48 Hills 23 June 2025
Berkeley’s Orwellian upzoning plan, by Zelda Bronstein
To make the General Plan conform with the Middle Housing plan, city staff have proposed amending the General Plan’s Citizen Participation Element. Purporting to improve and maximize citizen participation, the proposed amendment would eliminate public input in residential development projects, except in parts of the hills.

Berkeleyside 18 June 2025
”Berkeley may soon allow apartments on most lots in the flats. Here’s how the new zoning would work”, by Nico Savidge.
This article attempts to break down what’s in Berkeley’s “Middle Housing” proposal, as well as the arguments for and against it.
We feel that while informative, it both misleads the reader and leaves out critical information that would make clear the true effects of the rezoning proposal. See our response to the article here.

Marin Post 21 May 2025
“The Emperor's New Housing” by Michael Barnes asks 2 questions:
1) Is California’s housing affordability problem due to a lack of building, as suggested by the Wiener/YIMBY supply-side orthodoxy?
2) Can the state legislature and other elected leaders exercise enough control over the economics of private-sector housing development to reduce rents?
The answers to both questions are “No”.

48 Hills 30 April 2025
”Mayor Ishii and Berkeley’s ‘Missing Middle’”, by Zelda Bronstein, former chair of the Berkeley Planning Commission.
Get the inside scoop! Zelda Bronstein reports on the history of the Missing Middle Housing Proposal.

KQED 19 July 2024
”Berkeley, 1st City to Sanctify Single-Family Zoning, Considers Historic Reversal: Allowing Small Apartments”, by Erin Baldassari.
The article notes that “…the council will consider a proposal that Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín called ‘one of the largest up-zonings in California.’ It would go beyond what state officials allowed in a landmark 2021 law legalizing duplexes and instead permit small apartment buildings, no more than three stories high, that could range from as few as two large apartments to as many as 12 or more smaller ones depending on the size of the property.”
Please Note: This and many other articles have helped to spread an inaccurate revisionist view of Berkeley history regarding the origin of exclusionary single family zoning. Please see Toni Mester’s article for the facts.

Berkeley Daily Planet 1 July 2024
”Hearing on City of Berkeley Massive Up-Zoning Scheduled for Tuesday at 3:30”, by Nico Calavita, shows how the Middle Housing Proposal will have the opposite of the intended effect on “Equity” issues and will result in gentrification, as well as having other detrimental effects on open space and climate change. He urges Public Participation, and “Instead of adopting this middle housing ordinance, council should create mechanisms to widely publicize the proposal in ways that the general public can easily understand (especially density bonus law implications), including possible socioeconomic, equity and environmental impacts.”

Berkeley Daily Planet 14 March 2021
How (Not) to Plan a City, by Patrick Sheahan, architect and former member of the Berkeley Planning Commission and Zoning Adjustments Board.
Although published in 2021, this article by a former Berkeley Planning Commission member is still very topical, and clarifies the effect of the state density bonus law on fourplexes. It discusses how Cambridge, MA, a comparable city, went about adopting zoning changes which requires consideration of scale & context to mitigate detriment.

Berkeley Daily Planet 22 February 2021
Open Letter to the Berkeley City Council Re: Eliminating Single Family Residential Zoning, by Carrie Olson, President, Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.
Although published in 2021, the letter by the former President of BAHA is still very topical, given the City Council’s current intent to pass the Middle Housing Proposal.