The City maintains that the sweet spot for developers to build housing in Berkeley is 7 stories. Current zoning requires that buildings of 7 stories include on-site affordable units. Are you in favor of changing the existing zoning in the North Shattuck, Solano, San Pablo and College corridors to allow market rate 7-story buildings so they would not have to include any on-site affordable housing.

No.

City staff, along with paid consultants, spent several years formulating the San Pablo Avenue Specific Plan (SPASP), engaging with community members and encouraging them to offer their vision for the transformation of San Pablo Avenue. The resulting ideas and recommendations were entirely ignored by the city council. Would you support revisiting the community’s recommendations and incorporating these into whatever final SPASP the council proposes?

Yes. Community ideas and recommendations are consistently ignored by city staff, as well as a majority of the city council, which is why there is an active movement in the community to “flip” the council. Revisiting the community’s recommendations and incorporating them into the final SPASP is a must.

We have already rezoned to allow a doubling of the city population. Is it necessary to rezone commercial streets specifically for high-density housing to meet our housing goals? What is the maximum number of stories, including the density bonus, you believe preserves the sense of community and human interactions that currently exists in the North Shattuck, Solano, San Pablo, and College corridors?

It is not necessary to rezone commercial streets specifically for high-density housing to meet “our housing goals.” In fact, we should be taking immediate action to reverse the goals imposed on us by the state through the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). The process engaged in by ABAG to determine the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) was politically strategized through industry lobbying groups and politically-motivated relationships rather than through an analysis of actual housing needs and geographically-responsible growth.

At the very least, this analysis should not be based on a one-size-fits-all approach that bypasses a process with community engagement. That is a violation of the rights of our community to have a voice. It’s a 21st-century version of colonialism.

Council members assert that building market rate housing invariably will lower rents. Yet, as reported this April by the Emeryville Tattler, despite a massive building boom between 2020 and 2024, Emeryville has had a 16.3% year-over-year increase in one-bedroom rents, the largest in the Bay Area. Despite building a substantial amount of market rate housing, Berkeley’s rents are still far from affordable. How do you propose that Berkeley actually build affordable housing for truly low-income (non-student) residents?

Building market-rate housing does not necessarily lower rents. The reference to Emeryville’s report and the reality of Berkeley’s rents are proof of this. This faulty argument, used as a tool to justify massive building and upzoning of neighborhoods, is similar to convincing the community to believe in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” And, while surrounding rents are not decreasing, market-rate rents cannot decrease either, due in part to loan agreements and maximization of profit margins.

Organizing around the principle that “Housing is a Human Right” calls into question the commodification of housing developed by for-profit developers. We must address core issues and values overlooked by predatory capitalistic “norms” in which affordability is set up to fail.

Thus, the analysis for determining how to actually build affordable housing for truly low-income, non-student residents, and everyone in between, has yet to be fully explored. And it is obviously complicated by the structures that define the way the industry works, but as Einstein once said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Do you support proposals allowing developers to buy their way out of the requirement to build on-site affordable units in their developments?

No, I do not support proposals allowing developers to buy their way out of the requirement to build on-site affordable units. For one, they are given a sizable density bonus to capture an increase in assets while not actually providing any units of affordable housing. Additionally, the in-lieu fee doesn’t capture the value of the units not being built. The difference needed to make up that value gap relies on scarce and highly-coveted subsidies, which only pass the cost, whose value was given to the market-rate developer, onto the already structurally-constrained affordable housing industry.

In July 2025, the City Council passed a version of middle housing that went far beyond the state requirements and could potentially double the population of Berkeley, which is already one of the densest cities in California. Do you favor or oppose what the City Council has passed? Should the council continue to pass bills far in excess of what the state requires?

No, our city council should never pass bills in excess of state requirements and, in fact, should be pushing back against the state for potential violations of geographic public safety issues and unreasonable infrastructure burdens, not doubling down on industry-driven policies parading as moral obligations to the needs of our community.

The City Council has limited the ability of Berkeley residents to protect and landmark buildings for their historical, artistic and architectural heritage. Do you favor or oppose the changes that were made by the council?

Limiting the ability of residents to protect any historically meaningful landmarks is of vital importance. Preserving them, along with recovering the rich heritage of this area’s Indigenous peoples, which is often forgotten, is an obligation that we not only owe to them and ourselves, but also to future generations.

This is particularly true in light of the historical landmarks that have already been destroyed in South and West Berkeley, which spoke to the ingenuity, resilience and adaptability of the city’s long-marginalized nonwhite residents. It is a stark example of historical erasure, symbolic of colonization.

The current limitations imposed seem to be fueled by the same profit-driven mania that is used to justify “development,” accommodating investors to capture and extract wealth and assets for themselves, until they crash out the market and move on to something else. Time-worn tactics are repeating themselves. If we want to see change, we have to be the authors of change, but we will remain trapped as long as we continue to allow the systems that are in place to be the defining structures that we operate from.

Will you support a measure to rescind the July 2026 Council vote on Hopkins until a full complete street study, as required by the Bicycle Plan, is concluded? By necessity, it would fully consider budget costs, the possibility of paving with pedestrian improvements only, accessibility issues for all ages and abilities, alternative cycle routes such as Rose and Ada Streets, and include community input meetings.

Yes. This process is non-negotiable because it is an accountability and moral-requirement minimum to facilitate a responsible and ethical process.

The biggest safety hazard on Hopkins is its poor pavement condition. Will you support repaving Hopkins now, as originally proposed, with only the pedestrian and other safety improvements, since moving quickly would help avoid further deterioration and the higher costs that come with delay?

Yes.

Critics of current developments have suggested that the City Council consider the concept of a “livable city” as one that honors the environment, human scale buildings, personal relationships centered around community gathering places, safety, and embraces all ages. What is your concept of a livable city?

Over the past decade, I have worked in and with my community making similar, but more culturally-inclusive, recommendations directly to the heads of the planning and economic development departments, as well as to the city manager and city council members. I have been advocating and modeling the inclusion of these values in my service on the Housing Advisory Commission and the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board.

Additionally, we included reparations for dispossessed black and brown Berkeleyans, a right to return for those who have been displaced and the right to stay for those who are under threat. The city council should not only consider this concept of a livable city, it also should be at the forefront of their work, representing ethical decision-making.

A livable city is an all-encompassing responsibility to account for every factor that affects our existence and quality of our lives. The current culture challenging us is out of balance with these values. I witness every day the ways in which it entraps us, whether through economic inequality, injustice, privilege, conflicting perceptions, complacent resignation, soul-sapping hopelessness, confusion and ignorance.

We have been given a challenging paradigm to overcome. My diverse life experiences, including union and community organizing, elected leadership, the multifaceted responsibilities of motherhood and family and senior advocacy, allow me to bring powerful, important perspectives and accountable agency for drastically-needed change to our city council and our beloved Berkeley.