on Berkeley's streets every year. There have been several high profile injuries and deaths just in the last few weeks, including a tragic death on Marin Ave. We can and must to do more as a city to prevent this trauma.The Berkeley Fire Department, in addition to responding to all of its other responsibilities, runs the city's ambulance service and are the firs…
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The old Regal UA theater site is facing pushback against updating the once old site and adding & keeping neighbors in Berkeley. Currently this 2274 Shattuck Avenue project is facing a more modern opposition method to use our Landmark Preservation Committee to stop housing.This project adds many things, including:New Neighbors and more AffordabilityThis project adds 200+ units of infill housing th…
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Berkeley's Planning Commission met last month to make recommendations for the Objective Design Standards that City Council will establish for the housing project at North Berkeley BART. They incorporated the developers' requests to reduce required setbacks and requirements to break up the buildings, which would have reduced the number of homes that could be built. We applaud Planning Commission's…
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Berkeley City Council is considering adding carbon fees to demolition projects. While this may seem like a sustainability move, it's actually housing obstruction masquerading as carbon reduction.Our friends at Berkeley Neighbors for Climate and Housing Action put together an excellent public letter opposing the proposal, with a thorough analysis of its impact. What they found was that it added re…
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More ADU restrictions have been proposed for the Berkeley hills, including an off-street parking requirement – which may even violate state law! The proposal will be heard at Berkeley City Council tomorrow as item #17 on the agenda, which is the first item on the action calendar. Sorry for the lack of warning, but we need to speak up against these anti-housing changes!One might ask, Are any of th…
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Wondering why you haven't heard anything about Ashby BART housing for over a year? It's been hung up on air rights negotiations, but it looks like things are finally moving forward. To celebrate the progress, and make sure that the project stays on track, send a message to Berkeley City Council urging them to move the project forward with no further delays, and to build as many homes at Ashby BAR…
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Orinda Housing Element, or, You're Putting Affordable Housing by an Offramp?That's right, Orinda is planning to put 200 units of affordable housing by an offramp, at a high-fire-risk site, no less. No developer is likely to want to build there, and no one should have to live that close to the noise and air pollution of the freeway. Use this form to write Orinda Planners and HCD reviewers to tell …
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The 2023-2030 Housing Element is the next big opportunity for the City of Berkeley to allow for more housing and create a more affordable, more just city. The city is required by law to plan for 9,025 new housing units, including 1,441 low and 2,504 very-low income units, in the next eight years.In previous Housing Element cycles, cities used various tricks to meet the letter of the law without g…
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YIMBY Action and the Housing Action Coalition are pleased to support the proposed project at 6501 Shattuck Avenue in Oakland that will bring 18 well-designed, well-located new homes to a currently vacant site. The project also contributes to the community in the following ways:Places these new homes near Temescal's commercial corridor;Is walking distance to AC Transit, as well as both Ashby and R…
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TL;DR - Support a 10 unit apartment building in a wealthy, exclusionary neighborhood by signing this petition, emailing the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (zab@cityofberkeley.info) and calling into a public comment session at 6PM on October 28th!October 2021 Update:Almost a year ago, NIMBYs filed an appeal to the city council to try and stop these homes from being built. Now, this project is m…
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