Extra

Berkeley Together’s opinon piece in the Berkeley Daily Planet (“Why we oppose SB 9 [Senate Bill 9]”, in the May 30 edition) opposes a state bill that would blindly upzone most residential parcels throughout California, with effectively no concern for site-specific concerns. A few of Berkeley Together’s key points can be summarized this way: 

• They write in support of a resolution by Council members Harrison and Wengraf to oppose SB 9.
• SB 9 doesn’t merely end single family zoning - rather, it removes local hearings or review for up to six units on nearly any residential parcel in Berkeley. Such projects, even where they violate several important objective provisions of local zoning code, will have to be approved with no input from residents affected. If a subdivision is permitted, up to 12 units can be built on parcels of less than the typical 3500-4000 square feet found throughout the Berkeley flats and foothills.
• SB 9 doesn’t address affordability, because it creates incentive for only market rate housing. The economic rationale given for the bill is a form of trickle down economics, which has a long history of never working. Even President Biden has spoken against “trickle down” theories in general.
• SB 9’s blind upzoning and pre-emption of local review means the bill’s protections against wildfire are inadequate for Berkeley.
• The bill’s entitlements will lead to the destruction of greenspace and urban trees.

To all of this, California YIMBY employee and YIMBY celebrity Darrell Owens replies in this issue with an extended argument that, on the contrary, Joe Biden calls for an end to single-family housing zoning. Yes, and?!? You mean the President of the United States has taken inconsistent and hypocritical stances on some things? Quelle surprise. 

Owens rather gleefully recites how many big name Republicans use Democratic Party blanket upzoning proposals to encourage homeowners to vote against them, citing Donald Trump, Tucker Calson (cited twice!), and unnamed “Fox News Pundits”. 

He reassures readers that he is not accusing Berkeley Together of being Republicans (suppose some them are? then what?). He is merely “correcting the record” by comparing Berkeley Together to some vile, extreme, right wing folks. 

Biden does support upzoning single family zoning areas, Owens assures us, even though Berkeley Together never said otherwise. Berkeley Together came out not against upzoning, but in opposition to blind, blanket, contextually insensitive forced upzoning and pre-emption of local review and discretion, especially that blind upzoning that allows obviously ridiculously large projects on tiny parcels by right. 

This is, in my experience, typical of YIMBY discourse: leveling ad hominem attacks, failing to engage or even notice their critics’ arguments, appealing to the basest stereotypes and polarizations. These are some of the same characters who knock ever so politely on your door to campaign for Council members Droste, Kesarwani, Robinson, and Taplin (and perhaps Mayor Arreguín next) but then go on line and call many of their critics proto-eugenicists whose agenda is global and racialized population control, and greedy speculators who poison the market for decent people. (Scapegoating some outgroup for the inequities reliably produced in capitalist society has a long and murderous history. If we’re worried about what political faction is “proto-fascist”, YIMBYs should be on our radar.) 

Owens concludes with a few sentences rehearsing the pseudo-scientific arguments and how-to-lie-with-statistics typical of YIMBYs. 

For example, he mentions that between 2010 and 2020, Berkeley’s housing supply grew at slightly less than half the rate of population growth. Yet that seems appropriate: In 2010, Berkeley averaged 2.45 persons per household. In 2020, Berkeley averaged 2.39 persons per household. This is not to say that lower income people have not resorted to greater household crowding - many observably have. The distribution of housing, like the distribution of incomes, is more inequitable than ever. That is not a “housing shortage”, however - it is the harsh consequence of a changing demand for various kinds of labor playing out in a society where wage slaves are pushed around if they lack the particular skills suddenly in higher demand. 

Similarly, Owens makes unfounded claims that there is “unanimous evidence” (whatever that means) of a housing shortage. The evidence he cites is, of all things, a Wikipedia article - one of many that appeared with a YIMBY slant at around the same time. The Wikipedia Quality Assurance team give it a “C” grade, meaning that while it is substantial, it “is still missing important content or contains much irrelevant material. The article should have some reference to reliable sources, but may still have significant problems or require substantial cleanup.” And so, “unanimous evidence” is perhaps not the best description. 

As appalling as is the anti-social and pseudo-scientific rhetoric of YIMBYs - especially those who get paychecks from large capitalist firms and investors - even more distressing is how five members of Berkeley City Council have fully embraced that logic and argumentation - as is the fashion in the Democrat Party these days. 

Our own Mayor Arreguín recently appeared on the NBC Nightly News to recite a cartoonish and racebaiting history of zoning in Berkeley (it’s rather more complicated than the YIMBY narrative would have it). Council member Droste somewhat notoriously tried to placate YIMBY critics with rhetoric that boiled down to saying “We’re not accusing you of being racists but….”. Council members Kesarwani, Robinson, and Taplin provide the other three voices in this five member council majority, all of whom engage about as well with critics as Owens has done. 

Whether those Berkeley elected officials are sincere or cynical in their embrace of YIMBY hardly matters. Several of them are rewarded with significant campaign support by real estate finance corporations and big money developers. The same is true at the state and national levels. 

This is not a rational approach to planning, especially with the urgent climate emergency upon us (did I mention, YIMBYs greenwash with pseudo-science too)? We can and must do better than politicians like these.