This Tuesday, March 26th, Berkeley City Council will vote on a demolition ordinance. The goal of the ordinance is to codify when existing buildings can be demolished and turned into larger apartment buildings.

This ordinance is key to both the Southside upzoning that council recently passed and the upcoming Missing Middle legislation. Both initiatives seek to densify Berkeley while replacing our aging housing stock. The demolition ordinance as written does a good job of preventing predatory evictions and focusing demolitions on owner occupied homes.

However, it currently requires all demolished residential units be replaced 1:1 by below market rate units. While it’s important to preserve affordability, this requirement will make it impossible to build the mid-size apartment buildings that are the biggest source of new units.

Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani has introduced a supplemental to the ordinance that fixes this imbalance and will increase the number of new homes that actually get built. It will clear the way for immediate approvals of new housing near UC campus and will use standard, state-wide, definitions of which housing units need to be replaced.

It’s important that the City Council hears from us and passes this ordinance with Councilmember Kesarwani’s amendment.