Proposed Condominium Density Bonus Withdrawn
A CITYWIDE Density Bonus without inclusionary affordable housing
In case you hadn’t heard Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani withdrew her local citywide Berkeley Density Bonus for condominiums from review and consideration by the Land Use, Housing & Economic Development City Council Policy Committee with the request to bring it back in two weeks. It will be calendared for the March 2, 2026 Land Use Committee at 10 am.
The proposed Berkeley Density Bonus by Kesarwani, with co-sponsors mayor Ishii and council members Tregub and Blackaby is supposedly a rescue for stalled projects in the downtown, but it gives the developers a CITYWIDE density bonus with all the same concessions and waivers as the state density bonus without having to include one speck of affordable housing in the project.
The state density bonus is formulated to award developers with exceeding zoning height and size limits plus concessions and waivers from other conditions in relation to the percentage of affordable units that will be included in the project. The Berkeley Density bonus upends that incentive by retaining all the “goodies” and giving the developers a buyout of affordable housing with the in lieu fee.
There is always more to the story than the header.
The meetings this last week carried a few surprises. Not the least of which was the Planning Commission on the Corridors Zoning Update. So many showed up, they ran out of chairs and people stood lining the back of the room.
There is so much that happened at the Planning Commission that a separate Activist Diary is needed to cover it all. Basically, the Planning Commission commissioners did not buy what the Planning Department with its consultants to the tune of $600,000 of our tax money was selling.
The February 2, 2026 Land Use, Housing & Economic Development City Council Policy Committee meeting started the week at 10:04:47 with all three councilmembers present, Cecilia Lunaparra, Igor Tregub and chair Ben Bartlett.
The meeting opened with the reelection of Bartlett as the chair for the coming year followed with public comment on non-agenda comments. At 10:09:37 during the non-agenda comment period Jack Kurzweil asked when he would be able to ask a specific question about the density bonus agenda item. Bartlett answered with “about 45 minutes”.
After the last non-agenda commenter finished at 10:13:29. Bartlett announced “a quick shuffle of the agenda...the author of the density bonus item is going to withdraw it for two weeks, anyone here to comment on it we can do that first”.
This was the second time the local density bonus item was withdrawn from an agenda. The first time was on January 5, 2026 when it was removed from the draft agenda for the January 20 city council meeting. It came back again in a draft agenda for the February 10 city council meeting when on January 26 Ishii with Agenda Committee members Taplin and Humbert voted to refer it to the Land Use committee. Humbert only agreed after stating it should go straight to the full council and he could see he was outnumbered.
The announcement from the committee chair that the item was withdrawn just four minutes after stating that discussion of the density bonus would start in 45 minutes caused confusion and frustration that erupted into an angry rant from one member of the public about disrespect for the public.
Disrespect for the public could fill multiple Activist’s Diaries.
Among the people who came to speak on the local density bonus item was the developer Patrick Kennedy. Here is his comment in full:
“My name is Patrick Kennedy. I’ve been developing for 35 years in Berkeley. Today’s group here is really a blast from the past for me because I remember when I started building housing here 35 years ago I met with opposition about any kind of housing any place in the city. And this kind of self-selected group of vigilantes to stop housing in the city is reminiscent of the days we had 30 years ago before we did help build over 4,000 units of housing. And I might add that those 4,000 units of new housing are valuable to the city and have reduced the cost of housing for students by a significant amount.
We’re now having rents that are at 2018 levels I think according to Berkeleyside. What Berkeley has not built among these 4,000 units of housing is housing for young people, housing for young families, and housing for empty nesters.
We have built no ownership housing for the last 30 years in Berkeley. The last project, condominium project in downtown Berkeley that was built was in 1995 and was a project that I built at 1849 Shattuck. The people that bought those units then paid $179,000 and those units have since been resold for upwards of a million dollars.
They were able to get their first step in the housing rung and that is something that has been denied to everybody but the very rich.
Here in Berkeley today the current, the current price of a single-family home median price of Berkeley is now a million four [$1,400,000]. How many families can afford that?
If we are going to do something about providing ownership opportunities for new residents of Berkeley and we have an ailing downtown and we have ossifying neighborhoods full of people that would like to move into something else, we need to do something to provide ownership housing.
And this proposal by Rashi is one small step in that direction, Which I encourage you to take if we’re going to turn about and the fortunes of our city with respect to new Berkeleyans. Thank you.”
There is a lot to unpack and take apart from Patrick Kennedy’s public comment and put in context besides his calling those who showed up to speak for inclusionary affordable condos in a condominium project and against the proposed local Berkeley Density Bonus “vigilantes”.
The mere fact that Patrick Kennedy bothered to show up in person to two city council committee meetings January 26 and February 2 and the Planning Commission February 4 on the Corridors Zoning Update indicates to me there is something afoot in the development business besides just the local citywide density bonus to skate by city zoning height limits and escape inclusionary affordable housing.
The first clue was 2029 University when Mark Rhodes presented (in 2025) two different proposals for the same site and stated which version would be used would depend on which plan funders saw as the most financially feasible, the plan for family units or the plan for student housing.
The Zoning Adjustment Board (ZAB) approved both versions for the 23 story 256 foot tall tower on a street zoned for a height limit of 75 feet on November 13, 2025. The building plan for students totaled 160 units with 60 studios, 20 one-bedroom, 20 three-bedroom and 60 four-bedroom units and the building plan for families totaled 240 units with 80 studios, 60 junior one-bedroom and 40 two-bedroom units. A junior one bedroom usually has a small partial enclosure without windows and walls that stop short of the ceiling that is labeled the “bedroom”.
Take note of what developers consider “student housing” and what is considered “family housing”.
In the eleven plus years I have been attending the Design Review Committee (DRC) and the ZAB, I have never before seen two different plans targeting two different audiences/renters for the same project site submitted at the same time.
Developers build where the money is.
According to Kennedy’s comments at the January 26 Agenda Committee accompanied with a handout that the “…19 stalled projects in in downtown Berkeley alone that could be reinvigorated and restarted if the City allowed those developers to transfer those developments from rental projects to condominium projects…”
It is interesting that 2001 Center Street is in Kennedy’s list as stalled. Public (not City of Berkeley) posts announced that Zoning permits to convert that 7-story office building into student housing were filed in July 2025. The Rent Board moved from 2001 Center to 2000 Center in April 2025.
It wasn’t so many years ago that John Caner CEO of the Downtown Berkeley Association was speaking on behalf of expanding 2120 Berkeley Way the old UC Press Building into six stories of offices saying there was a shortage of office space in the downtown. That was the 2016 world not the 2026 world. How things change.
Consider that in San Francisco in 2019 the office vacancy reached a low of 4.7%. A year ago, in 2025 the office vacancy rate was 35.4%. https://www.sf.gov/data--office-vacancy-rate
While Kennedy clearly stated there are 19 stalled projects, only 16 are listed in his handout and twelve projects are listed in Kesarwani’s Citywide Berkeley Density Bonus document.
The focus for projects in the downtown has been student housing. 2029 University is the only project to come with two versions “family housing” or “student housing”. This tells me the expected profiteering from the student housing market is changing maybe drying up even with the promise of UC Berkeley admissions expanding the student body to 50,000 by 2030.
In August 2025, 60 minutes devoted two shows to declining birthrates. The U.S. birthrate has been declining for years and is currently at 1.6 births per woman. This is below the 2.1 rate to maintain the population. The U.S. declining birth rate is projected to decrease college age freshman by 100,000 this next fall and by 500,000 a year in three years and nearly a million in ten years. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trends-behind-historically-low-us-birth-rate-60-minutes/#
If you worry about declining birthrates then take the time to look at Earth Overshoot Day, “the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceed what Earth can regenerate in that year.” That date moved from July 24, 2025 to May 11, 2026. https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/
Student housing with a shared small kitchen and sitting area surrounded by multiple bedrooms often priced by the “bed” or “bedroom” is not family housing.
Pricing by the unit or bedroom by Panoramic Interests (Patrick Kennedy) for the student housing project nearing completion at 1752 Shattuck is available here. https://www.panoramicberkeley.com/Northside-availability
UC Berkeley is listed as providing the lowest amount of student housing, 22%, of any campus in the University of California system. This has been a boon for developers and the national and international real estate investment firms specializing in student housing like Canadian QuadReal Property Group which in 2023 acquired Chicago based CA Ventures including CA Ventures’s dirt pit at 2065 Kittredge.
In 2017 UC Berkeley established its housing goals to add 9000 beds and it is rapidly moving toward that goal. https://housing.berkeley.edu/resources/campus-housing-upcoming-construction-and-redevelopment-projects/
While Kennedy states there has been no ownership housing built in 30 years, no one asked and he didn’t offer why after building a condominium project in 1995 at 1849 Shattuck he never built another.
It is not true that no condominiums have been built in Berkeley in the last 30 years. Found at 6:13 pm on February 5 a Zillow listing for 1406 San Pablo Ave #A, a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, 1150 square foot condominium built in 2006 for $849,900 with a $550 HOA fee. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1406-San-Pablo-Ave-A-Berkeley-CA-94702/79532534_zpid/
There is no reason why the 19 stalled projects in downtown Berkeley using the state density bonus can’t be converted to condominium projects. There are formulas in the state density bonus for condominium projects. But, those formulas in the state density bonus require that to secure the bonus, affordable units are provided in the project. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=65915&lawCode=GOV
It should be noted that in mixed income buildings, a mix of affordable units and market rate units, the affordable units need to be substantially the same as the market rate units dispersed throughout the project with residents of affordable units having the same access as residents of market rate units to amenities like gyms or pools, common areas, parking, etc.
Exempting the developer from the requirement of inclusionary affordable units with the CITYWIDE Berkeley Density Bonus frees the developers to build luxury high-rise condo projects to the 100% density bonus wherever they want with finding a willing property owner to sell, partner or develop. And that leads straight to the Corridors Zoning Update.
The City Council told the Planning Department at the November 6, 2025 special meeting on the corridors they wanted zoning height limits to increase to seven stories across all corridors. Seven and eight stories is the sweet spot in construction. Above 85 feet the structural requirements of the building change, though through the use of some structural products that height limit can be stretched a few more stories before steel or concrete is required.
Ambitious developers have figured out how to turn the 75 foot height limit that comes with seven stories to 23 story high rise towers.
As I write, I can’t help but think about the book I just finished Charlatans: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Hucksters Bamboozle the Media, the Markets, and the Masses by Moises Naim & Quico Toro, copyright 2025, print 336 pages, audiobook 11 hours. If you like audiobooks, this is one that works well as an audiobook and both the San Francisco and Marin public libraries have it and the ebook. In my list of twenty-one public library cards Los Angeles is the only other public library with the audiobook and Oakland has the ebook.
The authors describe charlatans not as persuaders but as someone who plays on people’s dreams and beliefs and sometimes fears and resentments and uses them to suck people into their own profiteering scheme. The book was filled with great examples including the original Ponzi scam. Whether the scheme of the charlatan was from early history or the recent past, the pattern was much the same to draw people in and then step them deeper and deeper into the scheme (scam). Trump University did make it in as one of the examples along with Bankman Fried who is sitting out in his lengthy prison term. The authors devoted a whole chapter on QAnon and more on the digital world increasing the ease of finding new marks.
How QAnon followers engaged and expanded the conspiracies playing into the game is presented as a warning for the future with AI making that even more worrisome.
On Thursday, February 5, 2026 Jordan Klein, Director of Planning and Development presented an overview of the Planning Department which included that once a project is entitled/approved the review and permitting process before construction begins takes another 12 – 18 months.
Klein stated that condos in projects that contained a mix of affordable units with market rate units were harder to sell. Also, the 10-Year Builder Warranty puts a damper on condominiums.
The 10-Year Builder Warranty for homeowners (in this case condo owners) is not a warranty in the usual sense as some sort of implied promise or assurance of free repair. The 10-Year Builder Warranty passed in 2002 effective January 1, 2003 limits any claims involving structural defects to an absolute cutoff of 10 years from the date a project was substantially completed not when a condo was purchased. https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/research-and-policy/the-financial-impacts-of-construction-defect-liability-on-housing-development-in-california/
Klein went further to state that because of the 10-Year Builder Warranty sometimes a condo map is submitted at the same time the project is submitted for approval and then the units are rented and the condo map is never exercised.
The procedure for selling units as condominiums is less complex when the condo map is submitted at the beginning and the sales occur before units are rented.
Once units are rented whether a condo map was submitted previously or not, the process is the same and it looks quite onerous as described on the City of Berkeley webpage under Berkeley Municipal Code beginning at BMC 21.28.010. https://berkeleyca.gov/construction-development/permits-design-parameters/permit-process/condominium-conversion
We are living in a time of accelerating uncertainty and extreme income and wealth inequality. All of these changing factors are making some people nervous especially those who depend on perpetual growth to fund their business ventures.
Population is the net of births, deaths and migration. The population in California was projected to peak and then go into steady decline around 2050. https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/eebcf24ac5e942c7b8ab7011173efdbe/page/Population-Overview
Population data always lags, but for California, a state that depends on immigration for population growth, ICE, the deportations, the closing of the border, the loss of immigrants and immigration does not paint a rosy picture. If this continues, then I expect that projected population decline will start much sooner than 2050.
Back to where we started with up-zoning to seven stories across all corridors and a CITYWIDE Berkeley Density Bonus that can turn those seven stories into high-rises without any level of what we need most affordable housing, inclusionary affordable housing with its societal benefits and cross cultural diversity that brought many of us to Berkeley.
Despite Klein’s repeated claim that the impact of up-zoning will be slow and at some time into the future, that claim is not true.
The fear that this local citywide density bonus for condominiums being brought to us by Kesarwani with mayor Ishii, council members Tregub and Blackaby is a death sentence for small locally owned businesses in our neighborhood business districts.
The pressure is already on. This fear is not an unfounded.
Even the anticipation of up-zoning is changing the relationship between the property owners and the businesses that rent space. Businesses are already feeling the impact from their property owners with the security of long-term leases changing to month to month when the lease ends and rising rents. The closing of the Guerilla Café is an early example.
If you missed the February 1, 2026 Activist’s Diary on the density bonus here is the link: https://open.substack.com/pub/activistdiarybykellyhammargren/p/proposed-berkeley-density-bonus?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Link to last available version of the local Berkeley Density Bonus is in the February 2, 2026 Land Use, Housing & Economic Development City Council Policy Committee agenda.