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.

On Solano, College, and North Shattuck outside the state's BART zone, I would vote against the added heights. On San Pablo I support seven stories, which is what the plan before Council proposes.

Raising the base height does not by itself exempt a building from affordable housing. Berkeley's 20% requirement still applies, and a developer can meet it on site or by paying the in-lieu fee. What changes is this: a builder who can reach seven stories without the state density bonus no longer has to put the bonus's affordable units on site. The City's own San Pablo appendix says so. Before any vote, the City should publish how many on-site affordable units that trade costs on each corridor.

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. Council has not voted yet; the public hearing is September 29. I support the plan and its seven stories. The community's recommendations for wider sidewalks, street trees, lighting, crossings and side-street plazas are in the plan, but as incentives with no cost estimate and no one named to pay. I would keep the 16-foot sidewalk the Planning Commission added in June, attach a dollar figure and a funding source to the street work before adoption, vote separately on repealing the West Berkeley Plan and the 2004 San Pablo improvements plan, and require the annual reports to count plazas, sidewalk and trees against targets set in advance.

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?

On San Pablo, yes. State law (AB 2011) already allows housing by right there, and a local plan is how Berkeley keeps its own design standards attached. On Solano, College and North Shattuck outside the BART zone, no. Berkeley has permitted about 2,117 of the 8,934 homes the state assigns it for 2023–2031, so zoned capacity is not the thing holding housing back.

On a maximum that includes the density bonus: no council member can honestly promise one. State law requires the City to waive any height limit that would block a qualifying bonus project. In 2025 the City approved 2029 University at 23 stories on a 75-foot base. What Council controls is the base height and the design standards, and the standards count only if they are adopted before applications arrive. My base heights are seven stories on San Pablo and the current limits on the other three.

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?

The research supports a modest claim. When new buildings open, nearby rents tend to drift down, 1–2% in San Francisco and 5–7% across eleven cities. That is real and far too small to make Berkeley affordable for a low-income household. Housing at those incomes gets built only with public subsidy.

So I would put the money where it buys the most homes at the lowest incomes, and measure it. For every affordable project the City funds (Housing Trust Fund, Measure O bond, fee revenue), publish the cost per unit, the income levels served, and the time from funding to move-in, then fund what delivers. Tax-credit housing already restricts households made up entirely of full-time students, so prioritizing those projects serves families, seniors and workers directly.

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

Berkeley already allows it (BMC 23.328). Whether to keep it depends on numbers the City should publish: how many units the fee money has built, at what incomes, and how fast, compared with on-site units. Fee money combined with tax credits often buys more homes at deeper affordability. On-site units arrive with the building and keep blocks mixed-income.

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?

I favor it. Scarcity is what pushes people out of Berkeley, and the small-lot subdivision path lets people buy homes on lots that already exist.

My objection is to how it is being checked. Council ordered a count of middle housing applications and units by April 1, 2026. An off-agenda staff memo moved it to 2027 and dropped one of the four fields, with no council vote. Going past state law is reasonable when it comes with a target and a report. The Housing Element review assumed about 770 more homes from middle housing in the single-family districts; publish the count against that number every year. I could not verify the claim that the ordinance could double Berkeley's population.

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?

In April 2026 Council raised the citizen-petition threshold from 50 to 200 signatures and added timing rules so that a landmark application filed after a housing application does not stop it; state law (SB 330) already requires much of the second part. I would not reverse either change. Two hundred signatures is a modest bar in a city of 120,000. What I would ask for is the record: every landmark petition since 2015, its outcome, and whether a housing project was pending on the site. That tells us how often the process protected real heritage and how often it was used to delay housing.

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.

I would have voted no on the Hopkins bike lanes and yes to comparing Ada and Rose first. The July 28 action was a referral to design. Funding and the construction contract are separate council votes still ahead. I would support bringing back the Ada/Rose comparison, a firm cost range, an accessibility review for all ages and abilities, and community meetings before either of those votes. Whether that takes a rescission or a condition on the funding vote is a procedural question; the result I want is the comparison first.

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 to repaving as soon as it can be funded. My preference is repaving with the pedestrian improvements, painted bike lanes and funded traffic enforcement: cheaper, deliverable sooner, and the curb stays available.

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?

A kid can walk (or bike) to school and a senior can walk to the store on sidewalks in good repair. The parks are kept up, the corner shops survive, and people of every age and income can afford to stay. And the City says what it will deliver, by when, and then reports whether it did. I have volunteered at James Kenney Park for years. Whether a place is somewhere people gather or somewhere they avoid comes down mostly to upkeep that someone committed to and kept doing.