Companion to Corridor Upzoning: What the Research Shows. That page covers the evidence. This one covers the paper trail — every primary document and raw data source, who is deciding, who is advising, who is pushing from each side, which questions nobody has answered on the record, and how an ordinary resident can follow where Berkeley is actually heading.
Learn About Berkeley · built from public documents · residents decideBookmark these. Everything on the companion page, and most of what the City and the advocacy groups say, is derived from one of them.
| Source | What you get | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Accela permit portal | Every planning (ZP/PLN), building (B), and use-permit record: status, dates, documents, inspections. Searchable by address or permit number. The raw material for every pipeline count. | aca-prod.accela.com/BERKELEY |
| Berkeley Open Data portal | Council districts, parcels, zoning, some permit extracts (API access is restricted; CSV download works). | data.cityofberkeley.info |
| Berkeley GIS parcel viewer | Parcel boundaries, zoning overlays, planning and building layers; one of the better municipal GIS systems in the state. | berkeley.maps.arcgis.com |
| Zoning Ordinance (BMC Title 23) and Official Zoning Map | The actual rules per district — heights, FAR, lot coverage, use tables. C-E, C-NS, C-SO, C-AC, R-BMU chapters are the ones the corridor debate changes. | Title 23 · Zoning Map |
| Housing Element 2023–2031 and Sites Inventory | The commitments (Program 27 = corridors) and the parcel-by-parcel list the City told the state could hold 8,934 units. | Housing Element · Sites Inventory (PDF) |
| Housing Element Annual Progress Report (APR) | Units permitted by income band each year; filed to HCD every spring. The only official RHNA scoreboard. | 2024 APR (Mar 2025) |
| Zoning lookup / zone designations | Find any parcel's district and what it allows. | Research Zoning Permits |
| Legislative body agendas and attachments | Planning Commission, ZAB, Landmarks, Council — staff reports, presentations, minutes, and "late correspondence" (the public letters, with names). | Council · Planning Commission |
| Council district lookup / boundaries | Which councilmember each corridor block answers to. | District lookup · District GIS |
| Rent Stabilization Board | Rent registry (controlled units per parcel), rent ordinance, tenant protections — the source for the 654 / 414 / 98 rent-controlled unit counts on the three corridors. | rentboard.berkeleyca.gov |
| Inclusionary / affordable housing requirements | The 20% rule and in-lieu fees (Ord. 7,853-N.S., eff. Apr 2023; amended Feb 2025). | Feb 2025 ordinance · Requirements |
| Source | What you get | Link |
|---|---|---|
| California Legislative Information | Full text of SB 79, AB 893, AB 2011, AB 2097, SB 330, SB 9, SB 35/423, Density Bonus (§65915), HAA (§65589.5). | leginfo.legislature.ca.gov |
| HCD — Housing Element compliance, APR data, SB 9 fact sheet | Statewide APR dashboard (compare Berkeley to any city), compliance letters, law fact sheets. | HCD APR dashboard · SB 9 fact sheet |
| ABAG / MTC | RHNA methodology and allocation; Plan Bay Area 2050; Priority Development Area maps; AB 2011 / SB 6 summary. | RHNA · Plan Bay Area · AB 2011/SB 6 summary |
| CTCAC / HCD Opportunity Map (UC Berkeley Othering & Belonging Institute) | The "high resource" tract designations that drive the fair-housing (AFFH) rationale for upzoning Solano, College and North Shattuck specifically. | 2024 Opportunity Map |
| U.S. Census / ACS via Bay Area Census | Population, race, tenure, income by tract — the basis for the corridor demographic profiles. | census.bayareametro.gov |
| CEQAnet | Environmental documents for every large project and plan (e.g., University Corners 1950–1998 Shattuck; Housing Element EIR). | ceqanet.lci.ca.gov |
| Source | What you get | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Build Berkeley housing-pipeline database (CC0) | 162 projects / ~10,000 units scraped from Accela + county GIS: status, new vs. demolished units, VLI units, density-bonus and SB 35/330/AB 2011 flags, heights, and application → entitlement → permit → occupancy dates. Live SQL via Datasette; Colab notebooks; public-domain GitHub repo. Site originated with Elmwood merchants; the data is the useful part. | Datasette · GitHub · buildberkeley.online |
| Terner Center (UC Berkeley) | Policy Gauge dashboard, AB 2011 commercial-zones analysis, "Making It Pencil" feasibility series, SB 9 uptake studies, annual legislative round-ups. | Policy Gauge · AB 2011 · Making It Pencil |
| Urban Displacement Project (UC Berkeley) | Zuk & Chapple (2016) Bay Area production-and-displacement study; displacement typology maps. | urbandisplacement.org |
| Anti-Eviction Mapping Project — "Densifying Berkeley" (2021–22) | The City-commissioned displacement-risk study: West and South Berkeley highest risk; market-rate production "not statistically significant" for displacement; recommends directing upzoning to North and Southeast Berkeley — which is, in effect, what the Corridors project does. | Exec summary · Nov 2021 presentation |
| UrbanFootprint AB 2011 analysis | Statewide capacity estimate (1.6–2.4M feasible units on commercial land). | urbanfootprint.com |
| SF YIMBY project tracker | Per-address development news with renderings, developer and architect names — the fastest way to see what is proposed on a given block. | sfyimby.com (Berkeley) |
| council-scorecards / berkeley-public-data | Independent council vote and budget visualizations (see the BeTH links page). | council-scorecards · berkeley-public-data |
All on the City's Corridors Zoning Update page (email list: corridors@berkeleyca.gov). Read the five bolded items and you know more than most speakers at the hearings.
| Date | Document | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 2023 | Housing Element adopted; HCD certification Feb 2023 | Program 27 commits the City to rezone the three corridors as part of "affirmatively furthering fair housing." This is the legal origin of the whole project — not a 2025 idea. |
| 2023 | Council budget allocation (~$250K) and consultant contract (~$600K, Raimi + Associates team) | Funding and team. Source for the $ figures: 48 Hills (Bronstein) and Build Berkeley; not independently verified against the contract. Moderate |
| Mar 5, 2025 | Existing Conditions Report (Raimi + Associates, 15.8 MB) | Parcels, acreage, businesses, rent-controlled units, demographics, ownership fragmentation, historic resources per corridor. The baseline. |
| May 1, 2025 | Community Workshop #1 (virtual, ~350 participants) — presentation, summary, video | First public framing. |
| Aug 18, 2025 | Alternatives Report | Alt #1 / Alt #2 heights, 1,100–1,780 unit range, construction-type economics ("nine-story high-rises are generally the least feasible"; 4–8 stories the sweet spot; "few rental projects in Berkeley are feasible in the current market"). |
| Aug 20–27, 2025 | Workshop #2 by corridor (~310 in person); boards; summary | Corridor-specific reaction. |
| Sep 17, 2025 | Planning Commission study session — presentation, staff report (26 MB), draft minutes | The single best document: alternatives, capacity by corridor, redevelopment-potential shares (Solano 63%, N. Shattuck 37%, College 22%), step-back options, survey results to date, corridor demographics, team roster, timeline. |
| Sep 20, 2025 | Pop-up events summary | — |
| Oct 10, 2025 | Online survey results (~830 respondents) | "Keep existing" led on all three corridors but never had a majority; respondents skewed 75% homeowner, 70% white, 30% over 65 — i.e., not the corridors' renter populations. |
| Nov 6, 2025 | Council work session — presentation; testimony | Council reviewed alternatives and, per Berkeleyside, was "undeterred" by the backlash. |
| Feb 4, 2026 | Planning Commission #2 — presentations, late correspondence (27 MB of letters) | The pushback peak. |
| Mar 4, 2026 | Ad Hoc Committee memo; PC directs staff to a height-to-street-width rule (0.75 × street width) applied only to "opportunity sites" | The pivot from corridor-wide upzoning to spot-zoning larger parcels (banks, supermarkets, parking lots, post office). Capacity drops ~12–13%. |
| May 6, 2026 | Staff report, presentation, late correspondence | Option 1A (map-based sites, 1,518 units) vs 1B (criteria-based, 1,545–1,723). PC recommended to Council 6–2 (Daily Cal). Named opportunity parcels: Andronico's lots (Solano), Elmwood Post Office and Wells Fargo lots (College). |
| May 7 / June 2026 | Landmarks Preservation Commission — Elmwood historic district application (LMIN2026-0001, 28 properties, College between Russell and Webster); continued on a 3–3 split | A parallel track that could remove College Avenue parcels from play. Watch it. |
| "Mid-2026" → ? | Council first reading, EIR addendum, ODS | Not yet scheduled as of this writing. This is the decision point. |
Who decides, who advises, who is pushing, and who actually holds the land. Roles from public documents; no private affiliations are asserted.
| Seat | Member | Corridor stake |
|---|---|---|
| Mayor | Adena Ishii | Sets agenda timing; Housing Element compliance is a citywide liability. |
| D1 | Rashi Kesarwani | San Pablo / Gilman; not a Corridors-project district. Interviewed as a stakeholder per 48 Hills. |
| D2 | Terry Taplin | San Pablo Avenue Specific Plan champion (West Berkeley). |
| D3 | Ben Bartlett | Adeline / Ashby BART. |
| D4 | Igor Tregub | Downtown / Downtown BART (SB 79). Appeared with Save Berkeley Shops per Daily Cal. |
| D5 | Shoshana O'Keefe | Solano Avenue. Appeared with Save Berkeley Shops per Daily Cal. |
| D6 | Brent Blackaby | North Shattuck (with parts in D5); North Berkeley BART. |
| D7 | Cecilia Lunaparra | Southside / Telegraph — AB 893 zone; the local precedent for what 8–12 stories does to a commercial street. |
| D8 | Mark Humbert | College Avenue / Elmwood. Has published his own Corridors FAQ (markhumbert.com); appeared with Save Berkeley Shops per Daily Cal. |
Emily Marthinsen (chair; author of the Apr 2026 ODS memo), Savlan Hauser, Jeff Vincent, Blaine Merker, Christina Oatfield, Charles Kahn (participated in developer stakeholder meetings per 48 Hills), Angela Wang, Alfred Twu, Darrell Owens (also writes the pro-housing Discourse Lounge newsletter in a personal capacity). An Ad Hoc Committee on Corridor Upzoning authored the March 4 memo that produced the street-width / opportunity-sites pivot; its membership is not named in the minutes. High
Jordan Klein (Director, Planning & Development) · Anne Hersch (Land Use Planning Manager) · Justin Horner (Principal Planner; PC Secretary; also the Middle Housing contact) · Uttara Ramakrishnan (Project Manager) · Faye Messner (PC Clerk). Contact: corridors@berkeleyca.gov. High
Raimi + Associates (lead; wrote Existing Conditions and Alternatives) · Plan to Place (engagement; Dave Javid) · Yes Community Architects (massing/ODS) · Strategic Economics (feasibility) · Rincon Consultants (CEQA) · Kittelson & Associates (transportation). High
HCD Housing Accountability Unit (certified the Housing Element; can decertify if Program 27 slips) · Landmarks Preservation Commission (Elmwood historic-district track: Finacom, Orbuch, Schwartz vs. Greene, Montilla, Turner on the May 7 split; Crandall absent). High
| Who | Why they matter here | |
|---|---|---|
| Owners of the named opportunity parcels: Andronico's (Solano; two sites flagged "special conditions"), Elmwood Post Office and Wells Fargo lots (College), large corner/parking parcels on N. Shattuck (Safeway 1400 Shattuck, CVS 1451 Shattuck, "derelict BofA," Books Inc./Coldwell Banker block cited in letters) | Under Option 1A the entire unit count depends on a few dozen parcels. Whether those owners sell, ground-lease, or sit is the forecast. | High |
| Patrick Kennedy / Panoramic Interests | Most prolific small-site builder on Berkeley corridors (2555 College, 2712 Telegraph, 1752 Shattuck, 2109 Virginia, 1367 University). Reportedly told the City the corridor plan "wasn't worth the backlash" (Owens). Interviewed as a stakeholder (Bronstein). | Moderate |
| David Trachtenberg, Kevin Gordon | Architect / development stakeholders interviewed by the consultant team. | Moderate |
| Studio KDA, Riaz Capital, Laconia, Core Spaces, Landmark, Gilbane, Insight Housing / Pyatok (1700 Sacramento) | The firms behind the Downtown / Southside / BART towers — the reference class for "what Berkeley builds when it upzones." | High |
| Solano Avenue Association / Business Improvement District; North Shattuck Association; Elmwood BID | Merchant organizations that hold the BID assessments and will be the vehicle for any "business continuity" mitigation. Solano BID discussed corridors upzoning July 21, 2026. | Moderate |
Each of these is answerable by a specific person or document, and none has been answered on the public record. Asking them is how a resident moves the debate off slogans.
Nobody can forecast a city. But the direction is more legible than it looks, because the forces are slow, documented, and mostly already set. What follows is a reading of the record, not a prediction — and the confidence pills matter more here than anywhere else on the site.
| Force | What the record says | Horizon | |
|---|---|---|---|
| State preemption keeps ratcheting | 100+ state housing laws since ~2017; SB 79 and AB 893 took effect in 2026; courts keep siding with the state (HAA cases). Each RHNA cycle (next: 2031–2039) resets the target, and every cycle so far has gone up. The trajectory is toward the City controlling design and the State controlling quantity. | Continuous | High |
| UC Berkeley grows and houses more of itself | 46,000+ students (fall 2025); LRDP target ~51,000 by 2030 (Hammargren citing UC); 4,700+ new campus beds opening 2027–28 plus up to 2,000 more under review; two-year housing guarantee for freshmen from fall 2026. Southside and the AB 893 half-mile become a denser student district; pressure on older flats in the rest of the city eases at the margin. | 10 yrs | Moderate |
| Three BART sites become neighborhoods | North Berkeley (739 homes, 381 affordable, application filed Feb 2024), Ashby West (developer selected July 2025), Ashby East (RFP due July 2026). Roughly 2,400 units, expandable toward ~5,000 with SB 79 around the stations. These are the largest single changes on the map and are already in motion. | 10–15 yrs | High |
| Downtown keeps going vertical | Seven approved or proposed towers of 200–317 ft (1950 Shattuck, 2115 Kittredge, 2128 Oxford, 2200 Bancroft, 2190 Shattuck, 2029 University, 2425 Durant). The 2012 Downtown Plan plus SB 79 around Downtown BART make this the permanent high-rise district. Whether they finish depends on financing, not zoning (see 2065 Kittredge, unfinished). | 10–20 yrs | High |
| The hills and most R-1 blocks barely change | Middle Housing allows small-plexes, but SB 9 produced 5 applications in Berkeley in its first year and Portland's upzoned parcels developed at 5% over 15 years. Expect ADUs and the occasional fourplex, not a transformed streetscape. | 40 yrs | High |
| The corridors change parcel by parcel, slowly | Option 1A depends on a few dozen large parcels. Brisbane's 20-year record: ~2% of zoned capacity taken up per 5-year window. Berkeley's Elmwood added 58 net homes since 1980, N. Shattuck 35, Solano 0 (Owens). The realistic 10-year picture is a handful of 4–6 story buildings on former parking lots and bank sites, each a local controversy. | 10–20 yrs | Moderate |
| Population and demographics | ~124,000 residents (2020), day population ~150,000; 50% white, 20% Asian, 14% Latino, 8% Black; Black population down from ~27,000 (1970) to under 13,500. West and South Berkeley were the displacement hot spots of 2009–19 (median rent +$1,814 in West Berkeley vs +$600 citywide, AEMP). Upzoning the wealthy corridors is the City's stated attempt to shift growth pressure away from those neighborhoods; whether it does is unmeasured. | 20–40 yrs | Moderate |
| Fiscal | The structural deficit is the constraint on everything else. Built units reset Prop 13 bases and are the only organic revenue growth above ~2%/yr; entitlements that sit unbuilt add nothing. A city that zones for 10,000 units and builds 2,000 gets the political cost without the tax base. | Continuous | High |
10 years (2036). Downtown and Southside unmistakably taller — a cluster of 20–30 story buildings around Downtown BART, 8–12 story blocks on Telegraph and Bancroft, most of them student-heavy. Three BART-lot neighborhoods under construction or newly occupied. Two to six new mid-rise buildings across the three corridors, probably on the Andronico's, post office, bank and supermarket lots; most storefronts unchanged. San Pablo Avenue visibly taller at a few nodes (75 ft base). ADUs in a large share of backyards. Hills unchanged. Moderate
20 years (2046). Two more RHNA cycles have passed, each with a higher number and fewer local exemptions. The corridors have filled in further where parcels were large; College Avenue still reads as a two-to-four story street with a few taller punctuations, unless the historic district froze it. Downtown's skyline is the East Bay's second after Oakland. Transit frequency, not zoning, is the binding constraint on further SB 79-type upzoning. Low
40 years (2066). Beyond any honest forecast. The one structural bet: the pattern of "density on corridors and transit, low-rise between" is baked into state law, the General Plan successor, and every capital investment since 2012, and it would take a political reversal at the state level to change it. Whether Berkeley is more or less affordable in 2066 depends on regional supply, not on what happens to the Elmwood 7-Eleven lot. Low