In another heated Richmond City Council meeting, the Richmond City Council on May 17, 2022, voted not to approve the proposed sale of Point Molate to a developer who, according to the city's attorneys, has failed repeatedly to comply with its numerous obligations to the city related to Point Molate. -more-

YIMBY-in-chief, State Senator Scott Wiener, wants to eliminate through legislation California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review for student housing projects statewide. Communities that host UC campuses have little power to hem in UC excesses except with the CEQA process, which only asks that environmental impacts be assessed in an open, transparent process. Because UC is exempt from municipal zoning and taxes and has well-funded armies of lawyers and public relations flacks to push its expansion plans, this is the only way the public can match UC’s nearly unlimited power. YIMBY allies of UC are similarly well-funded by real estate and development corporations, many of them out-of-state, that hope to profit from UC construction projects. One of them, publicly-traded American Campus Communities, the nation's largest developer, owner and manager of student housing, was just purchased by Blackstone, one of the largest private equity firms, and will go private. -more-

On Thursday June 2, the Berkeley City Council will be voting both on zoning, and on what they want in a Joint Vision and Priorities (JVP) Document, for both the Ashby and North Berkeley BART stations. This JVP document will help guide the development process from developer selection through construction.

I would encourage people who want to see more affordable housing built in Berkeley to write to the City Council soon, before minds are made up, to urge them to do two things:

First, the Council should support a JVP that calls for 100% below market affordable housing to be developed in phases at both BART stations. Future Requests for Qualifications (RFQs) should make clear that the developers sought for the projects are those who are experienced at building projects where 100% of the units are below market affordable units. The housing built should be affordable to households whose incomes range from extremely low income (30% of Area Median Income and below) to Low income (up to 80% of Area Median Income)

The City Council should reject the alternative approach of selecting, via the RFQ process, market rate developer-led teams to develop each site, with a publicly funded non-profit developer in a junior partner role, allowed to develop only a small portion of each site. The work of the Unity Council in the development of Fruitvale BART station should be taken as a model of how affordable housing can be developed at a BART station. Expensive market rate high-rises, such as the one found at MacArthur BART, are not what Berkeley needs.

Secondly, the City Council should adopt the City staff zoning recommendation and set a maximum height of seven stories at both stations, a height appropriate for affordable housing.

You can send e-mail to the Council at council@cityofberkeley.info

Implement the Adeline Corridor Plan Goal

The Adeline Corridor Plan set a goal of “100% deed-restricted affordable housing” at Ashby BART with priority given for housing affordable to very low and extremely low income households. It also has as a goal that at least 50% of all new housing in the plan area built over the 20 year life of the plan should be income restricted affordable housing. This latter goal has no chance of being achieved unless all the housing built at Ashby BART is below market affordable housing, since market rate developers provide typically no more than 10% below market units, the number needed to qualify for the state density bonus. The City Council should respect the goals of the Adeline Corridor Plan, which was the product of extensive community input over a period of more than five years.

To provide some context for why affordable housing is needed in the BART station areas, we can look at the situation of those living in those areas. Median income of tenant households in South Berkeley near Ashby BART fall within the very low and low income range according to estimates from the most recent Bureau of the Census American Community Survey data for four South Berkeley Census tracts (which together include the area from MLK Jr Way to San Pablo between Dwight Way and the Oakland border). Half of all tenant households in this area have incomes of $50,000 or less. For a 3 person household, the 2021 income limit for a very low income family of 3 is $61,650; that is 50% of the Area Median Income (AMI) for that size of household. -more-

A crime wave is a political concept. It has no objective character. When a political institution like a city government, or a police department, wants to deflect a reform effort, it will pull stories about crime and crime waves out of the hamper and put them in the headlines to scare people. “You see?” they say, “You need us for protection.” -more-

Dear Jagjit Singh: -more-

Palestinians are traumatized over the death of Palestinian American Al Jazeera reporter, Shireen Abu Akleh, after she was fatally shot in the head by an Israeli sniper while covering an Israeli military raid on a Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. At the time of her death, she was wearing a helmet and a vest marked “PRESS.” Ali al-Samudi, another Palestinian journalist, was wounded alongside Abu Akleh. -more-

It was exactly one year ago that I wrote in my Activist’s Diary about how rapidly the earth was warming, that the degree of global warming was 0.8°C in 2018 and edging to 1.2°C. On Monday, May 9, 2022 the World Meteorological Organization announced a new warning https://tinyurl.com/2ww4xw27. Steve Newman summarized it in Earthweek this way, “The U.N. weather agency warns that there is now a 50% chance the world will warm past the 1.5°C goal at least briefly by 2026.” This warning is for NOW, not decades in the future.

Remember when lowering CO2 to 350 ppm was a thing? Today atmospheric CO2 was 421.84 ppm. The climate emergency is here. And, yes, it is hard to grasp the seriousness of it with a beautiful weekend like the one we just completed in Berkeley. Catastrophic climate-accelerated weather events leave recent memory when the sky is blue and the air is fresh. How easy it is to push the fires, drought and heat waves out of our thinking when they happen somewhere else and everything looks so normal when we open the door, but we are in a climate crisis. We are starting the summer dry season with snowpack at 35% of normal. Last week I wrote about the California Coastal Commission instructing Cambria and Los Oso to halt all new water-using development.

The lone agenda item at Monday’s Health, Life Enrichment, Equity and Community Committee was the proposed Fair Work Week Ordinance. It covers requiring things like advance posting of work schedules, overtime when there is less than 11 hours between work shifts, pay for cancellation and more, the kinds of conditions and protections workers at the lower rungs of the pay scale need. Businesses were well represented among the fifteen speakers. As one might expect they were less than enthused. No action was taken and it was continued to the next meeting. -more-

On May 9th, Vladimir Putin made a much-anticipated speech to the Russian people (https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/nato-nazis-and-the-motherland-putin-s-full-victory-day-speech-1.10787657 ). Interspersed with familiar tropes, was a softer Putin message.

1.Narrowed Focus: Rather than focus on annexing all of Ukraine, Putin now seems intent on solidifying control of the Donbas region; that is, the eastern-most provinces of Ukraine: Donetsk and Luhansk. In addition, Putin wants to build a land bridge between Crimea and Donbas: secure Kherson and Melitopol and the surrounding territory.

Putin observed, "Donbass militia alongside with the Russian Army are fighting on their land today... I am addressing our Armed Forces and Donbass militia. You are fighting for our Motherland, its future, so that nobody forgets the lessons of World War II." -more-

At what point was the term "reintegration" dropped from the mental health vocabulary? Furthermore, at what point did it become a major achievement rather than the expected norm for a mental health consumer not to be incarcerated or homeless--or for it to be an accomplishment to live into one's sixth decade? At what point did it become ingrained into people's minds that a mentally ill person can't have a professional career or a decent relationship? -more-

In another example of deja vu happening all over again, on May 14, 2022, at least ten mostly Black people were killed and three wounded outside and inside a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, NY. The supermarket is in a predominately Black neighborhood. The shooter — an 18-year old white male — was taken into custody. -more-

Worth Noting:

The week starts with the second day of the Green Home tour Sunday morning at 10 am and a total lunar eclipse of the moon starting at 7:27 pm if the clouds cooperate and part.

Monday morning at 10:30 am the Council Public safety Committee takes up enforcing parking in fire zones ahead of the special meeting on wildfire preparedness on Thursday at 7:30 pm.

Wednesday the Commission on Aging takes up safe streets and TOPA at 1:30, FITES continues working on a plastic bag ordinance at 2:30 pm. Wednesday evening Update on Alta Bates is item 9 at the HWCAC meeting. The Commission on Labor has two agenda items on the Fair Work Week.

Thursday is the most important meeting day starts with the Budget Committee at 9 am. Review of items for consideration in the 2023 & 2024 biennial budget continues. The department presentations to the Budget Committee have been completed. The requests from councilmembers and commissions are up for discussion. Thursday evening at the Transportation Commissions at 7 pm is the presentation of GoBerkeley. GoBerkeley is the metered parking pilots in residential neighborhoods that is being met with considerable objections. The DRC at 7 pm will conduct a preliminary design review of the R&D project in west Berkeley which comes with a separate 415 auto space parking garage. The annual wildfire preparedness meeting sponsored by Councilmembers Hahn and Wengraf starts at 7:30 pm. Use the link to pre-register.



The May 24th city council agenda is available for comment. https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas



You can participate in the bike plan survey at https://berkeleybikeplan.altaplanning.cloud/#/survey The Healthy Streets Program was closing down streets to through traffic during the height of the pandemic.



Sunday, May 15, 2022

East Bay Green Home Tour at 10 am – 1 pm

Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/east-bay-green-home-tour-2022-tickets-219623960177

Jumpstart your home electrification journey, free online tours May 14 & 15

https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/news/virtual-green-home-tours-reduce-energy-increase-sustainability-protect



The Eclipse of the Moon starts at 7:27 p.m. PDT Sunday and the total eclipse starts at 8:29 p.m. PDT. The face of the moon will get gradually darker until totality peaks at 9:11 p.m.

https://www.timeanddate.com/news/astronomy/prime-time-eclipse

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