This morning I received an email from Lisa Bruce of “Berkeley Together” warning about the up-zoning legislation by the Berkeley City Council in their meeting on July 23, 2024. Here is a link to the letter, and if that disappears, here is a permanent copy of that letter.
In the letter Bruce argues that “Although promoted as the way we should address the housing needs in our city, we disagree!” At no point in this letter does Berkeley Together provide any alternative proposal for how to address our housing crisis. So they are proposing opposition to new housing (which will certainly intensify the crisis), but no alternative.
Critique of any one pro-housing policy as ‘deficient’ is a straw-man argument. Multiple policies need to be changed. Here are two: (1) Lending banks still are not regulated, so they can still over-lend and perpetuate speculative inflation as they did leading up to the Financial Crisis in 2008 (see Robert Reich, Supercapitalism). (2) Outside investors (such as Blackstone) can still purchase homes, and outbid local households. These are “demand-side” problems that need to be fixed through regulation. Public support for regulation would be welcome.
But that is not enough. “Supply-side” issues also need to be addressed. (3) In Berkeley, shortfalls began with the down-zoning of West Berkeley north of University Avenue in 1963. This was a racist action to exclude apartments and thereby Black people from north of University Avenue. That down-zoning is still in place, and it is exclusionary. Berkeley Together states as a ‘fact’ that “Past racism is being used to justify why all neighborhoods need to have the same zoning standards.” But the predominantly White homeowners in these neighborhoods profit right now from higher home values, due to exclusionary downzoning that remains in effect today. It is unclear to me how racism is a “past” issue here.
Another supply-side obstacle has been (4) the abuse of CEQA to block multifamily housing since the Friends of Mammoth v. Mono County decision in 1972. Single-family detached homes (i.e. exclusionary zoning) is exempt from CEQA. Multifamily apartments (i.e. where poorer people live) are subject to CEQA review. In 2013 former Governors Deukmejian, Wilson, and Davis wrote a joint, bipartisan letter calling for reform of CEQA for exactly this reason: “Today, CEQA is too often abused by those seeking to gain a competitive edge, to leverage concessions from a project or by neighbors who simply don’t want any new growth in their community – no matter how worthy or environmentally beneficial a project may be.” As they point out, “CEQA is often a direct barrier to the sustainable and environmentally friendly growth that California aspires to achieve.” What will the environmental impacts of densification be? More walkability. Public transit becomes increasingly cost-effective above 25 dwelling units per acre. We need cities to be more walkable for our own health, and to move away from energy-intensive commuting.
As for affordability: housing generally becomes more affordable as it ages. The largest pool of ‘naturally affordable’ housing in the U.S. is apartments that are at least 30 years old, after the loans for it have been retired. However, only specific building-types tend to “filter” down-market to the point where people like me can afford them: low-rise (2-5 story) wood-framed apartment buildings. Sadly, almost none have been built in Berkeley since 1972. A half-century of blocking housing means that extremely little aging stock is filtering down into the affordable range. Investing in ‘missing middle’ housing now will create the stock that can become affordable in the future. Unfortunately for the next several decades, we will still have to struggle with the “selfishness-gap” of a half-century of underproduction from 1972 to 2024. This will require major subsidies (or wage hikes) to make new units affordable. Most importantly, we can choose now to invest in a more sustainable and affordable future.
Kamala Harris has called for the construction of at least three million new homes to address our nationwide housing crisis. Those homes need to be near existing centers of employment, and universities. In our region, that means not pushing new housing out to the Central Valley. It means building housing on the Peninsula, in Silicon Valley, and in the East Bay – especially Berkeley. Berkeley Together, let us act with good intentions! Let us build a better future!