Everywhere, USA

Just so folks don’t think it’s a strictly Alameda phenomenon of opposing development, recently the Planning Board in Berkeley approved a large downtown project that would bring 302 residential spaces to Berkeley.   That proposal met a fair amount of oppositions, but look at how the opposition and proponents were described:

Opponents cited the scale of the project, flaws in the approval process, concerns about earthquake safety and worries about the impact of construction on nearby Berkeley High School. Advocates called for more housing in Berkeley and for increased activity downtown. To a remarkable extent, the divide in opinion was generational: older commenters were opposed; younger ones approved.

“We have to stop letting the perfect be the enemy of the good and get housing built now,” said Eric Panzer, chair of Livable Berkeley. He said many opponents had secured housing in Berkeley years ago and wanted to “pull up the drawbridge.”

Also, check out some of the strong comments from the Board members:

Commissioner Denise Pinkston referred to a report on housing prepared by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.

“Coastal California has been underproducing housing for generations,” she said. “I resent people coming up here and saying we’re not doing our duty unless we say no. I think our duty is to find a way to get to yes. I’d rather have housing in Berkeley that reflects our green values than housing in Antioch or Tracy which is largely single-family housing and forces people to commute.”

Prakash Pinto, board chair, compared Berkeley to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he used to live. Cambridge, he said, had managed to build thousands of units of new housing in the last few years.

“I always thought Berkeley was a very progressive city,” Pinto said. “But [Cambridge] looked at themselves and said, ‘For us to be truly progressive, we need to build new housing.’… We have to move into the next century. We have to move forward. Cities build. That’s what has to happen.”

But what lead me to this article about this project was an Op-ed in the same publication from a young worker making, what should be, a good income completely priced out of the housing market attempting to appeal to the progressives of his city:

The Bay Area’s severe housing shortage, coupled with massive job growth, fuels skyrocketing rent prices. Everyone knows this. It is alarming that some opponents to the project seemed to insist that merely resisting the high demand—“we don’t want new people moving here”—would be enough to solve the issue. Clearly, they were not concerned with the plight of rent-burdened tenants, but with the charming small-town “character” of Berkeley. I contend that subjective aesthetic standards are not valid arguments in times of economic crisis.

The fact is, if high-income engineers or students from affluent families need a unit in Berkeley, they will find it, and if enough units aren’t around, they will price out lower-income workers competing for the same scarce housing. The idea that newcomers should simply look for somewhere else to live ignores the realities of job growth, especially when new jobs outnumber new housing at a 3-to-1 ratio in the region.

The problem is, much like some of the public statements from our City Councilmembers, there is this belief we should be working on the bigger problem of Prop 13 loopholes or tax credits, and while this is important the reality is that these elected officials have the ability to address issues locally in small ways in addition to trying to tackle global problems.  The problem is some of our elected officials are like these people who come to meetings and wax poetic about “small town charm” to oppose a housing project while a significant portion of its population is being displaced.  Speaking about the responsibilities of the State government to provide funding for affordable housing is cold comfort to a family who has received 60-days notice to vacate and have no other alternatives for housing.