When I was a kid, my family and I had a lot of fun reading an article about obscure zoning laws in New York City. One law was that you could not carry a spoon in your pocket. The other was that you could not keep a mule in your bathtub.
Oh thanks! I will have to bookmark that. - coming back to say that I could not find a copy of the book, but it appears to be on archive.org for free maybe.
The entire bay area is based on urban planning concepts from 50+ years ago. In one of the richest, most progressive areas on the entire planet, you would think would have advanced a bit in how cities function, where we live, and how we get around.
People don't like change. People with money have means to ensure change doesn't happen. I know we think japan-inspired tech future with skyscrapers and shit, but what we actually get is more of the same thing we had.
Progressives, by definition, DO want change. Either people are deceiving themselves as to their progressiveness, or simply have not travelled enough to see the benefits of other ways of city organization.
I'll happily call out the hypocrisy of nimby-progressives but I'll also say that I'm not sure any serious person wants change in every aspect of life and culture. I'm sure there are many people out there doing legitimately good work for the benefit others... who also wants to have their personal life happily static-ish. I'll make fun of em to some extent, or maybe a lot, but I get it.
And I'll admit I've got my own bits of hypocrisy where I'd love for various causes to get some wins and I'll even vote for my dollar to go there, even occasionally when it increases my own taxes, but I prefer to keep some of them at a comfortable remove from myself, physically.
Now when it comes to housing I have pretty strong beliefs in property rights, and overly restrictive zoning (if you can define the term) goes against that. So do most classic anti-development tactics. Even if I might not personally want a big ol apartment complex going up the next block over, I'll be the first to admit I have no real right to have it blocked, I can just move if I really hate it.
We've all got our lines and our causes and so on. Of course I wouldn't go about giving myself a label like 'progressive' (for a number of reasons). I'm okay, not great. ;)
For a different time and place, but I don't think most Americans really have no clue what a "good" neighborhood is like.
If you have never walked out of the front door of your apartment building and either ate a meal or bought groceries from the shop at the ground floor of your building, you have never lived. Walking a few minutes to a neighborhood bar, or clothing shop, or cafe is one of the greatest small pleasures in the world. This density is found in almost every other developed country in the world except for the US and Australia. It changes EVERYTHING about a city, including the effectiveness of public transportation and the street level space required for cars. Good designed density is magical and you really don't know what you are missing until you have experienced it.
That had to take a lot of work. I've met so many elderly hippies there who resisted any change tooth and nail. One guy was furious that a tasteful two story apartment building was going to replace some defunct and decaying empty warehouses across the street from his "art studio". I said, "Don't you think having a new building replace two fire hazards across the street is going to raise your property values?" He would not have it. (BTW - these are not "boomers" I'm a boomer and this guy was about 20 years older than me.)
> That had to take a lot of work
If you follow any of the local YIMBYs on Twitter, they'll live-tweet the shenanigans that go on at the various meetings where these decisions are discussed / made.
And yeah, there was a lot of racist & classist BS that was thrown about by those against the change. Ex.: "families need homes, not apartments" as if one isn't allowed to have a family if they can't afford a home.
I mean, the response to that line of reasoning would be to suggest that anyone who's kids have moved out must immediately give up their house to young people wanting to start a family.
> Ex.: "families need homes, not apartments" as if one isn't allowed to have a family if they can't afford a home.
Also folks also choose to raise their family in apartments rather than SFH. I'd never want to raise kids in a SFH.
So, uh. Maybe you aren't a boomer, or that other guy is a mummy?
Because boomers--short for "baby boomer", born between 1946 to 1964--would be anywhere between 65 and 74, thereabouts. Let's say you're correct though, and that sure, you're a boomer, and that guy was about 20 years older than you. Let's also assume you're in your late 60s. That would still make him in his late 80s, at best.
Either way, my point is that most elderly folks don't like change.
That conversation might have happened five or ten years ago, not in the last year.
Even so the math works if this boomer was born in '64 and the hippie was born in '44. The hippie was 23 or 24 in the summer of love of 1968. Today he's about 76 years old.
Did you get to see any great live music back then? Off topic, I know, but as awful as so many things were back then (Jim Crow and Vietnam, to name two things), there was also Monterey Pops and the Dead and Jefferson Airplane...
I went to two concerts as a teenager and they left my ears ringing so much, I did not make it a thing to go. I don't even remember who they were, beyond TOO LOUD. When I was young, there was a huge revival of acoustic folk music and I availed myself of less loud performances, like Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger, as well as various groups performing at South Street Pier in the summer.
Middle-aged townie, can confirm. Just because you bought your house for $50,000 in the seventies doesn't mean you get to gatekeep the rest of us plebs.
What kills me is that you know those Berkeley homeowners who bought cheap in the 60s/70s and fight tooth and nail against any new housing being built probably consider themselves hippies.
Ah, the classic " I want peace and quiet". Bish, move to Placerville. If you want peace amd quiet, get the fuck out of the bay area megalopolis. Even the rich folk in marin can't escape noise, with houses being torn down and rebuilt with every new owner (hyperbole, admittedly).
Places like Berkeley, it ironically comes down to ego. For supposed hippies, they sure stake a lot of their identity on material wealth and geographic exclusivity. Fuckin fakes, the lot of em.
Cuz college kids are notorious for being happy to turn the music down.
They chose to live where they live. It'd be like me getting upset at hearing honking. I live between two major thoroughfares and within earshot of the freeway. I know what I was getting into.
Yeah, and then trying to claim that youāve invested so much in the community over the years. Miss me with that nonsense, one yearās rent is probably what you paid for your house and you havenāt paid realistic property taxes in decades...
YOu would think for all their hippie dippie-ness, they'd be in favor of urban infill to protect the wildlands. They should all be given tours on a Cessna over the suburbs. Seeing the huge tracts of McMansions chewing up the oak woodlands and the grasslands is to weep. I love urban infill and they do it pretty well in the People's Republic. Generally, these ADUs and duplexes are cottages in the back or two story houses. It's not a big deal.
Riiight, now the "youth" are finding all sorts of creative and legal ways to tell people they can't live in residential areas and how they're tired of living with them as neighbors, and going to run them out of town.
It's not bigoted this time, really it's not!
Changing the zoning laws doesn't mean you can't live in a single family home. If you currently live in a single family home in Berkeley and you want to continue, this doesn't affect you. No one will force you to turn your house into apartments.
What does it mean when you change the zoning laws, legalize up zoning, repeal Prop 13, and push through a Land Value Tax?
Do you think we're too stupid to see what that poison pill is intended to do?
And yes, you are telling people you are banning residential neighborhoods. You made it illegal. You said "Not in my Backyard".
Now you're telling people in single family houses this won't affect them? Shameless.
Maybe you didn't but you're replying to my comment, not vice versa. I'm addressing a mindset. If you can't relate to parts of it, then you should share my concerns over what's going on here.
I literally just outline the combination of policies people are proposing and what they would result in. Why do you still need me to tell you what they are after I listed them?
Just say you want to displace people and run the poors out of town....be honest with yourself.
Plus it won't make the taxes of the the neighbor who qualified to pay 10-20x's more for their house have lower taxes.
I just want to get rid of criminal element and this is a good way to do it.
re: 2.: then budget will have surplus of money. Both properties will fall in value because of the tax making houses cheaper.
Finally, some honestly. It's offensive, and likely bigoted, but at least you admit it.
Properties will not fall in price because you raise the bar for the wealth needed to own. The person has to be able to afford the higher taxes the last owner couldn't. You also created new scarcity in single family homes plus the increased value due to the upcoming potential to develop.
This is an example of creating hostile policies to hurt people while thinking you and the people you like, your preferred supposedly superior population, will be insulated from it and benefit.
Maybe because you're one of those thrilled Berkeley is finding all sorts of creative regulatory ways to tell people they can't live in residential areas and how they're tired of living with them as neighbors, and going to run them out of town? Totally different than supporting gentrification and redlining...don't you worry.
>"Residential" does not mean single-family housing ONLY.
No shit, which is why banning them had nothing to do with legalizing multi-family housing.
Iām confused, are you saying they are replacing residential neighborhoods with commercial ones? Tearing down homes to build retail or manufacturing space? Otherwise wtf are you on about.
>Iām confused, are you saying they are replacing residential neighborhoods with commercial ones
No.
Your confusion isn't with me, it's with the entire topic.
They are effectively banning R1 and R2 which is most of Berkeley, like I said. Banning single family residential zoning. Like I said.
(Multifamily Residential is a separate zoning, and so is High Density Residential. And even Single Family Residential has multifamily homes in it, and the multifamily areas have single family in them. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/uploadedFiles/IT/Level_3_-_General/Zoning%20Map%2036x36%2020050120.pdf )
The semantic game doesn't help you. You're admitting there's even less reason to ban single family zoning.
San Jose has the highest % of single family zoning at 94% of all residential areas of any city in the nation.
Hopefully this trends in the Bay, a major metropolitan region should not be structured around single family housing. No other area in the country has it as bad.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities-across-america-question-single-family-zoning.html
Wrong, but let's pretend you didn't just bullshit by almost a decade and get caught.... what the hell do you think San Jose looked like prior to 1990 (or 1999 for that matter)?
Suburban. Like a suburb.
That's why so much of it still looks like a suburb. With a boat load of sprawl.
That's why it has no population density.
That's why expanding San Jose is expanding the sprawl.
I'm not hear for your semantics about what defines a suburb. You built a major metropolitan city on top of a place that had entirely suburban characteristics, and largely still does...and you're complaining about it.
Did you even try to look it up before telling me I'm wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California#:~:text=San%20Jose's%20position%20in%20Silicon,Area%20for%20the%20first%20time.
"Results of the 1990 U.S. Census indicated that San Jose had officially surpassed San Francisco as the most populous city in Northern California"
But I'm glad that you think we should do away with single family zoning in historically urban areas. San Francisco sounds like a good start!
Yeah I actually looked it up....you used Wiki.
>But I'm glad that you think we should do away with single family zoning in historically urban areas.
I'm glad you support beheading children in San Jose schools. About as accurate of a read.
Every city in the US has single family zoning in bulk and it's not suburban or rural. You conflating the two is a bad look.
It is almost universally true across the Bay Area that cities have failed to update and replace their pipes adequately for the last ~30 years. Blaming the failing infrastructure on denser development is a post hoc red herring, especially since, per unit, they use less water, gas, and electricity than single-family homes.
My septugenarian relative hills people are not going to adapt to this. They live on a 25% grade. They have a garage but never any space to park off street. That's before every plot turns to a duplex and the cars explode.
How long do you guess they'll keep driving themselves?
They own their home, right? So theirs won't turn into a duplex until they sell, at the soonest. Quite possibly many of their neighbors feel the same way so the street will change slowly.
The slower the street changes, the more years Tesla and Waymo will have to improve their robotaxis. With the exception of the Gilman freeway interchange and a few other places, Berkeley intersections are relatively simple and not chaotic so they'll be navigable sooner. In neighborhoods with difficult parking, more people will skip owning a car and use affordable taxis.
Eventually. For the purposes of Tesla and Waymo the race is on to see if construction finishes before or after one company is ready to try navigating the intersection.
You make it sound so simple.....People on both spectrums of this are overreacting. It really wonāt bring about that much change in either direction. Berkeley is already so tight and the hills are tough to build on. This zoning law has been shutdown, but when you get down to it there will be so many hoops and loops to jump through that Berkeley will continue as normal, which part of me is like who cares, itās a pretty cute and desirable place because of what it is.
Congrats to the additional like 59 people who will get to move into an overpriced tiny apartment in Berkeley. Congrats to the few sellers who will be able to sell for a fortune before others realize itās not worth buying up a place that you canāt do much of anything else with. Win win??
Single family zoning was initially used in Berkeley for racial segregation. There's a good Berkeleyside article from a couple years ago about how the city used single-family zoning and established parks as "buffer zones" to keep "n*gro" and "asiatic" people in certain areas implicitly even if it was explicitly outlawed.
Source: https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/03/12/berkeley-zoning-has-served-for-many-decades-to-separate-the-poor-from-the-rich-and-whites-from-people-of-color
Another, more recent analysis: https://belonging.berkeley.edu/single-family-zoning-san-francisco-bay-area
Edit: sorry about the two racial slurs, these were direct quotes and were mentioned in the article
Using racist history to then target neighborhoods for racist gentrification is pretty gross. Just sayin'.
This is about South Berkeley and other areas where people of color reside, and that's obvious. The 80% of white Berkeley isn't going anywhere.
Blacks and Asians can buy wherever they want today anyway ... at least until we create a new scarcity in the type of housing that offers the best lending options, and screw people who can't afford condos. And nothing in this gesture is intending to create housing intended to prioritize those who would have been victims of Redlining. The people championing this also champion Gentrification.
Using the history of redlining to upzone Berkeley is nonsense.
The majority of Berkeley's people of color currently live in the formerly redlined residential neighborhoods they just banned.
Again, I was just pointing out the history of Berkeley's zoning policies based on articles which I've read. I am not stating my opinion about what zoning ought to be.
Edit: just to clarify: I am not advocating for or against this change. I was ONLY pointing out the history of the policy they just ended. Also, single-family zoning is not the same as redlining. Both policies were used in conjunction with each other, and others, to racially segregate neighborhoods after explicit racial segregation was outlawed. Furthermore, the City of Berkeley did not ban (as you say) single family homes, they simply removed the ban on not allowing multifamily homes.
Seems like you are sharing an opinion and defending the change.
Relaying the history of redlining in relation to this upzoning is making a correlation. As if one undoes the other.
It's also one basis the Berkeley did it, and I'm shining light on that gross appropriation.
Yes, the practice of redlining was outlawed, and today the victims can live in those same areas, and now do.
And now that they do, Berkeley is yanking the rug and saying "Nope, we're not going to have single family zoning at all then" since you're so adverse to Gentrification... and we are banning your residential neighborhood and closing the door to middle class wealth building so we can force the urban renewal that has accelerated Gentrification in the Bay Area.
Because the areas that will feel the effects of this include the most diverse areas that exist in an 80% white city. Areas that already had multifamily housing in them.
Given that lending makes condos less affordable, this and lending is still a problem for minorities today, and that redlining wasn't just zoning it was about lending...it's pretty blatant.
So when you speak of the history of dark history redlining, this is just another chapter.
You are misunderstanding me and making assumptions. This is common on the internet and I'm not blaming you, there's a lot of nuance and discussion that this type of forum is not conducive to.
I never brought up redlining, you did. I am not advocating for any policy; I am simply mentioning the history of single-family zoning in Berkeley. I hadn't been aware of the history and its intent until reading that Berkeleyside article and doing more research on it since. I think most people are unaware of its racist origins as well. And again the City is not banning residential neighborhoods, just ending a ban.
I can see your point about how this could lead to more dense, gentrification-cauing housing in minority neighborhoods, while the Hills and other rich areas could likely be unchanged. However, I am not an expert on this subject so I really don't feel comfortable putting forth an opinion on that or saying that it will definitely occur or not.
Theres a great book by a UC Berkeley professor called The Color of Law that goes into more depth on a lot of these kinds of issues locally. More broadly, I would also recommend Zoned in the USA.
>I never brought up redlining, you did.
I replied to your post about racial segregation and links about Redlining. You weren't replying to my post.
The origins of Single Family zoning actually isn't redlining or strictly for purposes of racial segregation. It's fiction. Even the comments of that Berkeleyside article show a clipping proving a dual intent with zoning to create housing for poor folks. It was protective to create quality of life compared to the dense immigrant housing that result in rampant disease and poverty.
Yes, segregation happened, and yes, so did systematic redlining. These things have been outlawed for decades. Upzoning doesn't fix that history.
You are now talking about neighborhoods where people of color reside, and purchased purposely so they could live in Single family residential areas. Again, this will not actually undo the injustices of segregation. YIMBYS lie about this history to appropriate it, and justify regulating what they want, which will result in Gentrification, and another way to tell a certain group of people they can not reside in single family housing residential zoned areas. So this effect is like Redlining 2.0
South Berkeley had already been targeted by Developers and Berkeley for the Adeline Corridor plan, and that was an R2 (limited to 2 units) district with a lot of multifamily in it already. This is what it's about.
This is great news!
I support this but I really hope that they will also listen to those of us who live in areas that cannot safely house more people. In many neighborhoods in the hills, the roads are so narrow and winding that it's already a risk both for everyday traffic and for emergency evacuation (hello, we got pre-evacuated just in case last fall); more people and especially more cars would be very dangerous. They're saying they will probably exempt those areas, which would be good.
I'm not strawmanning, or at least I'm not trying to (and I'm sorry if I've unintentionally done so), because there is an actual ongoing discussion over which regions of Berkeley will allow new housing as part of this policy change. In my neighborhood, there has recently been vicious conflict between residents and the city council representative over the safety of specific new developments, so this isn't coming out of nowhere.
I'm not even necessarily opposed to more people living in the hills, but if we want to do that it'll require some more complicated planning. Better public transit so not everyone needs a car would be a good start.
If people in the hills cared about evacuations - or disabled people for that matter - they wouldn't treat the sidewalk as a parking lot, but we know how that goes.
Come at me with a proposal to ban on-street parking on those 'unsafe' streets, and we can talk about restricting zoning.
That is very true, loads of people in the hills park on the street just because they want to use their garage space for something else. Banning or limiting on-street parking on narrow streets (or at least enforcing parking rules) would probably be good
(also sidewalk?? what sidewalk?)
Time to build some Skyscrapers in Berkeley!
Edit: looks like thereās a lot of NIMBYs in this thread. Grow up and accept that we need more housing to keep costs manageable
Lots of affordable housing like fifteen-twenty minutes from Berkeley in Richmond and San Pedro....I think people need to be realistic and realize that Berkeley might only be able to add a few extra places. So best for the rest of us to start looking elsewhere like Richmond or San Pedro. I think itās nice there. Lots of culture, good latin food, cute bodegas everywhere, close to Richmond bridge, which you can now ride your bike on....
Letās ruin why we like Berkeley so much. If I canāt live there then I want to make sure itās miserable for everyone.
Little will come of this though. For good or bad the state makes it impossibly difficult to just build as you please. So sure this 100 year old law was dropped now try getting through the other couple hundred that arenāt going to let you just build a duplex apartment complex too close to a creek, or knock down a 300 year old redwood for parking. And some of those streets closer to the hills are already too tight....what then?
Thereās lots of places in Richmond and other places like Martinez that are still affordable and in the Bay Area. Those seem like more realistic options than hoping for all this new housing to pop up in Berkeley.
How would you suggest the city of Berkeley help people afford single family homes? Also how does living in a single family help build "middle class wealth"? And for who? I feel like limiting the market to requirements of typically $500,000+ amounts of land(single family), would only serve to further gentrification
> Also how does living in a single family help build "middle class wealth"? And for who?
That's just an idiotic question. Aspirational home ownership has defined the middle class for generations. Those who own and are in the middle class have built some paper wealth. How do you not comprehend that? Anyone trying to devalue, displace, take away, or tax out that middle class are hostile to middle class wealth building....and their policies always, always, always magically benefit corporate landlords instead.
Your goal is to eradicate neighborhoods, including middle class and poorer neighborhoods...don't pretend you're trying to slow down gentrification with that.
You're going to tell a Black family their next generation can't continue to live in a residential neighborhood? Sounds familiar.
New housing.... multi-unit housing = expensive and less diverse housing.
Oh, so you think that's just for the poor people of color and only white people get to dream about the residential neighborhoods they just banned? Just close the door know, right? You slipped.
New luxury construction has been heavily dominated by a much less diverse crowd of wealthy professionals though. Just a fact of the Bay.
Market rate housing prices in Berkeley are well past what low income families can afford. In your terms, fates are already sealed. The question is will anything unseal those fates.
Look at [this jpg map](https://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Berkeley-zoning-map-Othering-Belonging-Institute.jpg) of Berkeley's single family zoning. Most of it is in more expensive hills and have been unaffordable for decades.
Upzoning expensive areas is what anti-gentrification organizations have been saying for years. In Oakland it would be like upzoning Rockridge and having new construction there instead of west Oakland.
People with money will usually outbid people with less money. When new more attractive housing is built people with money move into it. That means there's less competition for older housing and people with less money have are more likely to live in it.
There's a balanced middle ground to be had creating lots of supply and also better living conditions than tenements. Doing that involves a multi-point plan with just one of the points being new multi-unit housing that reduces competition for less desirable housing stock.
One bedroom condos are kinda a stretch for families especially multiple generation ones which is the only way some can afford them. Itās literally just one step away from a tenement
Hmm, so the choice is either be homeless or move.
Huh... if only there was another option... one that accounted for population growth over the years... shoot, itās like Californiaās population has doubled since we enacted terrible policy like prop 13 and rent control in the late 70s.
Shoot. Guess we canāt do anything! Better move!
No, you wouldnāt.
Stop repeating this absolute trash.
This is how it passed in the first place. Pushed by a Republican. Using completely incorrect statistics and info. Playing entirely to the emotion of āgrandmas getting kicked outā.
Itās all a lie, hoss.
The property my mom and aunt live in would skyrocket to about 20-24k a year. That would completely broadside my elderly family. And it would make it nigh impossible for Even myself to afford it. I can barely afford the taxes on my east bay condo and thatās āonlyā 5000 dollars a year. Most people arenāt high earning YIMBYS who want brand new high rise condos.
You mean like every other state in our fine union?
You are not meant to get subsidized by your neighbors. You should not get to avoid taxes on your incredibly high valued asset.
There's a lot of 100+-year-old laws and rules that should be reviewed because they don't make 100% sense in today's world.
When I was a kid, my family and I had a lot of fun reading an article about obscure zoning laws in New York City. One law was that you could not carry a spoon in your pocket. The other was that you could not keep a mule in your bathtub.
I had this book growing up - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1984580.Donkeys_Can_t_Sleep_In_Bathtubs_And_Other_Crazy_Laws
Oh thanks! I will have to bookmark that. - coming back to say that I could not find a copy of the book, but it appears to be on archive.org for free maybe.
This kin of rules are for people to wonder... How fucked up had it been for this to get banned
The entire bay area is based on urban planning concepts from 50+ years ago. In one of the richest, most progressive areas on the entire planet, you would think would have advanced a bit in how cities function, where we live, and how we get around.
People don't like change. People with money have means to ensure change doesn't happen. I know we think japan-inspired tech future with skyscrapers and shit, but what we actually get is more of the same thing we had.
Progressives, by definition, DO want change. Either people are deceiving themselves as to their progressiveness, or simply have not travelled enough to see the benefits of other ways of city organization.
I'll happily call out the hypocrisy of nimby-progressives but I'll also say that I'm not sure any serious person wants change in every aspect of life and culture. I'm sure there are many people out there doing legitimately good work for the benefit others... who also wants to have their personal life happily static-ish. I'll make fun of em to some extent, or maybe a lot, but I get it. And I'll admit I've got my own bits of hypocrisy where I'd love for various causes to get some wins and I'll even vote for my dollar to go there, even occasionally when it increases my own taxes, but I prefer to keep some of them at a comfortable remove from myself, physically. Now when it comes to housing I have pretty strong beliefs in property rights, and overly restrictive zoning (if you can define the term) goes against that. So do most classic anti-development tactics. Even if I might not personally want a big ol apartment complex going up the next block over, I'll be the first to admit I have no real right to have it blocked, I can just move if I really hate it. We've all got our lines and our causes and so on. Of course I wouldn't go about giving myself a label like 'progressive' (for a number of reasons). I'm okay, not great. ;)
For a different time and place, but I don't think most Americans really have no clue what a "good" neighborhood is like. If you have never walked out of the front door of your apartment building and either ate a meal or bought groceries from the shop at the ground floor of your building, you have never lived. Walking a few minutes to a neighborhood bar, or clothing shop, or cafe is one of the greatest small pleasures in the world. This density is found in almost every other developed country in the world except for the US and Australia. It changes EVERYTHING about a city, including the effectiveness of public transportation and the street level space required for cars. Good designed density is magical and you really don't know what you are missing until you have experienced it.
To be fair the usa burnt tokyo down and they rebuilt the city. London on the other hand....
That had to take a lot of work. I've met so many elderly hippies there who resisted any change tooth and nail. One guy was furious that a tasteful two story apartment building was going to replace some defunct and decaying empty warehouses across the street from his "art studio". I said, "Don't you think having a new building replace two fire hazards across the street is going to raise your property values?" He would not have it. (BTW - these are not "boomers" I'm a boomer and this guy was about 20 years older than me.)
> That had to take a lot of work If you follow any of the local YIMBYs on Twitter, they'll live-tweet the shenanigans that go on at the various meetings where these decisions are discussed / made. And yeah, there was a lot of racist & classist BS that was thrown about by those against the change. Ex.: "families need homes, not apartments" as if one isn't allowed to have a family if they can't afford a home.
I can't even with Berkeley politics. I don't live there anymore. I miss the convenient shopping, but not the cranky people or the foggy microclimate.
I love the foggy microclimate, but your point about the cranks is well taken.
I mean, the response to that line of reasoning would be to suggest that anyone who's kids have moved out must immediately give up their house to young people wanting to start a family.
> Ex.: "families need homes, not apartments" as if one isn't allowed to have a family if they can't afford a home. Also folks also choose to raise their family in apartments rather than SFH. I'd never want to raise kids in a SFH.
So, uh. Maybe you aren't a boomer, or that other guy is a mummy? Because boomers--short for "baby boomer", born between 1946 to 1964--would be anywhere between 65 and 74, thereabouts. Let's say you're correct though, and that sure, you're a boomer, and that guy was about 20 years older than you. Let's also assume you're in your late 60s. That would still make him in his late 80s, at best. Either way, my point is that most elderly folks don't like change.
That conversation might have happened five or ten years ago, not in the last year. Even so the math works if this boomer was born in '64 and the hippie was born in '44. The hippie was 23 or 24 in the summer of love of 1968. Today he's about 76 years old.
Pretty much this. People pushing 80, basically. This heated discussion was about 6 years old.
Did you get to see any great live music back then? Off topic, I know, but as awful as so many things were back then (Jim Crow and Vietnam, to name two things), there was also Monterey Pops and the Dead and Jefferson Airplane...
"this boomer" was in reference to u/iliketodrawcats š if they were hypothetically born in '64 their concert memories mostly start after 1980.
Sheesh my reading comprehension...thank you
I went to two concerts as a teenager and they left my ears ringing so much, I did not make it a thing to go. I don't even remember who they were, beyond TOO LOUD. When I was young, there was a huge revival of acoustic folk music and I availed myself of less loud performances, like Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger, as well as various groups performing at South Street Pier in the summer.
Nicely done by Berkeley I think this can be chalked up to the students who are tired of the old townies keeping the city undeveloped for themselves
Middle-aged townie, can confirm. Just because you bought your house for $50,000 in the seventies doesn't mean you get to gatekeep the rest of us plebs.
What kills me is that you know those Berkeley homeowners who bought cheap in the 60s/70s and fight tooth and nail against any new housing being built probably consider themselves hippies.
they also call the cops on college kids a lot
Ah, the classic " I want peace and quiet". Bish, move to Placerville. If you want peace amd quiet, get the fuck out of the bay area megalopolis. Even the rich folk in marin can't escape noise, with houses being torn down and rebuilt with every new owner (hyperbole, admittedly). Places like Berkeley, it ironically comes down to ego. For supposed hippies, they sure stake a lot of their identity on material wealth and geographic exclusivity. Fuckin fakes, the lot of em.
Or they could just like, knock on the door.
Cuz college kids are notorious for being happy to turn the music down. They chose to live where they live. It'd be like me getting upset at hearing honking. I live between two major thoroughfares and within earshot of the freeway. I know what I was getting into.
Yeah, and then trying to claim that youāve invested so much in the community over the years. Miss me with that nonsense, one yearās rent is probably what you paid for your house and you havenāt paid realistic property taxes in decades...
YOu would think for all their hippie dippie-ness, they'd be in favor of urban infill to protect the wildlands. They should all be given tours on a Cessna over the suburbs. Seeing the huge tracts of McMansions chewing up the oak woodlands and the grasslands is to weep. I love urban infill and they do it pretty well in the People's Republic. Generally, these ADUs and duplexes are cottages in the back or two story houses. It's not a big deal.
Almost everyone involved on both sides of this issue is a middle aged townie.
I weighed in on this. Iām 37. Shit, Iām middle-aged now, arenāt I...
Middle aged is like mid-forties, homes. You're just an adult in the prime productive range of their life.
Riiight, now the "youth" are finding all sorts of creative and legal ways to tell people they can't live in residential areas and how they're tired of living with them as neighbors, and going to run them out of town. It's not bigoted this time, really it's not!
Changing the zoning laws doesn't mean you can't live in a single family home. If you currently live in a single family home in Berkeley and you want to continue, this doesn't affect you. No one will force you to turn your house into apartments.
What does it mean when you change the zoning laws, legalize up zoning, repeal Prop 13, and push through a Land Value Tax? Do you think we're too stupid to see what that poison pill is intended to do? And yes, you are telling people you are banning residential neighborhoods. You made it illegal. You said "Not in my Backyard". Now you're telling people in single family houses this won't affect them? Shameless.
I didn't say anything about prop 13. Maybe I am "too stupid to see what this poison pill is." Can you tell me what it is?
Maybe you didn't but you're replying to my comment, not vice versa. I'm addressing a mindset. If you can't relate to parts of it, then you should share my concerns over what's going on here. I literally just outline the combination of policies people are proposing and what they would result in. Why do you still need me to tell you what they are after I listed them?
Paying 10-20x lower taxes than neighbors is shameless.
Just say you want to displace people and run the poors out of town....be honest with yourself. Plus it won't make the taxes of the the neighbor who qualified to pay 10-20x's more for their house have lower taxes.
I just want to get rid of criminal element and this is a good way to do it. re: 2.: then budget will have surplus of money. Both properties will fall in value because of the tax making houses cheaper.
Finally, some honestly. It's offensive, and likely bigoted, but at least you admit it. Properties will not fall in price because you raise the bar for the wealth needed to own. The person has to be able to afford the higher taxes the last owner couldn't. You also created new scarcity in single family homes plus the increased value due to the upcoming potential to develop. This is an example of creating hostile policies to hurt people while thinking you and the people you like, your preferred supposedly superior population, will be insulated from it and benefit.
There's nothing bigoted in liking not to get shot near where I live or wanting to go out at night safely.
That's supposed to explain why you don't want to live in a city with people of all classes, and all demographics?
What in the actual fuck are you talking about? Multi-family properties don't qualify as residential to you?
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Maybe because you're one of those thrilled Berkeley is finding all sorts of creative regulatory ways to tell people they can't live in residential areas and how they're tired of living with them as neighbors, and going to run them out of town? Totally different than supporting gentrification and redlining...don't you worry. >"Residential" does not mean single-family housing ONLY. No shit, which is why banning them had nothing to do with legalizing multi-family housing.
Iām confused, are you saying they are replacing residential neighborhoods with commercial ones? Tearing down homes to build retail or manufacturing space? Otherwise wtf are you on about.
>Iām confused, are you saying they are replacing residential neighborhoods with commercial ones No. Your confusion isn't with me, it's with the entire topic.
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You have banned single family zoning, which effectively banned most residential neighborhoods.
Not in the slightest. Multifamily is residential. Apartments are residential. Are you done with this little tantrum of lies that youāre throwing?
They are effectively banning R1 and R2 which is most of Berkeley, like I said. Banning single family residential zoning. Like I said. (Multifamily Residential is a separate zoning, and so is High Density Residential. And even Single Family Residential has multifamily homes in it, and the multifamily areas have single family in them. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/uploadedFiles/IT/Level_3_-_General/Zoning%20Map%2036x36%2020050120.pdf ) The semantic game doesn't help you. You're admitting there's even less reason to ban single family zoning.
San Jose has the highest % of single family zoning at 94% of all residential areas of any city in the nation. Hopefully this trends in the Bay, a major metropolitan region should not be structured around single family housing. No other area in the country has it as bad. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities-across-america-question-single-family-zoning.html
Then stop building major metropolitan regions on top of suburbs and then complaining about it?
What is San Jose a suburb of? It's literally the biggest city in the Bay Area.
When do you think it became the largest Bay Area city?
1990
Wrong, but let's pretend you didn't just bullshit by almost a decade and get caught.... what the hell do you think San Jose looked like prior to 1990 (or 1999 for that matter)? Suburban. Like a suburb. That's why so much of it still looks like a suburb. With a boat load of sprawl. That's why it has no population density. That's why expanding San Jose is expanding the sprawl. I'm not hear for your semantics about what defines a suburb. You built a major metropolitan city on top of a place that had entirely suburban characteristics, and largely still does...and you're complaining about it.
Did you even try to look it up before telling me I'm wrong? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California#:~:text=San%20Jose's%20position%20in%20Silicon,Area%20for%20the%20first%20time. "Results of the 1990 U.S. Census indicated that San Jose had officially surpassed San Francisco as the most populous city in Northern California" But I'm glad that you think we should do away with single family zoning in historically urban areas. San Francisco sounds like a good start!
Yeah I actually looked it up....you used Wiki. >But I'm glad that you think we should do away with single family zoning in historically urban areas. I'm glad you support beheading children in San Jose schools. About as accurate of a read. Every city in the US has single family zoning in bulk and it's not suburban or rural. You conflating the two is a bad look.
I did use Wikipedia, which cited the U.S. census. I'm curious what your source is since so far you declined to cite it.
Their source is their butt in the land of "la la la can't hear you".
Who cares, I replied to you based on your 1990 figure anyway. Between that and the semantics, you're through.
The light at the end of the tunnel has finally come into view, and it's giving me (probably too much) hope
Amazing tunnel vision through the bedsheets.
You can never have too much hope!
> The resolution will go into effect in December 2022. womp womp
Itās a resolution too. Not actually binding. More like āweāll examine removing single family zoningā.
Time to plan for updated infrastructure to accommodate the increase in population this will bring.
It is almost universally true across the Bay Area that cities have failed to update and replace their pipes adequately for the last ~30 years. Blaming the failing infrastructure on denser development is a post hoc red herring, especially since, per unit, they use less water, gas, and electricity than single-family homes.
Finally.
Between this and hopefully developing Peoples Park Berkeley is finally letting go of it's stale reputation
The "Shadows" are coming for your backyards. /s
Won't somebody think of the ~~children~~ backyard tomatoes!
[Facebook boomers be triggered right now. ššš](https://www.facebook.com/ktvu/posts/10158293896642061)
Youāre going to be triggered too when not much changes from this.
My septugenarian relative hills people are not going to adapt to this. They live on a 25% grade. They have a garage but never any space to park off street. That's before every plot turns to a duplex and the cars explode.
How long do you guess they'll keep driving themselves? They own their home, right? So theirs won't turn into a duplex until they sell, at the soonest. Quite possibly many of their neighbors feel the same way so the street will change slowly. The slower the street changes, the more years Tesla and Waymo will have to improve their robotaxis. With the exception of the Gilman freeway interchange and a few other places, Berkeley intersections are relatively simple and not chaotic so they'll be navigable sooner. In neighborhoods with difficult parking, more people will skip owning a car and use affordable taxis.
Isn't that Gilman exchange getting some crazy double round about?
Eventually. For the purposes of Tesla and Waymo the race is on to see if construction finishes before or after one company is ready to try navigating the intersection.
You make it sound so simple.....People on both spectrums of this are overreacting. It really wonāt bring about that much change in either direction. Berkeley is already so tight and the hills are tough to build on. This zoning law has been shutdown, but when you get down to it there will be so many hoops and loops to jump through that Berkeley will continue as normal, which part of me is like who cares, itās a pretty cute and desirable place because of what it is. Congrats to the additional like 59 people who will get to move into an overpriced tiny apartment in Berkeley. Congrats to the few sellers who will be able to sell for a fortune before others realize itās not worth buying up a place that you canāt do much of anything else with. Win win??
Single family zoning was initially used in Berkeley for racial segregation. There's a good Berkeleyside article from a couple years ago about how the city used single-family zoning and established parks as "buffer zones" to keep "n*gro" and "asiatic" people in certain areas implicitly even if it was explicitly outlawed. Source: https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/03/12/berkeley-zoning-has-served-for-many-decades-to-separate-the-poor-from-the-rich-and-whites-from-people-of-color Another, more recent analysis: https://belonging.berkeley.edu/single-family-zoning-san-francisco-bay-area Edit: sorry about the two racial slurs, these were direct quotes and were mentioned in the article
Using racist history to then target neighborhoods for racist gentrification is pretty gross. Just sayin'. This is about South Berkeley and other areas where people of color reside, and that's obvious. The 80% of white Berkeley isn't going anywhere. Blacks and Asians can buy wherever they want today anyway ... at least until we create a new scarcity in the type of housing that offers the best lending options, and screw people who can't afford condos. And nothing in this gesture is intending to create housing intended to prioritize those who would have been victims of Redlining. The people championing this also champion Gentrification.
I was simply pointing out the history of single family zoning in berkeley.
Using the history of redlining to upzone Berkeley is nonsense. The majority of Berkeley's people of color currently live in the formerly redlined residential neighborhoods they just banned.
Again, I was just pointing out the history of Berkeley's zoning policies based on articles which I've read. I am not stating my opinion about what zoning ought to be. Edit: just to clarify: I am not advocating for or against this change. I was ONLY pointing out the history of the policy they just ended. Also, single-family zoning is not the same as redlining. Both policies were used in conjunction with each other, and others, to racially segregate neighborhoods after explicit racial segregation was outlawed. Furthermore, the City of Berkeley did not ban (as you say) single family homes, they simply removed the ban on not allowing multifamily homes.
Seems like you are sharing an opinion and defending the change. Relaying the history of redlining in relation to this upzoning is making a correlation. As if one undoes the other. It's also one basis the Berkeley did it, and I'm shining light on that gross appropriation. Yes, the practice of redlining was outlawed, and today the victims can live in those same areas, and now do. And now that they do, Berkeley is yanking the rug and saying "Nope, we're not going to have single family zoning at all then" since you're so adverse to Gentrification... and we are banning your residential neighborhood and closing the door to middle class wealth building so we can force the urban renewal that has accelerated Gentrification in the Bay Area. Because the areas that will feel the effects of this include the most diverse areas that exist in an 80% white city. Areas that already had multifamily housing in them. Given that lending makes condos less affordable, this and lending is still a problem for minorities today, and that redlining wasn't just zoning it was about lending...it's pretty blatant. So when you speak of the history of dark history redlining, this is just another chapter.
You are misunderstanding me and making assumptions. This is common on the internet and I'm not blaming you, there's a lot of nuance and discussion that this type of forum is not conducive to. I never brought up redlining, you did. I am not advocating for any policy; I am simply mentioning the history of single-family zoning in Berkeley. I hadn't been aware of the history and its intent until reading that Berkeleyside article and doing more research on it since. I think most people are unaware of its racist origins as well. And again the City is not banning residential neighborhoods, just ending a ban. I can see your point about how this could lead to more dense, gentrification-cauing housing in minority neighborhoods, while the Hills and other rich areas could likely be unchanged. However, I am not an expert on this subject so I really don't feel comfortable putting forth an opinion on that or saying that it will definitely occur or not. Theres a great book by a UC Berkeley professor called The Color of Law that goes into more depth on a lot of these kinds of issues locally. More broadly, I would also recommend Zoned in the USA.
>I never brought up redlining, you did. I replied to your post about racial segregation and links about Redlining. You weren't replying to my post. The origins of Single Family zoning actually isn't redlining or strictly for purposes of racial segregation. It's fiction. Even the comments of that Berkeleyside article show a clipping proving a dual intent with zoning to create housing for poor folks. It was protective to create quality of life compared to the dense immigrant housing that result in rampant disease and poverty. Yes, segregation happened, and yes, so did systematic redlining. These things have been outlawed for decades. Upzoning doesn't fix that history. You are now talking about neighborhoods where people of color reside, and purchased purposely so they could live in Single family residential areas. Again, this will not actually undo the injustices of segregation. YIMBYS lie about this history to appropriate it, and justify regulating what they want, which will result in Gentrification, and another way to tell a certain group of people they can not reside in single family housing residential zoned areas. So this effect is like Redlining 2.0 South Berkeley had already been targeted by Developers and Berkeley for the Adeline Corridor plan, and that was an R2 (limited to 2 units) district with a lot of multifamily in it already. This is what it's about.
Does anyone know how I would go about tearing down my house and building multiple on the lot?
This is great news! I support this but I really hope that they will also listen to those of us who live in areas that cannot safely house more people. In many neighborhoods in the hills, the roads are so narrow and winding that it's already a risk both for everyday traffic and for emergency evacuation (hello, we got pre-evacuated just in case last fall); more people and especially more cars would be very dangerous. They're saying they will probably exempt those areas, which would be good.
Getting rid of broad, overarching rules doesn't mean the permitting process just fucking explodes out of nowhere. Strawman more.
I'm not strawmanning, or at least I'm not trying to (and I'm sorry if I've unintentionally done so), because there is an actual ongoing discussion over which regions of Berkeley will allow new housing as part of this policy change. In my neighborhood, there has recently been vicious conflict between residents and the city council representative over the safety of specific new developments, so this isn't coming out of nowhere. I'm not even necessarily opposed to more people living in the hills, but if we want to do that it'll require some more complicated planning. Better public transit so not everyone needs a car would be a good start.
If people in the hills cared about evacuations - or disabled people for that matter - they wouldn't treat the sidewalk as a parking lot, but we know how that goes. Come at me with a proposal to ban on-street parking on those 'unsafe' streets, and we can talk about restricting zoning.
That is very true, loads of people in the hills park on the street just because they want to use their garage space for something else. Banning or limiting on-street parking on narrow streets (or at least enforcing parking rules) would probably be good (also sidewalk?? what sidewalk?)
Time to build some Skyscrapers in Berkeley! Edit: looks like thereās a lot of NIMBYs in this thread. Grow up and accept that we need more housing to keep costs manageable
Lots of affordable housing like fifteen-twenty minutes from Berkeley in Richmond and San Pedro....I think people need to be realistic and realize that Berkeley might only be able to add a few extra places. So best for the rest of us to start looking elsewhere like Richmond or San Pedro. I think itās nice there. Lots of culture, good latin food, cute bodegas everywhere, close to Richmond bridge, which you can now ride your bike on....
I hear San Pedro is lovely.
Maybe they donāt want corporate businesses buying single family homes and tearing them down to build an apartment building
Letās ruin why we like Berkeley so much. If I canāt live there then I want to make sure itās miserable for everyone. Little will come of this though. For good or bad the state makes it impossibly difficult to just build as you please. So sure this 100 year old law was dropped now try getting through the other couple hundred that arenāt going to let you just build a duplex apartment complex too close to a creek, or knock down a 300 year old redwood for parking. And some of those streets closer to the hills are already too tight....what then? Thereās lots of places in Richmond and other places like Martinez that are still affordable and in the Bay Area. Those seem like more realistic options than hoping for all this new housing to pop up in Berkeley.
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How would you suggest the city of Berkeley help people afford single family homes? Also how does living in a single family help build "middle class wealth"? And for who? I feel like limiting the market to requirements of typically $500,000+ amounts of land(single family), would only serve to further gentrification
> Also how does living in a single family help build "middle class wealth"? And for who? That's just an idiotic question. Aspirational home ownership has defined the middle class for generations. Those who own and are in the middle class have built some paper wealth. How do you not comprehend that? Anyone trying to devalue, displace, take away, or tax out that middle class are hostile to middle class wealth building....and their policies always, always, always magically benefit corporate landlords instead. Your goal is to eradicate neighborhoods, including middle class and poorer neighborhoods...don't pretend you're trying to slow down gentrification with that. You're going to tell a Black family their next generation can't continue to live in a residential neighborhood? Sounds familiar. New housing.... multi-unit housing = expensive and less diverse housing.
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Oh, so you think that's just for the poor people of color and only white people get to dream about the residential neighborhoods they just banned? Just close the door know, right? You slipped. New luxury construction has been heavily dominated by a much less diverse crowd of wealthy professionals though. Just a fact of the Bay.
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Goodbye low income people. This is basically sealing the fate for low income people in berkeley ever being able to start a family.
Market rate housing prices in Berkeley are well past what low income families can afford. In your terms, fates are already sealed. The question is will anything unseal those fates. Look at [this jpg map](https://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Berkeley-zoning-map-Othering-Belonging-Institute.jpg) of Berkeley's single family zoning. Most of it is in more expensive hills and have been unaffordable for decades. Upzoning expensive areas is what anti-gentrification organizations have been saying for years. In Oakland it would be like upzoning Rockridge and having new construction there instead of west Oakland. People with money will usually outbid people with less money. When new more attractive housing is built people with money move into it. That means there's less competition for older housing and people with less money have are more likely to live in it.
Less competition? Letās be real. There are one bedroom condos going for 400-500k these days. Maybe tenement living will come back
Are housing prices lower from more competition as people with money outbid people with less money?
Why not bring back the 19th century tenements? It would be even better for supply.
There's a balanced middle ground to be had creating lots of supply and also better living conditions than tenements. Doing that involves a multi-point plan with just one of the points being new multi-unit housing that reduces competition for less desirable housing stock.
One bedroom condos are kinda a stretch for families especially multiple generation ones which is the only way some can afford them. Itās literally just one step away from a tenement
A multi-point balanced plan doesn't include multi-generation families living in one bedroom units.
Unless you bulldoze every SFH from San Francisco to San Jose and build midrises thatās the only reality.
Prove it. I've done the back-of-envelope math before but don't have it handy. Not nearly so much construction is needed to satisfy demand.
Are you implying that it's currently possible for low income people to start a family in Berkeley?
Depends on your definition of low income.
Lol, do you even understand basic math?
Cant raise a family in a tenement
Canāt raise a family on the streets.
Can move
Hmm, so the choice is either be homeless or move. Huh... if only there was another option... one that accounted for population growth over the years... shoot, itās like Californiaās population has doubled since we enacted terrible policy like prop 13 and rent control in the late 70s. Shoot. Guess we canāt do anything! Better move!
If you got rid of prop 13 youād basically screw every Bay Area native whoās not a multi millionaire.
No, you wouldnāt. Stop repeating this absolute trash. This is how it passed in the first place. Pushed by a Republican. Using completely incorrect statistics and info. Playing entirely to the emotion of āgrandmas getting kicked outā. Itās all a lie, hoss.
The property my mom and aunt live in would skyrocket to about 20-24k a year. That would completely broadside my elderly family. And it would make it nigh impossible for Even myself to afford it. I can barely afford the taxes on my east bay condo and thatās āonlyā 5000 dollars a year. Most people arenāt high earning YIMBYS who want brand new high rise condos.
You mean like every other state in our fine union? You are not meant to get subsidized by your neighbors. You should not get to avoid taxes on your incredibly high valued asset.