Berkeley, California Upzoning and the Corridors Zoning Update
Berkeley's Upzoning Binge what could possibly go wrong?
This Activist’s Diary is the first of a short series covering everything you never wanted to know about the City of Berkeley’s upzoning binge. (Sources, references, links, substack and email addresses for letters to the City are at the bottom).
If upzoning isn’t part of your vocabulary it is the revising of whatever zoning limits were in place to allow for more development, greater intensity, more density, bigger taller buildings with fewer restrictions.
Mixed-use developments are defined as consisting of residential and nonresidential uses with at least 2/3 of the square footage designated for residential use. Mixed-use projects are usually commercial/retail at the street level with residential units above.
The Corridors Zoning Update impacts Solano Avenue, North Shattuck Avenue and College Avenue.
This poster of boarded up vacated store fronts that fill much of a block just off the UC Berkeley campus on Center Street sits in the window of Your Basic Bird in the Elmwood on College Avenue one of Berkeley’s three target areas for upzoning in the “Corridors Zoning Update” coming to City Council on Thursday, November 6, 2025 at 6 pm.
Poster of Center Street in downtown Berkeley by Ron Kelly using google street view photo
The boards were painted sometime after this picture was taken, but like so many vacant store fronts in downtown Berkeley painted plywood isn’t much of a disguise.
The Elmwood on College Avenue is the sweet neighborhood business district filled with small privately and locally owned businesses like Mrs Dalloway’s Bookstore, Elmwood Village Shoes, ImagiKnit, Elements clothing, Your Basic Bird, Humphrey Slocombe small batch ice cream, a scattering of restaurants, other shops, a Wells Fargo Bank and the only remaining movie theater in Berkeley.
I was in the Elmwood on Saturday with, if I had counted hundreds of other Berkeley residents enjoying the restaurants with outdoor seating and shopping in this delightfully walkable neighborhood with sunlight peeking over the mostly 2-story buildings and through the trees lining the street. My favorite shop is around the corner from College Avenue where every year or two I drop what feels like my whole wallet on a new pair of stylish glasses frames.
The way the Elmwood we love exists now is not what the Planning and Development Department, the Planning Commission, and the City Council have in their sights including this area’s Councilmember Mark Humbert who represents District 8 and has so far enthusiastically voted for every upzoning item that has come along.
I find myself in the Elmwood more and more as my closest business district is downtown Berkeley with projects that have stalled or gone sour. The businesses I enjoyed have been pushed out leaving vacated storefronts or worse like this hole in the ground across from the Berkeley Central library.
Google AI writes “Construction on the Berkeley Plaza apartment building at 2065 Kittredge in Berkeley is now complete and ceased in early 2024, when the building was opened. The project had an expected completion date of June 2025 but finished ahead of schedule.”
I took this photo of the site Saturday, October 4, 2025 at 5:22 pm PDT
2065 Kittredge is definitely not finished.
The fear of the local residents and businesses that upzoning will shatter and crush the vibrant Elmwood neighborhood is well founded.
College Avenue is a narrow street with one lane of slow-moving traffic in each direction and parallel parking on each side. There isn’t any room to spare. If someone is pulling into a parking space everyone stops.
Lining this street with 6,7,8 story buildings or possibly taller as the Planning Commissioners indicated they preferred taller buildings than the recommendations coming from the Planning Department staff would change the openness with light sprinkling through the trees into a tunnel in shadow.
The boarded-up Center Street in the “Don’t Let Council Do This Here!” poster used to be a busy row of restaurants with outdoor seating filled with UC Berkeley students, families, visitors, Berkeley residents, really anyone who wanted to stop for a meal or a snack.
This same spot looked to be a prime investment location for Core Spaces. Core Berkeley Oxford, of Chicago, Illinois is listed in City documents as the applicant/owner for the 26-story tower of student housing at 2128 Oxford. The project was approved September 12, 2024 and a demolition permit was pulled in September 2025 but the project is currently reported as stalled. Apparently, it didn’t “pencil out” or the “market isn’t right”.
Pulling the demolition permit keeps the project approval active and out of the reaches of the Lapse Permit Ordinance Berkeley Municipal Code BMC 23.404.060 a process that could void the project approval completely if no effort is made to exercise (apply for) a building permit within one year from approval Use Permit Issuance.
The loss of the businesses is still a loss, but in the scheme to reconstruct Berkeley, business losses are just collateral damage to be walked by and normalized for the larger vision of new bigger property taxes and permit fees. Building housing for students looks to be a safe bet with a captive audience to spend to keep everything going and bolstered by the UC Berkeley plan to increase the student body from 45,882 (Fall 2024, Fall 2025 not available) to 51,000 by 2030
The 2065 Kittredge project is the 2nd attempt to build student housing on two of the three commercial condominiums covering the block surrounded by Shattuck Avenue, Kittridge Street, Harold Way and Allston Way. The first project 2211 Harold Way hit a wall of angry residents and a very long protracted fight. Someone counted 37 meetings to save the Shattuck Cinemas from demolition and squeeze out community benefits.
The entire process experienced from 2012 to 2019 for 2211 Harold Way was turned upside down by State Senator Nancy Skinner (termed out of office November 30, 2024) as the author of Senate Bill 330 Housing Crisis Act 2019 passed by the legislature and signed by Governor Newsom. SB 330 which was set to sunset January 1, 2025, but it was extended by Skinner’s 2021 SB 8 to January 1, 2030. SB 8 was signed by Governor Newsom on September 9, 2021.
Any project using SB 330 with density qualifying bonus units is limited to five public meetings including one left for a possible appeal. SB 330 comes with concessions from local ordinances that add fees and costs like public art, bird safe glass, prevailing wage, covering health care costs, apprenticeship programs and waivers to reduce or eliminate open space requirements, setbacks, landscaping, lot coverage and other requirements.
Whatever local zoning limits exist can all be undone and exceeded through California’s Senate SB 330.
The new suggested zoning height limits in the Corridors Zoning Update from the Planning and Development Department are charted as a choice between 3-stories or 4-stories for the Elmwood on College Avenue which with a 50% density bonus according to the chart yields a 4-story result.
The formula for adding below market rate units (to be explained in article 3 of this series) provides for exceeding whatever zoning height limits exist.
Don’t be fooled by the chart suggesting there is a choice between “medium density” or “higher density”. If there is any lesson to be learned from attending Berkeley City Council meetings with Middle Housing as a great example, it is that whatever density recommendation comes from the Planning staff someone on the City Council will submit a supplemental at the last minute (24 hours before the meeting) to blow by the recommendations by some ridiculous amount which will then be compromised down to something that still exceeds whatever was posted with the council agenda.
In the Southside, the area next to UC Berkeley Campus with a concentration of student housing, 2425 Durant listed on the agenda for the October 9, 2025 Zoning Adjustment Board as a consent item is one example of the results when a project secures a 100% density bonus using SB 330.
The 100% density bonus at 2425 Durant (between Telegraph and Dana) exceeds the Southside Area height limit of 85 feet plus the parapet of 5 feet bringing the total zoning limit of 90 feet by 118 feet to yield at 20-story, 208 foot development with 3 concessions which are being used to get out of paying prevailing wage, providing health care coverage and participating in an apprenticeship program. In addition, the waivers include removing a coast live oak, reducing the required usable open space from 5,239 square feet to 1,012, exceeding the allowable maximum FAR (Floor Area Ratio) of 7 to 14.86, reducing open landscaped area to 0% where 40% is required and reducing bike parking spaces from 83 to 72.
Screen print photo from City of Berkeley Staff Report for 2425 Durant
Back to the downtown block surrounded by Shattuck Avenue, Kittridge Street, Harold Way and Allston Way and what can go wrong. The developer for 2211 Harold Way finally modified the plan to include multiple movie theaters, but anyone with the sense to take out a tape measure as I did could see it was a plan that could never be built.
Between the toll of pandemic shutdowns and the first mixed-use housing project for this site, 2211 Harold Way, Landmark Theatres did not renew the lease for the Shattuck Cinemas. We lost ten movie theaters in that complex that drew thousands of independent and documentary film enthusiasts from the entire San Francisco Bay area.
The City Council and appointees to the various boards and commissions that reviewed the project through the many city meetings were so blinded by their self-assurance that they knew better than the citizens who stated one after another that 2211 Harold Way was speculation that could never be built, approved it anyway with visions of a new era of high-rise projects in the downtown.
I was there at the last hurrah for 2211 Harold Way on December 5, 2019, when it was brought to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. A handful of potential investors sat in the audience as the team of new architects explained that 2211 Harold Way couldn’t be built as previously designed and approved. A new scaled back design was presented. And that is when after seven years of promotion and citizens fighting back, 2211 Harold Way took its last development breath and fell apart. And the Lapse Permit Ordinance was finally enforced.
The next buyer with plans for an 8-story mixed-use building for students was CA Student Living Berkeley, LLC a division of the international real estate investment management firm CA Ventures with headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. The project came with a new address of 2065 Kittredge and consisted of 187 dwelling units including four live-work units and nine very low-income units. Construction progressed only as far as demolishing the Shattuck Cinemas the reuse project and the rest of the old Hinks department store before CA Ventures sunk into a mire of lawsuits leaving a half block hole surrounded by chain link fencing.
QuadReal Property Group an international investment firm acquired CA Ventures’ CA Student Living Division November 8, 2023 and then rebranded the student housing as Article Student Living. It’s unclear where the 2065 Kittridge project sits in the international investment shuffle.
View of the Shattuck Hotel from 2065 Kittredge site from Kittredge and Harold Way
In the meantime, we are reminded with every trip downtown with empty storefronts along Shattuck underneath the Shattuck Hotel and the massive hole on the rest of the block just how complicated things can be when big international investment firms are pulling the strings.
Even when projects are built the retail space that the Planning Commission commissioners agreed was so important in activating the street at their September 17, 2025 meeting, doesn’t fit with their vision of vibrant commercial space. Of course, they never defined what features actually attract businesses and what mix of businesses are needed for walkable neighborhood.
When the Planning Commission Commissioners are talking about usable commercial/retail space on the ground floor in these large multi-unit mixed-use buildings with housing on top and avoiding long term ground floor street facing vacancies, they miss everything that occupies the ground floor in these large multiunit mixed-use projects. There is the utility room, the transformer room, the resident’s lobby, the management and leasing office, the mailroom, the package room, the bike room, the stairwells, the elevator bank, the trash room and maybe an amenity room of some sort for the residents.
In attending the Design Review Committee meetings where projects are reviewed and recommendations are made by Committee members to improve the project, retail/commercial space in the mixed-use buildings usually boils down to what is leftover. Some architects are better than others in thinking through what makes a ground floor space rentable rather than vacant. With SB 330 projects limiting public meetings to five there is little opportunity to improve on poorly designed projects.
Ace Hardware was pushed out of their 16,000 square feet of space on the corner of University and Walnut for the Acheson Commons project that takes up most of the block surrounded by Shattuck, University, Walnut and Berkeley Way. Back in 2012 and 2013 when the project was being approved and Ace Hardware was looking for new space, there was talk of the hardware store moving back after construction was completed.
Imagine moving all the contents in a hardware store next time you need some gadget. Moving is a big expensive deal for a hardware store.
Ace Hardware has been settled in to 11,000 square feet on Milvia for over a decade now. The parking and visibility is not as good, but they seem to be doing okay every time I walk over. As for the imagined space to move back to, besides the huge cost of making such a move, the actual square footage is only 6000 square feet way short of what would have been needed. One Medical occupies the space.
There is no vacancy tax for commercial space so there seems to be little incentive to fill the ground floor when it is the apartments above that bring in the money.
Au Coquelet Café was a favorite well-known gathering spot for 46 years at the corner of Milvia and University. It felt like it never closed. I’m not sure if it opened at 6 am or 7 am, but closing time was 1 am. There was the front room for coffee and pastries, the middle room and the café in back with a full menu of something to satisfy any food preference. It was always busy and the croissants were the best.
Café Brusco which occupies the same address 2000 University on the ground floor of the new mixed-use 8-story building is but a fraction in size of the former front room of Au Coquelet. It has a few small tables and a counter with stools in a tiny space that instantly feels busy. The rest of the ground floor is filled with everything that is needed to keep an eight-story building operating.
Up next in this series will be what happened at city meetings on the Corridors Zoning Update and how the Planning and Development Department is financed.
Email Address for Communicating with City Departments and Your Council members, the Activist’s Diary and the Activist’s Calendar:
Berkeley City Council council@berkeleyca.gov
District 8 Councilmember Mark Humbert mhumbert@berkeleyca.gov phone (510) 981-7180
Full Council Roster with term expiration, phone and email https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/council-roster
City Manager Paul Buddenhagan manager@berkeleyca.gov
Planning Department planning@berkeleyca.gov
Zoning Adjustment Board ZAB@berkeleyca.gov
City of Berkeley Website
https://berkeleyca.gov
Planning Commission planningpc@berkeleyca.gov
To be added to mailings of Activist’s Diary and Activist’s Calendar kellyhammargren@gmail.com
Activist’s Diary Substack https://substack.com/@activistdiarybykellyhammargren/posts
Sources / References:
Corridors Zoning Update prepared for the Planning Commission September 17, 2025 meeting
Activist’s Diary on Middle Housing
How big is California’s housing shortage
https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/09/california-housing-shortage/
Debunking the trickle-down housing fallacy
https://48hills.org/2016/09/debunking-trickle-housing-fallacy/
Department of Housing and Community Development Division of Housing Policy Development, 2025 State Income Limits
https://www.hcd.ca.gov/sites/default/files/docs/grants-and-funding/income-limits-2025.pdf
City of Berkeley Below Market-Rate (BMR) Housing Program Frequently Asked Questions
https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/Below-Market-Rate-FAQs.pdf
2128 Oxford Mixed Use Project Staff Report for the September 24, 2024 Zoning Adjustment Board
Legal Problems CA Ventures
Landmark Theatres Financial Situation
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/charles-cohen-landmark-theatres-committed-134928952.html#
City of Berkeley staff Report California theatre project at 2113-2115 Kittredge, project plans, density bonus, concessions, and waivers
Corridors Zoning (upzoning) Timeline Chart
https://cityofberkeley.app.box.com/s/4h8akpicetq3rlijs11t4ghwytom1s8v
California SB 330, October 9, 2019
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB330
SB 8 signed by Newsom on September 9, 2021
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB8
Student Housing Tower 26-story at 2128 Oxford St in downtown Berkeley
2065 Kittredge at Harold Way
https://www.berkeleyside.org/2023/02/03/berkeley-housing-harold-way-2065-kittredge
Zoning Adjustment Board documents for 2065 Kittredge
2211 Harold Way on the Landmarks Preservation Commission agenda December 5, 2019
The end of 2211 Harold Way