Is Berkeley finally ready to atone for its single-family housing sins?

San Francisco Chronicle​

6 hours ago

In 1914, a developer of Berkeley's wealthy neighborhoods invented single-family zoning for the explicit purpose of excluding non-wealthy families. The idea took off nationwide, leading to apartment bans and car-centric suburban sprawl.
By the 1970s, Berkeley, whose population was swelling with families living in new apartments, went further, freezing the construction of new housing citywide on the basis that halting population growth was pro-environment.
Berkeley's Black population, which had been growing until 1970, immediately began to shrink as housing options dried up and families were pushed out due to rising costs. By 1980, homelessness had become a severe issue in Berkeley.
Meanwhile, families that would've otherwise lived in low-carbon, car-lite homes in Berkeley were forced to the suburbs, destroying thousands of acres of open space and farmland for new suburbs and freeways in hot climates with carbon-intensive homes.
Berkeley didn't begin to address the consequences of its errors until the 2000s by allowing high-density apartments that helped lower rents. But most of the city's residential zones remain under a freeze today. And Berkeley is still not building any housing for middle-class families with children. Most residential neighborhoods are only available to the rich — those who can afford $1.6 million homes or low-density apartments built generations ago that cannot be built today.
On Thursday, Berkeley's City Council is poised to rectify this regrettable history by voting on the final draft of its 'Middle Housing' ordinance. The proposed rezoning would allow the construction of more low-density, multifamily homes.
In getting to this place, many compromises were made to reduce the number of homes that can be built under the ordinance. Fire zones are exempted. Density limits — 5 to 7 homes on a typical 5,000 square foot lot — were added. Three-story height limits were kept in place, as well as a two-story maximum in the rear of a property for privacy. A requirement that 40% of a lot be kept as open space was added. The council also passed the strongest tenant protections of almost any city in the United States.
Census data shows that Berkeley needs this ordinance if it wants to build its middle class. Households in homes of 2 to 4 units and 5 to 19 units, for example, make an average of $97,139 and $59,689, respectively. Families in single-family homes have a median income of $193,233. Berkeley's median household income, meanwhile, is $108,000, which is not enough to be able to afford the purchase of a $1.5 million single-family house.
As gentrification has gutted Black neighborhoods in the city, the only areas where the Black population is growing are downtown — the same place where the city is building housing. As a middle-income Black renter, my 10-home, three-story apartment is the only reason I can live in North Berkeley, and the same is true for the young families with school children who live in my building's two-bedroom units.
The new plan will also help older homeowners. Apartment bans force senior homeowners on fixed incomes to either cash out when a bill is due or refinance their mortgage. But my grandfather in Oakland was able to convert his house into a duplex and gain income from it instead of selling — building intergenerational wealth in an area where that possibility had long been redlined away.
Berkeley's plan is superior to the strategy of adding accessory dwelling units to the back of residential lots. While better than nothing, replacing backyards and gardens with housing units has its downside. Middle housing preserves more open space (40% or more of a lot in the ordinance) and backyard privacy by building up instead of filling the lot.
Climate research shows that multifamily homes have a lower carbon footprint than single-family homes, even in Berkeley. Climate scientists Daniel Kammen, a Nobel Prize winner, and Charlie Koven, lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report to the United Nations, have not only endorsed Berkeley's Middle Housing plan but also argue that the City Council should raise the density limit to achieve climate goals.
For the past six years, every City Council member and mayor — incumbent or newcomer — who supported the Middle Housing plan on their platforms handily defeated anti-housing challengers. But while the council unanimously supports the ordinance, final density decisions will still be up for debate on Thursday.
Whatever allowable dwelling units per acre the council decides on, all neighborhoods, regardless of racial or income demographics, should have the same density limit. That's the crucial point: to abolish exclusionary zoning.
Many Berkeley neighborhoods already have housing with 2 to 10 units, many of which don't look dissimilar from single-family houses. Most people don't care about density; they care about whether the buildings exceed the height limit of typical neighborhood residences and are well landscaped. Architects should respect what this zoning intends and build homes that add density but complement a district's architecture and garden landscaping.
By passing the Middle Housing ordinance on Thursday, Berkeley can show America that beautiful density for non-rich families, which is already the norm in Europe, is better than the suburban sprawl that the city popularized over a century ago.
Darrell Owens is a data analyst at Terner Labs and a planning commissioner for the city of Berkeley. His opinion does not represent Terner Labs, the University of California or the Berkeley Planning Commission.