Our Berkeley City Council no longer represents us. Monied interests are favored — Over the objections of hundreds of engaged residents, the University, tech, hedge funds and developers are the winners of City Council actions at the expense of our small businesses and those who live here.
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“We are the City Council. We don’t listen. We don’t have to.”
Prior to the passage of the Middle Housing Ordinance (MHO), Build a Better Berkeley submitted to the City Council a petition signed by over 1200 residents, asking the Council to “reject the current measure and to initiate a Middle Housing planning process that maximizes equity, livability, and accountability, with transparency and full public participation in town hall meetings city-wide”. Council proceeded to pass the MHO; neither the petition nor the 1200 residents who signed it were ever mentioned by any council member during any of their public discussions.
We have reviewed almost 500 of the emails sent in by residents before the “first reading” of the ordinance, and they were overwhelmingly against passing the ordinance in its current form and without citywide outreach and open discussion.
Why is the City Council so against even acknowledging that there is opposition to what they do? Because they don’t have to. They can count on the support of groups like California Yimby, Developers, and Big Tech.
Listen as CM Lunaparra (D7) relates in the June 26, 2025 city council meeting (starting at 39.15 minutes in the original recording) that a letter received by “local Berkeley neighbors, architects and planners” was the basis for proposing a large increase in housing density (number of dwelling units per acre) in Berkeley. According to Lunaparra this letter was "the framework under which we wrote our supplemental and landed on 90 dwelling units/acre as the best option for our Missing Middle changes..." Lunaparra further stated that "This same letter, mentioned earlier, authored by a local architect…suggested that we use a density standard of 90 dwelling units/acre", and that "in conversations with local architects…we landed on 90 dwelling units/acre."
And why should Councilmember Lunaparra base her changes to the City Code on the opinions of “local architects”, who are hardly disinterested parties since they are employed by developers, rather than even consider the expressed desires of the residents who may disagree with her.