first Zoom speaker is a student who notes that Elmwood was the first place in the country to implement luxury housing.
someone in the in person audience yells “that’s why we have dorms!”
yours truly might have lost their patience a bit with said audience yeller.
Unsurprisingly all of the in person speakers were opposed to housing in the commercial districts.
In the latest innovation, the Chair is calling for 3 zoom speakers to be randomly selected but for 1 minute apiece.
The leader of Save Berkeley Shops repeatedly claimed that this proposal is moving faster than the Housing Element promised.
In fact he’s exactly wrong. The Housing Element promises to ADOPT the policy by December of this year.
And the guy with the fur coat read a letter from Patrick Kennedy, basically opposed to the commercial district zoning. Which is some sort of Berkeley madlib.
one of the somewhat young people in that group has a fur coat with a “Save Berkeley Shops” sticker
public comment excludes anyone on zoom
probably unrelated, but the 10 people randomly selected to speak in person have an apparent median age of ~72
Chair Marthinsen just introduced a brilliant innovation in Berkeley’s meetings: limiting public comment to 20 minutes - 10 randomly chosen speakers.
No clue if that’s legal but… will save everyone a lot of time!
Berkeley Housers! There’s an important meeting IN 20 MINUTES!!!!
Details below!
Zoom link: cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1617173983
meetup at 10 am today!
Whomst amongst us would have predicted the city celebrating this back in peak Housing Twitter days?
Reminder: get together this Saturday!
We agree: housing and climate action are the same.
Save the date for our next social event - with CMs @brentblackaby.bsky.social and Humbert!
And if you’re not already on it - join our mailing list: bnhca.org/index.html#j...
A housing opposing homeowner just unironically said “Fight the power”
“California has failed its young people… 1000 people across 3 districts is very modest.”
“I just moved to the Elmwood from Paris France and really want to maintain the small town feel of College Ave… I grew up in Evanston and lived in Cambridge and the West Village.”
My dude we also need housing for people who aren’t like you.
another speaker: “I’m a 27 year Berkeley teacher and my kids can’t afford to live here. We need maximum density!”
Another speaker: “I’m a small landlord… we shouldn’t build… rents are dropping and absorption is slowing.”
The first speaker at the Planning Commission is Zelda Bronstein.
Reminder - important meeting tonight!
There’s an important in-person event on Wednesday!
Agenda here: berkeleyca.gov/sites/defaul...
Back in 2022 we endorsed Measure M, the city vacancy tax, specifically because of the “pernicious” way that Prop 13 allows landlords to hold on to vacant properties. We’re glad to see it having an impact!
Just a reminder that it’s REALLY important to make your voice heard at the workshops this week!
These are workshops:
~30 minutes of presentation (with no Q&A)
followed by poster board input stations (post it note questions / comments)
The first one (North Shattuck) was well structured - but we need to make sure all views are represented!
You can register here for these in-person sessions: lu.ma/berkeleycorr...
Berkeley Housers! There are two critical workshops this week!
Starting now!
Reminder! We are hosting a meeting TODAY AT 5 PM with the City planners leading the commercial district upzoning. Here’s the Zoom link: us06web.zoom.us/j/8749574950...
