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Prioritize new housing over more parking 

Editor: 

The city-owned Oxford lot, nested at Allston Way, at the edge of UC Berkeley’s campus and Downtown Berkeley, is an optimum space for affordable housing and a nightclub on the ground floor.  

An agenda item on the Berkeley City Council agenda for December 5 would request the Planning Commission to investigate development of the site, including a feasibility study for underground parking.  

The Berkeley Daily Planet, on Saturday, Dec. 2, reported that Councilmember Betty Olds suggested a nightclub on the ground floor and three stories of parking above, but Councilmember Dona Spring, a co-author of the measure, preferred affordable housing for very low and low-income households.  

The site is right next to campus. Campus and transit-oriented housing for students, new faculty, and staff is the responsible plan. The regional housing crisis threatens affordability and access to a UC Berkeley education, and even the institution’s diversity.  

If Berkeley does not respond by increasing the stock of affordable housing, traffic will increase even more as increasing amounts of students are priced out of the market and forced to commute.  

Design of any housing project for the Oxford lot should encourage UC Berkeley students to live in the future housing and allow low-income students to qualify as potential households.  

Based on data from the ASUC Housing Survey, apartment-style housing, without residential parking, would be the most likely development to attract students. Four out of five commuter students would give up their car to live in affordable housing near campus.  

The revenue for affordable housing also must come from somewhere.  

City policy, including proposed zoning for the Southside, accounts for this reality by helping affordable housing developers “pencil out” their projects with density bonuses or additional stories, direct subsidy, or other incentives.  

In this case, rent from a nightclub could help keep the housing above it affordable.  

A nightclub would draw demand from diverse ages, including the ever-bored -for-nighttime-recreation student community.  

It would also be consistent with Downtown Plan objectives of creating a “24-hour Downtown,” and as a cultural facility would allow for more stories of housing under downtown zoning.  

This gesture should be matched by UC Berkeley. It is time to identify the next housing project site based on the consensus-reflecting guidelines in the Draft Southside Plan.  

Most likely candidates include the Ellsworth Structure, South Anna Head across from People’s Park, or other surface parking lots in the neighborhood where the parking will be replaced by the Underhill lot.  

University Co-ops have in the recent past offered to construct affordable housing on University land, and this is the time to begin.  

The City of Berkeley has in its power the resources to make an effective improvement upon the housing situation.  

The city council and planning commission should consider the nightclub/affordable housing solution as a way to keep Berkeley affordable, reduce traffic, and generate the 24-hour downtown Berkeley has envisioned.  

This opinion piece I wrote was in my capacity of Director of the ASUC (Associated Students of UC) Commission on Housing and Student Life, or Director of the Municipal Lobby in the ASUC External Affairs Office. 

Andy Katz 

Director of the Associated Students of UC Commission on Housing and Student Life and Director of the Municipal Lobby in the ASUC External Affairs Office. 

Fix problems, restore pride in U.S. elections 

Editor: 

Our erstwhile pride in an electoral system that once showcased American democracy is tempered by the sad events in Florida.  

To the isolated incidences of administrative incompetence, we now must add the more disturbing reports of racially based disenfranchisement of African Americans (NY Times, Nov. 30).  

A few million ballots may seem a lot to tally, yet in the same America, two billion shares of stock change hands every single trading day – with nary a hitch.  

Lest we need more on our social conscience than mislaid priorities, consider the many men and women around the globe who languor in jail for daring to advocate the very voting rights we treat so cavalierly.  

There is more to restore than our pride. 

A. C. Shen 

Berkeley