Berkeley's Evolution On Housing
To understand and appreciate Adena Ishii's victory, it's important to understand how Berkeley got to this point and what the election really means vs. the bombastic headlines.
The big takeaway in Berkeley’s 2024 election(s), from Substacks to the S.F. Chronicle, has been that the “YIMBYs have won.” Berkeley, once the holy grail of NIMBYism, has elected an unapologetic pro-upzoning newcomer mayor over two longtime critics of housing development, a 100% pro-density housing council, and the success of an anti-car urbanist ballot referendum. Simplistically, this is true, but I want to delve into the complexity of the local situation so we can better appreciate what happened and better understand how to approach housing and development going forward.
Ten years ago, the city council was mostly composed of members skeptical or outright hostile to new housing and the idea that supply was a remedy to the housing crisis. In 2014, when I first went to a public meeting on housing and recommended that we build more, I was jeered, booed, and largely alone. Today, every member of Berkeley City Council won their elections explicitly in support of the ideas very few people promoted a decade ago — that the city must embrace market and publicly-subsidized housing construction, build up and not outwards and to densify transit corridors.
Mayor Jesse Arreguin, now headed to State Senate, is a microcosm of the city’s changes. In the early 2010s, councilmembers Sophie Hahn and Arreguin were chief opponents against the downtown plan which yielded all these new apartment homes. Despite revisionist claims that Arreguin betrayed his voter base by supporting new housing after his victory, Arreguin was NIMBY but slowly moving away until about 2019 or 2020 when he officially flipped. After his 2016 victory the council promptly killed a senior housing complex, saddled a housing tower with requirements intended to make it unfeasible, was lukewarm on mixed-income housing at the BART stations and voted down a quadplex in South Berkeley over lack of parking. Kate Harrison won her election and promptly tried to downzone duplexes out of West Berkeley and joined with the rest of the council in trying to landmark a view from an apartment building. This was just the culture back then, as longtime Berkeley reporter Frances Dinkelspiel remarked to me earlier this year how astonished she was recalling the old days and how much Berkeley now uncontroversially supports dense housing.
Arreguin and other council members didn’t begin to evolve on market-rate housing and density until about 2018. The YIMBY movement had blossomed and convinced many young families moving to Berkeley that new, dense housing was good, which led to the election of Rashi Kesarwani and the re-election of Lori Droste, who were opposed by Arreguin, Harrison and Hahn. Prominent studies published around the late 2010s showed that more housing reduced rents, and changed many minds in an over-educated town debating gentrification. The “More Student Housing Now” movement in 2019 was a major inflection point. UC students were dealing with a housing crunch that had reached its worst point in the city’s history, even worse than today. Because Cal kids are not eligible for subsidized homes and need either public dorms or market housing, and neither were being built at the time, they started to organize a massive rally to support a downtown apartment proposal in 2019, including a then-new council member Rigel Robinson. This is when Arreguin, himself a former student organizer, began to self-reflect and admitted in 2020 that he was starting to change his mind.
Fast-forward to the start of 2024: nobody could’ve predicted the election of the urbanist candidate Adena Ishii as Mayor, but in hindsight, the trajectory was there. The year began with the controversial closure of People’s Park for dorms and low-income housing, which led to Rigel Robinson quitting his bid for mayor and stepping away from politics (although the socialist, pro-upzoning urbanist Cecilia Lunaparra took his place). Councilmembers Kate Harrison and Sophie Hahn were veteran public servants on the city council running for mayor with huge name recognition. Urbanist voters spent most of the year struggling over who had blocked the least housing development between the two and trying to find someone to run for mayor without success. Most of the younger urbanists I knew split for Kate Harrison because she was pro-bike lanes (which also harmed Harrison among her pro-car, left-wing Green Party coalition [yes, non-American readers that’s a thing here]) and desired an anti-Gaza war resolution. Others I knew split for Hahn if those things didn’t matter to them or they were more liberal moderates and homeowners.
Then Adena Ishii from the League of Women Voters came on the scene. I had seen Ishii before at a pro-low-income housing bond measure rally, but she had no political prominence. When she announced her platform, I was surprised and thrilled. She was socially progressive in that she spoke at the council in favor of a Ceasefire resolution on the Gaza war or supported tenant’s rights. On housing policy, she blatantly said, often in unfriendly territory, that Berkeley should upzone for more housing to remedy the affordability crisis. She felt no pressure to conform to anti-growth progressive organizations, anti-Ceasefire groups, or realty organizations on tenant issues, which was a big appeal to voters. She ran on the idea that Berkeley could have a civil debate on these issues without the disruptions and resignations occurring at city hall, which most voters liked. I and most people I knew did not believe Ishii had a chance of winning, but it at least gave us a protest candidate.
But things changed: amid anti-Gaza war protests, Kate Harrison (who was pro-Ceasefire) abruptly left the city council for a variety of reasons that weren’t very clear to voters, but she still intended to run for Mayor. (I think Harrison was mad that Arreguin and Hahn did not put forward a Gaza Ceasefire resolution on the Agenda Committee, although it got mixed in with an anti-development rant she had written earlier initiated by a shouting match with Councilmember Taplin). When the special election to fill Harrison’s seat came, the two YIMBY-endorsed candidates placed first and second. The leftist and pro-single-family zoning candidate (yes, for my non-American readers, that’s a thing here) placed a distance third, and Harrison’s favored candidate placed last. That was the first indicator that the urbanist constituency was much larger than people thought. But I thought it was a fluke since turnout was low and residents were mad at Harrison for resigning from office for an unclear reason.
I knew after this that Kate Harrison would not win Mayor, but it convinced me that Sophie Hahn would win, not Adena Ishii. In my conversations with Harrison to try and find common ground, she said she now supports densifying Berkeley but that it should look better, have lots of trees and developers should have stronger affordability requirements and commercial tenant replacement. She still campaigned on the idea that Berkeley was “not holding accountable” insufficiently regulated apartment developments and the growth of the University of California. Her vocal support base mostly consisted of older left-wing residents who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s during the anti-growth, environmental movement and believe cities should be more pastoral, not “Manhattanized.”
In my conversation and polite debate with Sophie Hahn on allowing 2-3 story density in residential areas, she argued that most of Berkeley is a suburb first, not a dense urban city, and that if we’re going to change that, it should require much more public debate or referendum. Despite Sophie Hahn’s record and beliefs being very similar to Kate Harrison’s, she didn’t run on it. I believe Hahn read the tea leaves in the District 4 special election that Harrison was weak, and that she needed to give the younger families and residents who aren’t motivated by anti-development politics a reason to vote for her. This was the right call for Hahn, as Harrison had placed in a distant third on election day.
Hahn ran on her long experience in government, vaguely on crime issues in downtown and protecting at-risk fire zone communities from population densification. As a resident of Hahn’s district, she served her constituents well. Green Party supporters and Gaza Ceasefire protesters focused their fire against Hahn through poster campaigns (which I don’t know why; voters don’t vote off lawn signs and street posters). Many younger urbanist voters and families she needed who lived in the flatlands were skeptical of Hahn because she fought with city staff over the attempted installation of a bike lane on Hopkins Street. Seeing the demographic change favoring this ballooning urbanist constituency, Hahn wisely avoided taking a position on the dueling street paving measures until she backed the anti-bike lanes measure near election day. Her strength on the fire zone issues explains why Hahn took first in precincts in the North Berkeley hills but second everywhere else.
Nobody detected Adena Ishii as any kind of threat. Ishii would even be confused for other Asian women or staffers at debates and events she attended. While Hahn was backed by Mayor Arreguín and his (increasingly Building Trades) union coalition and the firefighters, Adena Ishii’s strongest support came from several sitting councilmembers who dual-endorsed, the liberal Democratic Club, YIMBY groups, bicycle groups, and the very popular State Senator Nancy Skinner and State Assemblymember Buffy Wicks. Coupled with an aggressive door-knocking campaign by a ragtag team of young, progressive activists (several of whom I knew were pro-Gaza Ceasefire) and League of Women Voters allies, won over a majority of the city to her side and Ishii was elected Mayor. So housing was a big deal as the headlines said but it wasn’t just housing for most voters.
Zelda Bronstein — a veteran anti-growth activist in Berkeley since the 1990s and bummed with the election results — wrote in the anti-development blog 48 Hills how Adena Ishii could not have won without Wicks and Skinner’s support. “I don’t know exactly how Ishii got [Nancy and Buffy’s] endorsements,” Zelda wrote. And while claiming “X could not have won without Y endorsement” is an argument you can make for every single election, the reason why Skinner and Wicks backed Ishii is obvious.
Nancy Skinner — a longtime and very popular Berkeley politician who served since the 1980s — endorsed Ishii because Ishii was most aligned with her views on housing and land use. Skinner once said at a climate meeting in 2019-ish that in her long record of public service and activism, mostly as a socialist student organizer for rent control and later a climate activist in Berkeley, her one and sole regret was her opposition to new housing in the 1980s which she claimed made Berkeley unaffordable. Her pretty aggressive state laws rectifying her mistake such as Senate Bill 330 which de-fanged a lot of local opposition to housing proposals, explain clearly why she endorsed Ishii. Skinner and Buffy Wicks saw an ideological ally in their most important issue and endorsed her appropriately.
Despite 10 years of anger about the downtown plan, the dorms causing homeowners to sue the university, the opposition to the BART station developments, the bike lane saga on Hopkins Street, and the so-called “controversial” plan to eliminate single-family zoning (Missing Middle) — there’s been no electoral backlash to the pro-housing side. Zero. Zip. Whether turnout’s high or low, this uprising of voters mad about over-development has not materialized. Politicians who support these initiatives and stand firm on them have mostly been rewarded with election, re-election, and a city’s changing culture around density. I kept being told for years a backlash is brewing over the densification, but where is it?
The Missing Middle plan to allow 2-3 story muti-family homes in all neighborhoods outside the fire zone has been enthusiastically supported by every single member of the city council, and every candidate that has run in support of the plan has won their elections. Ben Bartlett, a progressive councilman who strongly supports Missing Middle housing in the city’s most progressive area, easily fended off both his pro-single-family zoning left-wing challenger and his pro-realty challenger. Brent Blackaby now represents the Berkeley Hills and ran on supporting Missing Middle provided it wasn’t in the firezone. Even the new District 5 councilmember, Shoshana O’Keefe, who has the neighborhood with the most non-fire zone single-family zoning, said in questionnaires she strongly supports allowing Missing Middle. She didn’t even get the YIMBY endorsement due to her not supporting the pro-bike lane street paving measure, yet she ran on being unapologetically pro-housing when she didn’t have to!
Every few months a new, dense high-rise full of homes gets proposed in Downtown Berkeley and approved without issue. Ten years ago, hordes of people lined up to oppose an apartment mid-rise downtown, queuing up for hours. Now anti-development groups can barely get 100 people to oppose eliminating single-family zoning, and when they do come out, they make themselves look bad to even the most indifferent residents. (Watch these funny dueling YouTube videos of both sides [pro-density vs. anti-density] mocking each other on Berkeley’s Downtown housing plan battle from 2010!)
The post-election takeaway in Berkeley is not necessarily that everyone is gung-ho about upzoning, but that there’s a clear de-tangling of progressive policy from anti-urban, anti-growth politics. Anti-urbanism politics still has a strong force in San Francisco (although it’s weakening: see Prop K) because the density of the city makes it harder to canvass. Voters are more dependent on powerful local groups for endorsements. Berkeley’s small size and over-educated populace make it comparatively easier to canvass, which means voters get easier access to candidates and their ideas at their doorstep.
Berkeley councilmembers vary in ideology from the liberal moderate Rashi Kesarwani to the Socialist Cecilia Lunaparra — but they all now agree on one thing: the dominant American style of suburban zoning that was born in Berkeley in 1916 and spread nationwide is a freak anomaly outside of the U.S. and Berkeley must build more housing like global cities do: densely and sustainably. This bipartisan consensus is good because now we don’t have to waste our time debating plain-as-day housing issues and can start voting again on issues unrelated to land-use reform, which I truly think is what most Berkeleyans want.
Still, the tasks ahead on land use are daunting. The council will have to prove – not just to the skeptical minority but to the conceptually supportive or indifferent majority – that density does not worsen quality of life but enhances it. They’ll have to show that multi-family homes built within neighborhoods that haven’t seen new housing in 50 to 100 years will increase lot and street greenery, reduce traffic, and be beautiful. This can be done with sensible reforms around lot coverage, gardens over parking lots, and legalizing single-stair apartments.
We’ll have to expand our troubled bus system so that the parking lots we’re replacing with housing at BART stations aren’t needed and population growth won’t congest our streets. Adena Ishii must become the American Anne Hildago, who revolutionized Paris with a historic investment in public transit and cycling, turning its city center into one of the quietest, most peaceful metropolises. There are so many housing opportunities ahead such as the rapid expansion of Project Roomkey to house the homeless, giving Black homeowners reparation opportunities by helping them swiftly approve or finance accessory homes on their land, or replacing toxic and dangerous homes with modern improvements.
Just as single-family zoning in the 1910s and the urban, anti-growth movement in the 1960s was born in Berkeley and spread nationwide; if infill housing and car-lite living can be done effectively, peacefully and attractively in Berkeley, it’ll spread nationwide and usher in a new generation of cities only seen outside the United States.
It’s key the council and commissioners take this seriously and not mess this up.
Re Arreguin’s turn around - it takes humility and self-reflection to be able to admit “I was wrong.” Good for him. And good for Berkeley for voting in a YIMBY. The whole Save People’s Park thing was just ridiculous - the place had become an untended eyesore long ago.
I wonder if part of the impetus toward finally embracing YIMBY-ism was, first, the NIMBYs who tried to block more student housing, were slapped down by California Supreme Court, and I think a lot of people woke up to the fact that Berkeley, as a town, would not exist without UC. Simple as that. Students are the lifeblood of the town. Another thing was the horrific incident 10 or so years ago where a balcony at a complex called “Library Gardens” collapsed and killed several people, most of whom were Irish immigrants or exchange students. Berkeley doesn’t want to look bad to foreign students who come to study. Hence, we need more and good quality housing.
I’m a neighbor (so to speak) not a Berkeley resident, but I am looking forward to seeing if this YIMBY momentum can ripple out of Berkeley, too. And if Adeena Ishii can do a good job with her new mandate just as Anne Hidalgo did with hers in Paris. Here’s hoping!
This is a really interesting account, thank you. I'm 3,000 miles away, but it's useful to see a good description of changing politics. As a boomer, I have changed my mind in similar ways - the activism of younger urbanists combined with actual evidence and research has been key in that shift. But also as you note, some of the worst opposition to denser housing is so explicitly exclusionary and ridiculous, it also forces many of us older liberals to rethink our own too-long-held anti-development stands.