Over the past decade, our neighborhoods have become the victim of a new wave of displacement, sold to us through the so-called “housing crisis.” Rising costs and manipulated markets have created a global push to commodify housing, which is gentrifying neighborhoods, pushing out homeowners and destroying communities while lining the pockets of real estate corporations, housing industries and development.
Politicians have become complicit in creating the irresponsible over-densification of our neighborhoods through legislation from our Senate and Assembly, which is being exacerbated by current City Council members who are doubling down on the current levels of upzoning. This is threatening small businesses and posing a detriment to the stability of our neighborhoods without providing the affordable and accessible housing that we need.
One of the biggest issues and conflicts of interest is that developers set their own unit values when procuring their loans, which locks in the rental price at an unaffordable market rate that cannot be lowered; thus, units either remain vacant, become dormitories or only allow access to high-income tenants who can afford high cost rents.
In order to create truly affordable housing, we must put regulations in place that stop the inflation of market rates and end density bonuses and extractive giveaways to developers. We must require steep community benefits working with impact investment partners who want to change the landscape of investment by uplifting our communities. We must challenge state policies that put unjust, unsustainable and environmentally unsafe demands on the construction of housing, driven by speculation and predatory capitalism. Housing is a human right, not a commodity.
Through my work in the community and as a Housing Advisory Commission representative, I worked with others to create tenant protections and bring back displaced neighbors through the creation of Berkeley’s housing preference policy. However, this is only one small step. We have to do more.
Support for small sites is another step that Berkeley has taken to address access and availability to housing. If we combine these efforts with the implementation of a rent freeze, the repeal of the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act and a re-imagining of how we create and define “affordable” in the first place, we can reshape how our housing policies are being confined by the current status quo.
Small businesses are the heart of our neighborhoods. My connection to Elmwood and other small business districts that are under threat, such as North Shattuck and Solano, span not only my lifetime of growing up in Berkeley, but also my children’s.
Fallout from the building of massively dense developments and the elimination of parking is taking away customer access to our beloved small businesses owners, many of which we have already closed. Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY) and climate lobbies have joined forces to demonize responsible growth and use double talk to disguise their agendas as grounded in equity and accessibility when, in fact, they’re funnelling money, extracting assets and mining resources while causing displacement and blight in thriving neighborhood spaces.
Berkeley is too small for obvious tactics like these to undermine its functionality. So how do we keep getting a City Council whose majority somehow keeps selling us out? It’s because Berkeley has permitted an insidious political culture, where electeds are influenced to ignore their personal wisdom and power and succumb to the poison of political “negotiating” instead of standing firm in their core values and moral obligation to do right by all residents.
We must invest in community services, not over-policing and intrusive surveillance, particularly of our minority residents because black and brown lives do matter as much as any others; provide shelter, housing stability and social services, including mental health and workforce training; and cut the overspending on police, which does not necessarily equal a decrease in crime.
We must re-address emergency response time and the effects of “road calming” obstructions to emergency vehicles, as well as “equitable safe streets” and “quick build” designs, which are removing parking for small businesses and access to elders and disabled residents.
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