Recording in progress
Okay
Good evening, everyone
I'm calling to order a special meeting of the Berkeley City Council today is February 23rd
2026 it is 604 p.m. Clerk. Can you please take the role councilmember Kester wanty?
here tap when present
Councilman Bartlett is absent
Trega present O'Keeffe here. Blackaby here. Unapara here. Humbert present. And Maryishi here.
Okay quorum is present. Very good. So we have a few we had a few different items
on our agenda this evening but the first one has been withdrawn so we're going to
move to item number two. So item number two is the zoning adjustments board
appeal for 2425 Durant Avenue use permit application zp 2024-0162 and we
will start off with a presentation from our I was gonna say our Jordan Jordan
Jordan Klein planning director thank you Mary shaking in the council members I'm
Jordan Klein director of planning development I'm joined here at the staff
table at the far end that's Sarah Price, principal planner, Neelu Karamzadega,
senior planner and Ann Hirsch, the land use planning manager and Neelu will be
presenting for staff. Please take it away Neelu. Actually as you're gathering that
together I'm gonna do the report out language too because I need to do that
from the closed session. So the mayor and council met in closed session and formed
and Ad Hoc subcommittee consisting of Mayor Ishii, Vice Mayor Leno Parra and Council Member
Humbert to assist with the recruitment of the next permanent director of Police Accountability.
And that is our report out for closed session. Thank you.
Good evening. My name is Neelu Karimzadegan and the project before you is the appeal of
the ZAP approval for the project at 2425 Doran Avenue.
The project is to demolish three existing
residential buildings, including 19 units,
and construct a 20-story residential building
containing 169 units,
including 32 below market rate units.
In this presentation, I will go over the project scope,
project timeline, density bonus information, appeal issues,
and staff recommendation.
The project site is located to the west side
of Telegraph Avenue and to the south of Bancroft Way
within the Residential Southside Mixed Use District or RSMU.
Here is a south elevation of the existing buildings
facing Durand Avenue.
Three existing two-story residential buildings,
including 19 units, are proposed to be demolished.
Using state density bonus, the project proposes
to construct a 20 story approximately 149,000 square foot
residential buildings with 169 units,
including six extremely low income,
seven very low income, six low income,
and 13 moderate income units.
The proposed building is 20 stories, 208 feet tall,
and major components of the proposed building
the city of the city of the
and 1,000 square feet roof deck on level 20.
In November, 2024, the use permit application was submitted
and the SB 330 pre-application vested the project.
LPC designated the project as a city landmark in March, 2025
and council reversed that decision in July, 2025
because the project was vested prior
to the landmark designation.
The project was approved at ZAB and appealed in October 2025 and is before you tonight.
This meeting represents the second public hearing for the proposed project since the
project was deemed complete.
Under the city's density bonus procedure, the base project is 85 units as a maximum
allowable density for the site.
By providing 13 very low income and 13 moderate income units on site, which is 30 percent
of the 85 unit base density.
The project is eligible for a 100% density bonus
or 84 additional units for a total of 169 units.
This, excuse me, this project is requesting
three concessions and a number of waivers.
Concessions required for the requested
for the project are apprenticeship requirement,
healthcare expenditure, and prevailing wages.
Waivers requested on this project are removal of the Coast live oak tree, usable open space,
floor area ratio, height, setback, and bike parking.
On October 28, 2025, the Building and Construction Trade Council of Alameda County and the Northern
California Carpenters Regional Council filed an appeal of the ZAP's decision to approve
the project.
detailed appeal letter is attached to the staff report and here I have a
summary of the appeal points and I will go over each point separately and staff
response. Appeal issue one, the provisions regarding apprenticeship
requirements and health care expenditure are not appropriate subject of a
concession because they do not pertain to development standards. Staff responses
that a concession can be used to reduce the cost of building affordable housing
and according to the definition of a concession, a concession can be a
reduction in site development standards or a modification of a zoning code
requirement or any other regulatory incentive. Appeal issue number two, the
request that concessions would not result in identifiable and actual cost
reduction. Staff responses that according to the applicant the requested
concessions for exemption from the apprenticeship requirement, health care
expenditure and prevailing wages would result in cost saving as presented. The
city could reject the concession upon finding that they would not result in
identifiable and actual cost reduction. However the requested concessions would
result in identifiable and actual cost for a total cost reduction of 16 million
five hundred sixty thousand dollars for the applicant and the city has no
information to make any finding otherwise therefore the city cannot make
a finding based on substantial evidence that this exception applies. Appeal issue
number three. The concessions would have a specific adverse impact upon public
health and safety. Staff responses that the city may deny concessions only if it
can make findings supported by substantial evidence that the
concessions would cause a specific adverse impact on public health or
safety. State law defines specific adverse impact as a significant
quantifiable direct and unavoidable impact based on objective written health
the city's safety and safety.
The city itself does not have
other evidence that would
support making this finding.
Therefore staff advised that the
city cannot make a finding based
on substantial evidence that
this exception applies.
For reasons stated in appeal
point one, two and three, staff
finds that the city does not
have evidence to support making
1, 2, and 3 staff find that these concessions are appropriate and that the city cannot make
the factual finding necessary to deny them. Finally, it has come to our attention that
there was a typographical error in the conditions of approval for the project at 2425 Duran
have a new condition number 65 was caught off.
The full text of the condition should read as
rooftop projections.
No additional rooftop or elevator equipment
shall be added to exceed the approved maximum roof height
without submission of an application
for use permit modification subject to board review
and approval.
And then the subsequent conditions should be renumbered
66 through 70. We request that council's action on this item if it is approved reflect this
correction. Tonight staff recommends that council conduct the public hearing and adopt the resolution
to deny the appeal and approve the use permit zp 2024-0162. Thank you. Thank you very much. I
want to allow for the appellant and applicant to give their five-minute presentations,
but I actually do want to see if there are any questions from the council before,
and if there are no questions, I'll move on to the appellant. You'll have five minutes to present,
and applicant if you could just be ready in the wings. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Ishii and
members of City Council. My name's Joanne Kramer. I'm an attorney with Weinberg,
Roger and Rosenfeld and we represent the Building Trades Council and the
carpenters in making this appeal tonight. We appreciate you hearing it. I'm
going to try and go through the issues as quickly as I possibly can given the
five-minute time limitation. As you can see from slide one we actually filed
appeals on on three different projects. Scott Littlehill from the carpenters
will be presenting on the 2029 University project and I understand 2298 is no longer
at issue so I'll be addressing the 2225 Durant project primarily however the same arguments
do apply with respect to the concessions requested on 2029 University with the exception of the
prevailing wage issue which was not one of the concessions sought for 2029 University.
In all three of these cases the project applicants are requesting concessions under the density
bonus law that would effectively exempt their projects from compliance with labor standards
that the City of Berkeley specifically adopted for large scale development projects. Specifically
the applicants, and this applies to 24-25 Durant, has requested waivers of the prevailing
wage requirement in the Southside Plan, the health care expenditures requirement in the
hardhats ordinance, and the apprenticeship participation requirement in the hardhats
ordinance. Each project applicant requested a different mix of concessions, but included
at least two of these. I'm going to show this slide at the end as well, but these
are the three outcomes that we requested from City Council and
considering our appeal. There are different alternatives that you could
consider. One would be to reverse the decisions of the ZAB, approving the use
permits with the proposed concessions. One would be reversing the decisions of
the ZAB only with respect to the concessions, but approving the remainder
of the use permit. And the third would be remanding to the ZAB to reconsider the
applications and confer with the applicant regarding the grounds for its requested concessions.
For 2425 Durant, the applicant, Yes, Duffy Architects has applied for a use permit that
includes these concessions. I won't go over them again. We've already discussed them.
They apprenticeship the health care and the prevailing wage requirements.
The apprenticeship and health care pieces are part of the city's hardhats ordinance,
which was adopted on May 2nd, 2023
and became effective on January 1, 2024.
And item number three, the prevailing wage requirement
is part of the city's Southside plan
as amended and adopted in November of 2023.
All of these requested concessions should be denied.
The city should not grant concessions
under the density bonus law
that waive local labor standards.
This is a novel and unorthodox strategy
to use the density bonus law
to undermine local ordinances that promote worker retention
and worker well-being.
Prior to 2425 Durant, no project had received a concession
related to hard hats or the Southside Plan.
And we have confirmed that through
Public Record Act requests,
which were attached to one of our appeals letters.
The Density Bonus Law defines a concession or consent of
as either a reduction in site development standards,
approval of mixed-use zoning,
or other regulatory incentives or concessions
result in identifiable and actual cost reductions to provide for affordable housing costs or
for rents to be set at the statutory rate. And of these options, it's only the third
that we believe would arguably apply. We're not claiming it's a reduction in site development
standards. However, even if a concession could result in identical and actual cost reductions,
the city can deny that if the concession of one of the following applies, if the concession
would not actually result in cost reductions,
to provide for affordable housing,
the concession would have a specific adverse impact
upon health and safety,
or it would be contrary to state and federal law.
Perhaps more importantly,
the original legislative intent
of the density bonus law was to allow developers
to build more affordable units as a social good.
Allowing a developer to avoid a labor standards requirement
would do the opposite.
I'm just gonna move a little quickly
I know I'm running out of time. The concession as to the Southside Plan's prevailing wage
requirement is frankly even more offensive to public policy because it reduces worker wages
and makes the housing they're building even less affordable to them which is antithetical to the
Density Bonus Law's purpose. The Density Bonus Law should not be misused to allow developers
to avoid labor standards or other societal benefits especially when there has been no
demonstration of an actual financial benefit. As we argue in our letter, the city can and should
a request reasonable documentation to support the concessions that's allowed
for in the statute and under case law. Here in their application the applicant
did not provide any evidence or information to substantiate their
requested concessions. I'll say given the importance to the city of the high
Can I just finish your sentence? Finish this? Okay. Of the high labor standards and
the hard hats and the south side plan the city should exercise its right to
seek information from the applicant requiring them to make some showing as
to how the requested concessions would actually save development costs and allow them to build
more affordable housing.
In conclusion, we would like you to approve the projects without the requested concessions.
Thank you so much.
The applicant, you all have five minutes to present.
Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of City Council.
I want to thank you all for the time this evening and staff for the enormous amount
of time helping us get to this point.
This is a difficult evening.
We understand that.
I'm going to turn it over to Todd Williams right here.
He's our legal counsel for the project.
Staff did a wonderful job of laying out
the issues here tonight.
I won't belabor them, so I will let Todd go ahead
and take over at this point, and I'll come back at the end.
Great.
Thank you, Mayor and Council members.
Again, I'm going to echo what Mark just said.
I think the staff report does a really great job
of setting out the factual and legal structure.
And we believe staff's recommendations should be followed.
I'm gonna focus on a few quick topics,
namely the nature of density bonus concessions
and why approval in this instance is mandatory.
Let's see, as was discussed before,
16 and a half million dollars worth of cost savings
resulting from these three requested concessions.
Let's go to the next slide.
So concessions, so they're defined three different ways
and the density bonus law.
The two that are relevant here
is a reduction of development standards.
And this is including, but not limited to,
basically regulatory requirements
that result in identifiable and actual cost reduction.
The third and very broad definition of concession
is other regulatory incentives or concessions
proposed by the developer, again,
that result in actual and identifiable cost reductions.
Go ahead to the next slide.
So what is a development standard?
So a development standard is not just zoning,
height, setback, parking ratios.
It is a site or construction condition
that applies to any residential development,
pursuant to any ordinance.
Could be a general plan, could be specific plan, charter,
any local condition, law, policy, resolution,
or regulation that is adopted by the local government.
It doesn't need to reside in the zoning code
to be eligible for a concession to be used.
And additionally, the state density bonus law
requires that the city, anyone interpreting it,
interprets it in a way that is liberally in favor
of producing the maximum amount of housing.
So both HCD, the Department of Housing and Community
Development, and case law have weighed in on issues relevant
to tonight. Specifically, there was a case in San Jose where HCD issued a technical memo
and it discussed the breadth of a concession and it found that the definition of concession
is quote, intentionally broad. And the definition clearly indicates that requirements beyond
development standards are eligible as concessions. Again, it's identifying regulatory requirements
that result in identifiable and actual cost savings.
In that case, the eligible concessions were a waiver
of a requirement to replace demolished commercial space
with other commercial space, as well as using the city
as a bonding, as the issuer of bonds
for multifamily development.
So those were both found to be eligible to be used,
for concessions to be used on.
I also want to point out, in terms of development standard,
Appellant's first slide, Pawt's Council just
said that hardhats and Southside prevailing wage
were specifically adopted for large-scale development.
These are development standards.
They only apply to development larger than,
or 50,000 square feet or larger.
So clearly, it's both a development standard,
and it falls into that broader sort of catch-all definition
of regulatory incentive.
Finally, I'll just touch briefly on,
let's go to the next slide.
Oh, I'm sorry, back one.
Basis to deny.
So we've already talked about one basis is,
are there actual cost savings?
Clearly that's, there are.
So the only other basis would be a specific adverse impact
on public health and safety that can't be mitigated.
And it has to be based on objective, identified,
written public health and safety standards,
policies, or conditions.
and the Housing Accountability Act states
that such instances are infrequent.
Here, what's being relied on are statistical connections
and national numbers, not a specific health
and safety standard that resides in the Berkeley Code.
Without that, there simply is not the evidence
to support a finding of denial.
I'll just share this slide with you.
In addition to the dwelling units and affordable units
for this project.
You can finish your sentence.
Revenues will be generated by these projects
if they're feasible to develop.
We're happy to answer any questions you might have.
Thank you.
Thank you both.
So Council, do you have any questions?
And for the appellant's attorney,
if you want to come up just in case you have questions
so you don't have to go back and forth,
that might be easier.
Questions?
Yes a council member of Lockerbie. Thanks Madam Mayor. Um question for the applicants. Um you know a lot of the
appellant's argument comes down to whether uh the concessions result in identifiable and actual
cost reductions. You've certainly kind of come to us with numbers on what the apprenticeship
requirements cost health care prevailing wage. Can you talk to us about how you've developed them? Like take us to the next
level there. Are you looking at the staff, the staffing that you're expecting and the
costs for that versus, I'm just trying to understand how you come to these numbers just
to kind of go a level or two deeper.
It's science and art. At this stage in the project, there's a lot of time spent looking
at what the construction costs are going to be. Our team has spent an extraordinary amount
of time because right now high rise development is very difficult to put together from a financial
feasibility perspective.
These numbers are based on actual bids by union signatory and non-union contractors
on the same projects in other places and actually some here in Berkeley.
And so this is, that's where we got the numbers from is a pure straight up finding based on
our actual experience in the field.
OK.
And so would staff, would folks who are staffing the project
be receiving health care just at a lower cost?
Or let me just drill on the health care piece a little bit.
I would love, let's see, yes.
Health care costs are often provided
for laborers for these projects.
Unemployment insurance benefits for non-union laborers
are provided.
Competitive wages are provided, quite frankly,
because if you're not paying your workers a good salary here,
they're going to go work for somebody else.
This is a crowded market for labor.
And so I know the unions want you
to think that non-union labor is sort of the end of the world
and will destroy the community.
But quite frankly, none of the housing projects in Berkeley
over the last 30 years have been built with union labor,
save one or two affordable housing projects.
Would you expect that some proportion of the project
would be staffed by union labor some more?
Absolutely.
Part of the issue here is this is an extreme upfront cost
that's difficult, impossible to commit to.
A project like this is going to most likely include
concrete and steel labor, union labor,
and others perhaps, but yes, there will be union labor
on this project just like most of the other projects
that are being built in Berkeley right now.
And the biggest delta is really on the prevailing wage piece.
So it's the expectation in terms of what the bids
you're expecting on wage, that the delta there
is the biggest, right?
I mean, in terms of all the pieces.
And again, so you have specific numbers in mind
in terms of rates you're looking at for different roles
and responsibilities through these other projects
versus what you would have to pay
on the prevailing wage basis?
That's correct.
Okay, and you did all-
Based on those contractor bids.
Right, so taking that and extrapolating at times
the amount of labor and the number of hours
that would be consumed by this project
and kind of working it through.
Correct.
Okay, all right, thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Tapplin.
Thank you.
For staff of the five meetings,
which number is this one tonight?
It's meeting number two.
This is meeting number two.
And then for the appellate applicant,
could you each describe efforts to date
to resolve the various points of convention?
To do what?
I'm sorry?
To achieve resolution.
Well, the ordinance is plain language.
There's not a way to come up with another solution.
You're either subject to the ordinance or you weren't.
In the old days, you might have continued
a meeting to have us sit down with labor
and try to hammer something out,
and I think that was less often successful.
But in this case, that's just not the case anymore.
You've got an ordinance that's been adopted is in effect.
These are the first projects to be subject to them
since they were put in place
and projects filed their SB 330 applications.
But there's no negotiating out of the plain language
of the city's ordinance.
Thank you, Councilmember Taplin, for the question. I don't believe that there have been meaningful attempts to try and reach a resolution of this, primarily because the developer, as they've just explained to you, is not willing to implement high labor standards on these projects.
They're not willing to require a prevailing wage. They're certainly not willing to require health care for the workers on the project.
In response to Council Member Black or B's question, I mean, you heard it's just, it's
just they get it if they get it and because they're not, they're prioritizing the cost
savings over these labor standards, then there is really no meaningful resolution of this
with the developer.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you Madam Mayor, and a couple questions here for the staff and I guess I who I can answer it
You can all answer this, you know, you've all researched it. I heard some conflicting
information around the density bonus law and
its use before
Any kind of precedent to be used for these for these waivers?
in the concessions, mm-hmm
This is 24 25 Doran is the first project that's requesting these concessions
Okay, maybe the challenger, you mentioned this is a novel use of the density bonus law. Can you
expand that please? Sure, so certainly it's true hard hats became effective January 1 of
2024 and the prevailing wage requirements and the Southside plan became effective in November of
of 2023.
That being said, we do not know of the density
of other instances of the density bonus law,
the state density bonus law being used
in order to avoid labor standards.
That is not something we have seen before.
It is honestly not something that we anticipated.
Former mayor, Arieghin, who was mayor
when the legislation was adopted,
expressed that in his letter to you all,
that he did not foresee this type of use
of the density bonus law in order to avoid prevailing wage,
in order to avoid healthcare,
in order to avoid apprentice training.
So in his mind, it was novel, it was unexpected.
And in our minds, it is also novel as well.
As I said, we've not seen the density bonus law used
in this way for any development project
that we've encountered before.
Thank you for the question, Council Member.
It's a really good question.
Concessions haven't been used on labor standards
for private development projects before
because Berkeley is the only city,
and I'm happy to be disabused of this,
but Berkeley is the only city in California
that has such standards.
You might ask yourselves why that's the case,
but were these standards to apply across the board,
we've frankly stopped building housing in Berkeley
because it wouldn't be feasible anymore.
we're still in the midst of a state housing crisis,
and I'm a housing first person.
So if a contractor is qualified,
they should build the housing.
Thank you for your questions.
Council Member O'Keefe.
Thank you, Mayor.
This question is for staff,
either city attorney or planning staff,
whoever wants to answer it.
So this is a novel issue we're hearing tonight
regarding this particular use of concessions,
but this is not the first controversial concession
that we've talked about and I'm wondering
if you could help us on the council understand
what is the typical standard of evidence
that we ask applicants to provide,
to show that a concession represents an identifiable
and actual cost reduction?
The city can require reasonable documentation
such as documentation of cost reduction.
the city may not require information that incentive
is necessary to make the project economically feasible.
They cannot require that they show
that it's economically feasible.
Correct.
Okay, thank you.
And you said, sorry, you said,
they can require documentation of, what was that?
Cost reduction.
Of cost reduction.
In your opinion, have they,
has the applicant provided that in this case?
Or is there more that you think would be appropriate?
yes yes yes yes okay um all right thank you thank you councilmember tregg up thank you madam mayor
both questions are for staff um one and apologize if i missed this in the presentation but
are there any um edits contemplated in what we're being asked to approve
Oh, this is so funny.
She read it at the conclusion of the presentation, yes, so she noted there was an error in condition
number 65.
She read the correction into the record and we just request that council's action reflect
the correction that Neelu read into the record at the conclusion of her presentation.
Thank you.
And then my probably more apropos question given the questions being
raised on appeal. Is there any documentation of how these costs
associated with the three concessions being requested, how they stuck up
against other development fees or requirements.
I can feel that.
Okay, turn yours off.
No, don't touch it.
Thank you.
Sorry, it's tricky up here.
So last year the city engaged,
and this was in response to direct from City Council,
engaged street level advisors and strategic economics
to help us analyze the impacts of this policy
on housing feasibility.
If I recall correctly,
they estimated that it would increase construction costs
by approximately 20%.
And they did compare, put that into context
with our public art and private development.
policy, which was also part of that analysis. The city doesn't really have other impact
fees beyond our inclusionary requirement. There is the streets and open space improvement
plan fee that only applies to projects in the downtown area plan, but the city doesn't
have a citywide transportation impact fee or an open space fee or a public safety fee
like some other cities have.
Okay, and do you remember, I take it you're referring
to the 1% for a public art requirement.
Do you recall what percentage of cost increased
that accounted for?
Yeah, so that is 1.75% of construction costs
if the applicant chooses to include art onsite or 0.8%.
of construction costs if the applicant chooses to pay the Inland fee.
Okay, and then the Inland fee, well, since this is a density bonus project, we would
not be accounting for the affordable housing mitigation fee on this project.
housing inclusionary section does apply to the project and I have the numbers
sorry what I mean is since the affordable housing is being built on
site what is the amount if any on this project that is going into the housing
It's the 20% of the total.
So I believe the project is including is it.
It's certainly at least 15%, but I believe there were placement units being demolished and so that total 20% of units, 20% of the base. So, yes, it's satisfying the inclusionary policy via onsite affordable housing units. That's right.
Yeah, and I'm sorry, my question is different.
Is there, because the inclusionary requirement
is being met, there is no additional money
going into the Housing Trust Fund, correct?
That is correct.
Thank you.
Okay, Vice Mayor Lenaupara.
Thank you, I just have a really quick question.
Do you mind pulling up the presentation
that was just up with the numbers?
I think there's a lot of the
property tax. I think there's a
lot of the property tax. I think
there's a lot of the property
tax. I think there's a lot of
the property tax. I think there's a
financial I think there's. I'm
curious about the property tax.
Peace if if staff thinks that
that's an accurate reflection of
what. The property tax would be
for that property. We show the
property elevating from $66,000
I think that likely includes the county's portion.
That's the whole tax bill.
Right, right.
So the city's portion would be
a little less than a third of that.
Makes sense, but that sounds, that looks right.
Yeah, it does. Thank you.
That's it.
That's a good flag because I think people expect
that we get all of those property taxes and we don't.
So Councilmember Barley, did you have a follow up question?
Thank you, and I was gonna ask this earlier,
but a question, I guess for maybe our team
or the city attorney or maybe the attorneys here,
the social good exemption for denying waiver,
what's that about?
I saw it come up in your presentation.
That was the appellant's presentation, I think.
Yes.
But she cited the actual state law, right?
No, the word social good do not appear
anywhere in the density bonus law.
There's not an exemption for something that is a social good.
Okay, can I have the appellant?
Thank you, we did make some policy arguments in our letter
that the rationale for the hardhats ordinance
was to provide healthcare apprenticeship
and training to workers and that those sorts
social goods are consistent with the state density bonus law. In other words,
the state density bonus law is intended to build affordable housing. So it's a
progressive statute. It's supposed to enable more people to get into
affordable housing and it's ironic that the applicant is using the state density
bonus law to undermine the wages and working conditions and training and
health care of the people who would be building this project. Because the point
of the density bonus law and the point of the concessions is to promote a
social good by building more affordable housing. That's the point that we're
making. Thank you for the question. Thank you. Any additional questions? Okay.
we will then move on to our public comments.
So if you have a public comment on item number two,
which is the zoning adjustments board appeal
for 2425 Durant Avenue, please come on up.
Good.
Hi, good evening.
I'm here to encourage the council to move forward
with these housing developments.
We're in a housing crisis in Berkeley
and we badly need them.
I would like to call your attention to the fact
that after the hard hats ordinance was passed
and I think 2023, there was a demonstrable plummeting
of housing development in our city
as soon as that law went into effect.
We can see the impacts that this is having
on the amount of homes that are being built in our city,
badly needed homes.
And I just, I really think it's very unfortunate
that we have a special interest group here
that's encouraging you all to deny this application
on the grounds that they'd like to feather bed
their own salaries and benefits,
when in fact the city of Berkeley,
the broader population of this city,
needs these homes, and it's setting aside the fact
that if you deny these housing developments being produced,
we're gonna be subject to a lawsuit
that the city is very likely to lose,
so please pass this.
Thank you.
Okay, for those of you that are new here,
just since there are so many folks,
I'm very strict on time,
So you'll have one minute to give your public comments.
Go ahead.
Thank you, Mayor.
My name is Vince Seguro,
and I'm with the special interest group
of helping disadvantaged communities
make it into the middle class
through a good union construction career.
It is devastating that we're here tonight
and had to listen to this presentation
from the applicant who lackadaisically
put together this information.
The Hardhats Ordinance was put together
to be intentional about developers in this city.
Melgar Mechanical and On Union Sheet Metal Contractors
now being investigated by two DA's offices for trafficking
2,500 migrants.
They helped to build out Shatik.
We heard from this developer multiple times
that, oh, some union trades will be on this.
Oh, non-union has health care.
I can't keep up with the numbers here.
I heard 60 million at one point.
This is about health care.
And this is about apprenticeship opportunity.
That's what the hard hats is about.
And that's what they wanted to waive.
In addition, this was about wages.
But I want to make it very clear.
This is about helping bring people up
and in a desperate time right now,
we are in a desperate time in this country,
this is devastating, thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, how's it going?
Just feel free to adjust the mic, too,
so you don't have to, yeah, thank you.
My name's T. Buerlagerman,
I'm a local 713 carpenter member since,
I think, 99, went through the apprenticeship program.
I'm a Berkeley resident since that time.
I've worked on several projects in the city,
including the center street garage, the hotel,
and another apartment building right on Addison there.
Green, very ugly color.
We gotta work on our facades, by the way.
But anyway, to make a long story short,
Berkeley residents of all trades
are gonna be affected by your decision today.
What you decide will have consequence,
far-reaching consequence.
And I need you guys to please consider healthcare.
They say, yeah, they might get it.
How are they able to save all this money?
If they also get healthcare,
everything is a dream in their world.
They get apprenticeship training.
Everyone else can just move it forward.
You know, they can, all right, that's good enough.
But I appreciate your time, thank you.
Yeah, feel free to move up, come closer.
Anthony Lavise is also gonna concede some time to me.
Can I speak?
Sorry, who's seating time session?
I have a seating time to set the lid.
Okay, thank you.
All right, I've been introduced, I'm Stephanie Lind.
I'm a Local 22 carpenter.
I'm also a resident of Berkeley.
I'm a homeowner, I have a kid in Longfellow.
I have a kid at Berkeley Tech.
And I was here in front of this council
to speak in favor of the hard hat ordinance
when it was passed.
And I was so proud of this city at that moment
with the work that I've done for the last 30 years
as a carpenter.
Today, I'm shocked these concessions
and the talk of having a cost savings
is completely outrageous.
The cost is going to be on the people of the city,
someone like myself in wages, healthcare
and the ability to work in the city.
For 30 years, I've worked as a carpenter
I've worked on a project once in Berkeley and it's not because people don't bring projects to Berkeley
It's because the the projects that are brought to Berkeley are not affordable. I'm working in San Francisco. I'm working in Walnut Creek
I'm working in Marin. I worked on one project in Berkeley
And that was the year that I was the parent who could go to their her kids
School events who could go to the after-school things every other time I'm commuting far away from Berkeley
I'm here and I'm a carpenter because I was given the opportunity through an apprenticeship program.
I'm a single mom of two because I can afford health insurance for my family.
I can afford to live in Berkeley, who would that I love,
because I've been given these opportunities through apprenticeship,
through a living wage, through health care.
I think we're asking the wrong questions here.
We're looking at a spreadsheet and we're weighing,
is it cheaper to have health care and not have health care?
The cost is overall cradle to grave.
It is not an affordable housing project.
It is not a sustainable housing product if it doesn't have a living wage.
The people who are going to build this project
need to be able to survive and live in the city,
or we're giving work to people outside the city.
Thank you.
Good evening. Since we're so tight on time,
I'm going to have three individuals see time to me.
John Pitlock and Mauricio Chavez.
Good evening, Mayor Yishii members of the Berkeley City Council. My name is Daniel Gregg,
Senior Organizer at North Coast State's Carpenters Union Local 713. We are here in opposition
to a group of developers and their consultant who want to strip healthcare from hundreds
of construction workers here in the City of Berkeley. They have gone so far as to threaten
the City with a lawsuit if they do not acquiesce to their demand to strip those hundreds of
workers of their mandated healthcare. The absurdity of this moment is immeasurable.
How did we arrive here?
I don't live in Berkeley, but I have represented workers
in this city for over 10 years.
In those 10 years, Berkeley has seen a boom in construction.
Developers from all over the world
propose and build projects here.
Even post-pandemic, when market rate housing
has virtually dried up all over the Bay Area,
developers still identify Berkeley as a city
they can find financially feasible to build in.
That basically means that the rent in Berkeley
is still extremely high.
When construction is booming, developers will cry,
there's a labor shortage.
That is a misrepresentation of the truth.
The reality is that there is a shortage
of individuals willing to work for low wages
and little to no benefits.
The development community has a responsibility
to create incentives that make the construction industry
attractive as a career path.
Here in Berkeley, they have failed miserably
at that responsibility.
Hardhats is a response to that failure.
Hardhats went into effect in January of 2024,
a modest proposal that requires a commitment
healthcare and apprenticeship on large projects in Berkeley. It was aggressively
opposed by Mark Rhodes and we saw a flurry of project applications
coming before the law went into effect. 2425 Durant is the first project to
finally be subject to hardhats. On October 9th Mark Rhodes on behalf of his
client asked the ZAB board to grant concessions on healthcare and
apprenticeship among other things. He told the board that they had previously
granted these concessions on several projects and even named a few, another complete misrepresentation
of the truth. On October 30th, the second project to be subject to hard hats arrived
before the ZAB board, who was under the impression that these concessions had previously been
granted on several projects. Again, health care was stripped away from hundreds of construction
workers with a concession. On November 13th, the third and fourth project to be subjected
to Hardhats was presented to Zab board. In this instance, staff had to issue a
retraction of the statements made by Mark Rhodes at the October 9th meeting,
but the damage was already done. Now, precedence, which did not previously
exist, have been set based on false statements. That is how we got here and
what I believe this is all about decisions made here in Berkeley will
reverberate throughout the state as developers exploit this unintended
loophole in the state density bonus law. This is not about union vs non union or
hard hats vs pla 100% of the construction workers on these projects
could be non union and when hard hat supplies they will enjoy health care.
Construction is the second largest industry in the world behind health care
and one of the most dangerous physically and mentally. Mark Rhodes made
a comment to me that several buildings in bergen fact he said again tonight
Several buildings in Berkeley were built non-union and they're still standing.
This comment completely misses the point and speaks to the mindset of these individuals.
My question isn't whether the building is still standing, but are the workers who built it still standing?
We respectfully ask that the Council approve these projects without granting concessions on hardhats.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Thank you.
Judy Gatewood.
I'm a retired carpenter.
I grew up in Berkeley and I'm a homeowner in Berkeley now.
I raised my daughter in Berkeley.
I was in a union from the Carpenters Union since 1979.
I always had health care for my daughter.
I always had a good wage.
I had a pension.
I had a pension.
I'm living on my pension now because I was a member of a union.
And I bought my house because Carpenters
saved money and an annuity fund for me.
And there's no excuse.
There's no excuse for a town like Berkeley not to have jobs that benefit their workers.
I was really proud when we finally passed that hard hat ordinance because I've had
to watch the developers build these terrible buildings all over Berkeley
and I see the workers and I talk to them and these people are not getting prevailing wage.
They're not getting health care a lot of the time and there's no compliance.
Berkeley doesn't do compliance.
At least if these people were in a union,
the union would make sure they had health coverage.
Yes, good evening council members. I'm Tim Frank and I'm representing the construction
trades workforce initiative and to save time tonight, I'm actually getting seated time
from Ian Streets, Chris Palomo and Ramon Amore. So thank you very much. I just wanted to note
that by way of introduction, the construction trades workforce initiative is a non-profit
the partner of the building trades,
and we work on providing access to family sustaining careers
for people from disadvantaged communities,
from the justice impacted, et cetera.
That's our fundamental purpose,
and we work on both support of programs
that provide pre-apprenticeship training for these cohorts,
including Rising Sun and the Nelson Mandela Center,
which actually serve residents from Berkeley.
And we work on policy issues such as the cur policy.
Now, I would note that the construction industry
is a dual-wage industry.
It has a high road sector, and then it has a low road sector.
And the low-road sector is defined
by low wages and dangerous working conditions.
And if you're wondering what that means in the Bay Area,
the majority of residential construction workers
in the Bay Area make what the State Department of Housing
community development defines as a low wage, which means that they actually qualify for
housing subsidies such as the subsidies that we provide from the funds we get from U1,
et cetera.
And the high wage industry is defined more by paying a prevailing wage.
But the prevailing wage is really part of a package that includes prevailing wage,
benefits, including paid health care and adequate training to ensure that the
workers are working in a safe environment. And without these things,
all three of them, you don't have the quality of training and retention and
the skilled workforce that we know is important to delivering well green
building benefits, but also health and safety benefits. So I just want to note
that the hardhats ordinance and the provision in the Southside plan are
specific written proposals that are embedded in the Berkeley Code and they
are justified by very strong statistical evidence and I will note that the
statistical evidence is general it has not come from the city of Berkeley but
this is the same thing can be said of the provisions in the Berkeley seismic
plan, it's electrical code, it's seismic code, and none of these things are things
that we would want them to be able to waive. So finally I just want to focus a
little attention on the health and safety issue here. I mentioned that the
construction industry is a dual-wage industry, so the health and safety
impacts of that have been considered by the California State Department of
insurance since 1986, when it established a penalty for contractors that are paying
low wages for workers' comp insurance.
Now, the thing about the specific adverse impact, what we're talking about is injuries
on the job.
And what the evidence from the insurance industry provides you is the very clear, strong statistical
basis for suggesting that workers who are paid a low wage not given training and working
in an environment where their colleagues have a lot of turnover and you don't have a lot
of experience on the job. That's dangerous, right? And so for 40 years we have seen an
annual reconciliation of those facts by the State Department of Insurance that has established
penalty for workers' comp rates for contractors who pay low wages and a
corresponding benefit for lower rate. Thank you. Thanks for your comment.
Appreciate it. Good evening council. My name is Joey Flagle-Mishlove. I'm a Berkeley
resident, a resident of District 8, and I'm here in my capacity as chair of the
City of Berkeley Commission on Labor. The Commission on Labor discussed this
issue and urges the council to not grant concessions that allow developers out of the hard hat's
ordinance. And what we discussed was that this is called a density bonus. The intention
is that if developers build affordable housing, they get more density. They get to build taller.
They get to build more units. It is not a throw your workers under the bus bonus. It
is a density bonus. And if this concession is granted, Berkeley will not have a hard
hats ordinance because every developer will ask for these concessions so we
heard the developer tonight threatened that no housing will be built in
Berkeley if we maintain this ordinance I urge the council to fight for our
ordinance and do whatever it takes to stand by the ordinance that we passed
thank you. Thank You. Good evening Hualtas Kano will be seating this time. Good
evening Mayor Aishi and council members my name is Jesse Prales the busy
representative for local 713 and I oversee the jobs in Berkeley and see
firsthand the impact that low-cost low road contractors have in this area I
have seen how a contractor where the job site was shut down due to safety
concerns it was actually shut down by the city of Berkeley fire department
about nine months ago and it was because they did not have a proper stairwell in
the building during construction of a five-story housing on College Avenue
There was another accident years back where a worker hung his nail gun on the hook near
a stairwell and went to get more material.
It eventually fell off the fifth floor onto another worker's head.
On the second floor, eventually killing him.
Cal OSHA ruled that death happened because none of the employers on site ensured that
there were effective safeguards in place for those workers below an elevated work area.
These are just a few examples where the conditions were unsafe.
Local 713 actually has an MOU with Berkeley Unified School District to recruit future
construction workers. The carpenters are invested in growing the community,
building housing, and investing in the construction workforce. Branding
concessions on labor standards effectively cancels this MOU and the
long-standing relationship we have in this community. These proposed projects,
if they have proper labor protections, can be beneficial to the Berkeley
community by building housing and creating job opportunities. I want to see
Berkeley grow. I wanted the city to build more housing and I want to see quality
jobs to recruit and retain construction workers. The concessions that the
applicant is asking for takes us several steps back from hard hats that
the city of Berkeley passed years ago. We have to make sure these projects are
built right and we have to make sure they don't go out of our way to reverse
city policy to make a profit on the backs of workers you resolved to
protect years ago. We want to see this project built. We understand the need
and support division but not with the concession the applicant is requesting
On behalf of Carpenter's Local 713, we ask the City Council to uphold the appeal of these
projects because they deny all workers' health care, apprenticeship investments, and fair
wages.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Perfect timing too.
Very good.
Good evening Council Members.
My name is Eric Delacruz.
I'm a first period apprentice out of Local 713.
Even though I haven't started working in the field yet, joining the Carpenters Union has
already changed my life.
It gave me a real path forward, a chance to build stable career, earn fair wages, and
have access to health care and benefits that protect me and my family.
For me, being in the union isn't just about a job.
It's about opportunity.
It's about knowing that if I work hard, I can support myself, afford health care, and
provide for my family.
When companies try to undercut workers by lowering wages or reducing benefits, they're
not just cutting costs, they're cutting people's futures.
From making it harder for apprentices like me to stay in the trade and build a life here
I joined the union because I believe in fair pay for skilled work
I believe workers deserve health care and I believe our city should support projects that lift workers up and not push standards down
We urge the council to remember what we stand for in Berkeley to uphold the hard hats ordinance uphold this appeal and promote housing
That isn't built by exploiting workers
but
Supporting workers. Thank you
Good evening Madam Mayor and Council members. My name is Elias Olage.
I lived in Berkeley. I'm from the locals.
2236 in Oakland, but I live in Berkeley since 1985.
I was able to buy my house. Thanks to the Union. Raise my two kids.
They went to Longfellow.
They graduated from Berkeley, Berkeley High.
so
The hardheads ordinance
provided us provider of city with the foundation if we are building housings
We must also support working families in our community
Granting these concessions opened the door for developers to continue to ship away foundation
project by project
Once you decide that our city labor protections are negotiable
You are sending a message to developers that our labor standards are optional
Directing these concessions. Thank you
Good evening council. My name is win new birth. I'm a UC Berkeley student. I want to give a sociological perspective on this I
I've seen these people these workers outside my apartment the last like few months
I think and I think that you know, if you're looking around the country, you know
I think that you need to set a good example.
I think that unions are starting to make a comeback.
The SFUSD just went on strike for the first time in 50 years,
Oakland district is going on strike,
and the nurses in Oakland as well.
And I think that in order to provide a good example,
you need to give your contract workers fair wages,
health care, and you need to be hiring unions
and not hiring these other contractors
that have low standards for their companies,
Especially at a time like this where a lot of where ice is taking so many people
We need to be setting a good example for immigrant communities, which a lot of these people are
So, thank you
Thank you
Good evening, everybody. Ej sire she metal workers local 104
I'm I'm kind of confused as to why the applicant is consistently on this whole union versus non and using union bids
To do this stuff. This isn't about union versus non
The Hardhats Ordinance is healthcare and state approved
apprenticeship training to actually put people
through a career that supports them.
It's not union versus non.
So if you're in a union,
you're already going to have these protections.
The reason why we fought for it,
and the reason why we're all here tonight
to fight for the workers is to fight for the workers.
We're not here for profit over people.
So what I want to make sure is understood is,
you know, on the night that Hardhats came to fruition
and everybody was here,
it was a great celebration and huge picture.
Council Member Bartlett,
one of the things that you said during that speech was
that workers everywhere need to know
that regardless of who's against them one city has their back. The developers
are here tonight to take that away from you without proof. Councilmember Humbert
whenever it was your turn to speak and it was at that time for voting your
response on your vote wasn't just a yes or an aye. You said heck yes. So now
we're supposed to be going against all of this with no proof. The
justification in their dialogue was three sentences. There was no
documentation for any of this. Thank you. Hello council members. My name is Scott
little hail. I'll be joining you again shortly. Councilors have asked questions about evidence
as to what the costs of hard hats are and what the benefits are. Hard hats through its
training provisions, which promotes safety, and its health care provisions, which promotes
health of the worker and possibly a dependent, have a direct nexus to public safety and health,
which is the exemption under state law for regulatory concession. And as best as I can
Tell though, neither the applicant nor the city staff
have attempted to do any cost benefit analysis
of the public health and safety costs and benefits.
Conceding health standards is not limit waiver.
Workers welfare is not the same as a zucchini patch.
That's all I have to say and I'll see you shortly.
Is there any other in person public comment? Okay. Is there anyone online who has public
comment on item two zoning adjustments board appeal to 425 Durant Avenue? There are three
hands raised. The first speaker is David Scheer. Hi, two points that I want to make tonight
When council passed hard hats back in 2023, there were some additional referrals. There was
including it in the feasibility study. We did that. There were subsequent adjustments to impact fees
to offset the costs based on the feasibility study. We didn't do that. There was further
up zoning in downtown. We haven't come back to that. I really hope that we are able to come back
to some of these things. We hear a lot about how important this ordinance is. Obviously,
it makes things more expensive. And if we want this to work, it's on us to make it. That's thing
one. I hope we come back to this. Second, this is a novel use of the law. Very easy to imagine
that whatever happens tonight, we're going to port. That is expensive. And I encourage
you to vote for whatever minimizes our litigation costs and reduces the likelihood that we're
paying attorneys fees. Thank you. Thanks David. Okay next is Bonnie Zhu. Hi. Can I share the screen?
No. Sorry. You hear me? Sorry we don't do that during public comment.
Okay. I just want to bring out the applicant has a history of willful non-compliance with
safety laws and unfit to manage a project of this scale. I'm a resident at this property and they
violate the law without the property manager on the side for more than four years creating a
public safety vacuum with several life-threatening incidents and the involvement of burden fire
department and they also didn't ignore mandatory annual rental safety checks and failing to provide
basic life safety equipment and many other violations. Also, the applicant also legally
to intimidate and thrive when rat tenants
saw the California civic code regarding life safety hazard.
So all in all.
Next speaker is Kelly Hammergren.
Kelly Hammergren, you're unmuted.
You should be able to speak.
Okay.
So we have 169 units.
Berkeley Municipal Code 23.324.030.
The in lieu fee most easily found
through a search affordable housing requirements
for developers.
The in lieu fee is calculated as 10% very low income units,
10% low income units.
When this was passed, it was for the total building.
We are getting seven very low income units, not 17.
We are getting six low income units, not 17.
We have been told no money will be paid
into the housing trust fund
when we are short 10 very low, short 11 low income.
OSHA lists construction as the fourth most dangerous job
in the US after logging, roofers, fishing and hunting.
What we don't know is what the return on investment
is expected for this project.
Thank you, Kelly.
Okay, that's the final speaker.
Okay, thank you all.
Thank you very much for your public comments.
Excuse me, is there a motion to close the public hearing?
So moved.
Is there any opposition to closing a public hearing?
If not, we'll be recorded as I.
Unless we need to take the role on it.
Okay, then we will all be recorded as I for that.
And the motion to close the public hearing is passed.
Okay, so moving on to council deliberations,
I believe I saw, do you want to wait?
Okay.
I just punched the button there.
Sure.
30.
All right, are there any council comments?
Okay, council member Blackaby.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
I wanna thank everybody who's been here tonight,
staff, members of our labor community,
the developers who are here.
As other people have said,
I mean, this is a really hard issue.
It's a hard issue for me.
I think it's a hard issue for all of us.
We all know, absolutely 100% without any question,
that we need housing projects to move forward
in the city, in this state.
We're in a housing crisis.
We don't, we have not kept up with supply
over the past decades, we need more housing.
At the same time, we want and deserve to make sure
that people working on these projects are paid fairly,
they're well trained, they get healthcare,
And they can afford to live and safely work here in Berkeley.
That is also a priority for us.
My read of the state density bonus law is that the applicant is entitled to these concessions
by the letter of the law.
And denying this concession would put us as a city at legal risk at a time where we really
can't afford to be put at that risk with the cost that we'd be exposed to.
But we also need to figure out how to do better.
this issue needs to be taken up and resolved at the state level. Our overall goal should
be to find the common ground that's required to provide workers with fair pay health care
and training, but that still the market can still clear such that housing projects can
move forward. We need to have an open, robust public discussion about that and figure out
how to make that happen. It certainly does not reflect well on us as a state or as a
community if we can't fairly pay and train the workers we need to build our
housing. So I will be I will be supporting the motion to deny the
appeal reluctantly and approve the use permit but I know we can do better and I
think we all deserve to do better. Thank you. Thank you councilmember. Councilmember
Taplin. Thank you very much Madam Mayor and to staff and everyone who spoke
tonight. To be honest, this really doesn't say right with me. What is the
point of there being five allotted meetings if not to achieve a resolution
between parties? We have representatives of the eSpace unionized workforce vying
to create pathways to the middle class through gainful employment at safe and
hazard free job sites pitted against the deep pockets of well-resourced private
enterprise. The message that sends the community is that the state law
the health, safety and financial security of the families and workers providing physical
labor and applying skilled craft to build the housing we so value, to the economic interests
of private developers and their lenders.
The path before us is unclear this evening to ensure compliance with our local labor
standards.
If I could guarantee victory, I would gladly approve this project without the concessions
or remand back to Zeb.
To that end I welcome and implore our state legislators to act in order to prevent exploitation
of the concession's loophole.
In closing, this is a pro-housing council.
Each of us in our districts and in use and on this dais has championed housing.
But none of us would be here if we failed to build bridges and bring the community along
with us.
I take serious issue with this idea that you don't have to reach across the aisle to consider
critical stakeholders because you can just strong-arm this council or the city.
Organized labor is not the enemy of housing and any argument that throws
workers under the bus will never gain traction with me. Thank you.
Thank you. Councilmember Humbert. Thank you Madam Mayor and I have fairly lengthy
comments but I would ask some you know a little bit of leave to extend
past the five minutes because my comments on the second item will be much
shorter. Yes, you have a minute of my time as well. Thank you. Since these two appeals
fundamentally relate to the same issue, that of labor standards in the Southside
Plan, I'm going to focus my comments here and refer back to them for the remaining
one item. As such I hope, well I've already been granted a little bit of
time. I truly rest the time with them, the subsequent appeals and the difficult
questions they pose about labor standards adopted by the city under the
hardhats ordinance in the south side plan and yes I did say heck yes although
my position on these issues ultimately came down comes down to the legal
questions I want to acknowledge the incredibly thorny policy questions these
projects and their appeals raise candidly I hate that we're currently in a
position where a desperate need for more homes is in conflict with the
the requirements that we've established around healthcare and the apprenticeship for construction workers.
It speaks to the urgent need for universal healthcare and greater state and federal support for vocational education and training.
Some people might argue that this tension is simply the result of greed from one group or the other, but I've got to push back on that.
Construction workers are not greedy to want good healthcare.
And we can see from the stalled housing projects around the city that our current regulatory
requirements and construction costs are rendering projects infeasible in our current climate.
It's also worth noting that the U.S. has overall construction costs that tend to far outstrip
those incomparable developed countries.
To the extent greed is causing these problems, I'd argue it's coming from far above the level
of these projects and the city of Berkeley.
But beyond these questions being challenging from its policy and even from a philosophical
or maybe sociological standpoint,
we were precluded from looking at these appeals
in those lights.
Whatever we might feel is right policy-wise,
we're obligated to follow the law
to the best of our ability to understand that law.
Additionally, given the city's
incredibly dire budget situation,
I'm further compelled to go with
a legally defensible position to minimize
the city's likelihood of legal and financial liability.
We've seen with past projects that the city has spent,
outright lost millions of dollars when it fought ultimately lost legal battles
over projects where our arguments rested on very shaky legal ground. I therefore
must make a decision based on my best judgment as well as the advice of our
planning staff and our city attorney. On this basis I'm compelled to conclude the
city is obligated to deny this appeal, affirm the decision of the zoning
adjustments board and approve the 2298 Durant project. That's the wrong number.
I think but let's see 20 24 25 grant project as proposed on the question of
whether local labor requirements can be voided as part of concession I believe
the letter of the law supports this there are clear provisions in state law
under the section 65 9 1 5 sided spelling out that while waivers might
pertain to physical development standards concessions are not limited
to these, hard hats would fall under the more permissive definition of a regulatory concession.
This permissiveness is reinforced by the statutory provisions specifying that there should be a liberal construction in favor of more housing,
as well as the state's legislative findings that California is in desperate need of more housing.
This interpretation is further reinforced by at least one technical assistance letter from HCD in the Blossom Hill Project in San Jose.
HCD had this to say.
The definition clearly indicates that requirements beyond development standards are eligible as concessions.
In sub paragraph three, the statute clearly identifies regulatory requirements that are proposed by the applicant and
result in identifiable and actual cost reductions as eligible incentives or concessions under the state density bonus law.
Given all this, I'm forced to conclude that hard hats requirements can be waived as part of a concession.
Now my understanding is that Senator Arreguin, our former mayor, and he was the author of hard hats,
has even said he believes a state legislative fix may be necessary.
This lends strong credence to the idea that the current law allows for this concession
to go forward.
If it's a state law loophole, and I heard the mention of a loophole, then the state
has to fill that loophole, and frankly I hope the state does, because we can't.
What is far less clear is whether the city has any power to deem the existing cost savings
documentation so insufficient as to actually deny the project. Here I still
believe the answer is no. The fact that we have organized our brothers and
sisters from organized labor here arguing for hard hats requirements is
just frankly a clear indication that they carry value for both parties and
cost to the applicant. I think it's extremely unlikely that the city would
find sufficient fault with the cost documentation so as to contravene this
simple common sense conclusion. Given all of what I've outlined I'm not willing to
put the city on shaky legal ground and create additional potential costs and
staff time and legal defense by requesting documentation that would
likely confirm what we already know and which makes sense on a common sense. I
think the strongest argument in the appeal is probably the idea that the
the health care provision of city's hard hats requirement is necessary.
Okay, it's necessary to protect public health and safety.
However, we have to look at this through the lens of the statute where the state has adopted a narrow definition of public health and
safety which they have further clarified should only infrequently apply.
And once again, we have to keep in mind the overall pro-housing context and findings of the legislation.
I'm going to leave aside the question of quantifiable because the impacts theoretically
are quantifiable, but whether they are significant is more difficult, but I don't think the city
could meet the burden of proof necessary to show that the impacts from these specific
projects are significant.
I'm concerned that the tenuousness of these connections should not only put the city in
legal jeopardy, but explode state housing laws and wage which would allow other cities
to adopt anti-housing requirements in bad faith, and we've seen a lot of that all over
to state. To wrap this up, I want to again express my strong support for construction
workers, indeed all workers in residence, to have full health care coverage. But I have
to put these sentiments aside in evaluating whether the city can enforce local requirements
around health care, apprenticeship, and compensation in the context of state density bonus law,
which grants broad incentives and concessions, and only narrow exceptions to granting them.
such, I'm compelled to reject the appeal, affirm the ZAB's decision, and grant the necessary
permits for this project. Thank you.
Thank you. And for transparency, Councilmember Humbert had asked me previously if he could
have sort of time from the second item for this one, so folks understand. So just so
you know, the order will be Councilmember Bartlett, then Trigab, then Kessarwani.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Thank you.
Well, I didn't expect to be here.
I've been past this groundbreaking rule last year.
It's interesting, though, because we're charting the sort of larger trends at play in the country
and here.
You know, health care is in crisis.
We know this.
A trillion dollars were taken out of the health care budget to give tax breaks to billionaires.
And California is about to lose 17 to 18 hospitals.
I think some tens of millions of people losing health care,
five million children losing nutritional assistance.
So the downward pressure is on the Berkeley worker,
their health and their wages and well-being.
We know that the jobs industry is under assault
from efficiency and technology.
So the things that we fought for in this item still matter,
and they still value and they're so important.
There's another larger issue too,
in terms of at what point does the state law
effectively nullify our locally adopted
public health standards?
You know, what boundaries are out there?
For instance, if local labor standards can be waived,
then what about environmental mitigation?
What about safety requirements and so forth and so forth?
It's a slippery slope that I think we need
to grapple with very carefully.
And, you know, regarding to the quantifiable,
the quantifiable costs that were cited here in the impacts,
so I don't know whether the city has fully evaluated,
whether removing healthcare standards from workers
here in the city will produce measurable impacts
to worker health during the life of this project.
I know from one of the, at least one of the speakers here,
it sounded like it could have.
And if the answer is no,
is that because the impacts do not exist?
or is it because we've not yet built a sufficient record?
So, you know, in short, I support housing from day one,
I support workers from day one as well,
I support hardhats.
And I just don't feel comfortable granting concessions
of this magnitude and this potential magnitude
without a fully developed factual record.
I'd like to see some more findings here.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Tricob.
Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you to staff, the applicant, the appellant and all members
of the public here tonight. On day one of my first career as an engineer, someone came
to my office and told me if I really wanted to get an understanding of what actually is
going on, how things are built, go talk to the construction crafts. And I did and I am
very glad I did that. Contrary to what I heard someone in the public say around a special
interest group, these are men and women that build the housing of Berkeley and beyond and
should be treated with the same respect that we should treat all people. It is atrocious
that in one of the most rich countries in the world, in one of the most wealthy areas
in our country, we cannot make projects supposedly pencil that pay people fair wages for their
qualified labor. We would not hire a Sergeant who did not receive a certificate of completion
of their craft. How can it be that we would be okay with building housing where people
live for years that must withstand earthquake and other natural disasters without giving
them the training that they deserve, the health care that all of us deserve, and a wage that
might allow them to afford the housing that they're building.
It is heart wrenching to me that we have to choose over and over again between having
much more needed housing and paying people that they're worth or other community benefits.
I am pro-housing.
In my combined 14 years on the ZAB and the council, I am proud to have approved over
10,000 units of housing. And a lot of it is in the downtown, a district that I am honored
to serve. I am all too painfully aware of the construction slump that has resulted in
17 stout projects in my district. I would say someone mentioned that they think it's
tied to the passage of hard hats, I think that is a confounding variable. I think everything
between Trump's tariffs and an increase in the cost of goods and materials has led to
this untenable situation. Nothing would make me happier than to see those projects move
and provide much needed housing for the people in our community or to give others the opportunity
to live here.
That said, we all have web lines, this is mine.
I cannot in good conscience support housing that will be built on the backs of the workforce.
I understand that the issues being discussed are above my pay grade. No pun intended.
This must be addressed at the state level and I would welcome any clarification as to whether
Density bonus law was ever intended in a way to legislate out other social necessities like
health benefits and apprenticeship and a good wage. And so until that happens,
I have no choice tonight but to lay off supporting this appeal. Thank you.
Thank you. Council Member Kiserwani. Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. Thank you to the planning
staff for the presentation. Thank you to the appellant and applicant for your presentations.
And thank you to the public commenters. I have great sympathy for the workers that we heard from
tonight. And I'm going to be really brief with my comments. Unfortunately, I don't think the legal
justification is there to deny the concessions, as some of my colleagues have explained in terms of
what the language of the state law says as others have noted the city is not in a position
to take on the costs of expensive litigation when we know at the outset we are unlikely
to prevail just to be really clear the city is projecting a 30 million dollar budget deficit
with a deficit of that size we have to consider layoffs so you know we are in a really dire
situation we are going to be facing really difficult decisions and so I think we have
a difficult decision to make tonight to think about what kind of legal exposure we might
be putting our city at risk of and what the costs of that may be and how we're going to
balance that with all of the other reductions that we may have to make. So I implore my
colleagues to think about that when we weigh what to do on this. Thank you very much.
Thank you councilmember. Next moving on to councilmember O'Keefe. I don't have a speech. I don't really even know what to say. To be honest, I am a union member. My job provides me and my family with excellent health insurance, which is a human right, by the way. The people who work hard to build our much needed housing deserve the same.
we've been handed a pickle here.
This is a very difficult,
difficult situation we've been placed in.
My read on the legal issues is that our hands are tied.
That's my assessment of what we can do.
I do not like this.
I joined the plea already stated well
by many of my colleagues
that the state government figured this out.
This is a big problem.
For my own moral comfort, I'm gonna abstain.
I really wanna stand with my union brothers and sisters
as much as possible.
I don't know if there's anything more we can do.
So that's all I have to say.
Thank you, Vice Member Napara.
Thank you and I really wanna thank everyone
for being here tonight.
This development is in my district.
It's one block from the university
and it includes 32 affordable units.
And given how many students and young people
and people across the city experience homelessness
and overcrowding every day,
I'm excited for the development.
And I also fundamentally believe
that every single resident in our country
deserves healthcare, a living wage and a safe working site.
And we cannot leave behind the workers
that make these developments possible.
And sometimes public policy will be in conflict
with one another. And governments will have to make a decision over what they're going to value.
And it is in the best interest of everyone that legislators weigh these decisions,
these sometimes conflicting interests against one another and make a decision that they think
is what their jurisdiction needs. And this body has made many of those decisions in the past, often
without unanimous support. And our vote tonight is not one of those decisions. We are not making
that policy trade-off choice with the decision in front of us right now. The question that we are being asked is whether these arguments hold up to state law. And I think the density bonus law is very clear in placing the development of affordable housing over all else. It states this chapter shall be interpreted liberally in favor of producing the maximum number of total housing units. And so I believe that the density bonus is clear in its current iteration. And if that's a policy that we need to change, then we need to change it at the state level.
And I don't think that we have another choice right now.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I think all of my council colleagues have spoken already.
And so I really want to thank all of you,
both the applicant appellant and also to our own city staff
for taking the time to do the analysis
and make a recommendation to us.
I also want to thank the union for being so organized
with their public comment.
That's something that gets major bonus points for me.
So thank you all for organizing that.
And also just for your words,
it is really challenging to hear about the personal impacts
and what you all are experiencing.
And I do really support apprenticeship programs
and wanna thank those of you
who have actually helped to build our city.
As was said, many times we are a pro-housing council
and housing is something that is incredibly important to us.
And I agree with the importance of the hard hat ordinance,
both for worker safety, ensuring health care,
and also skilled training.
I think that those programs are essential.
However, as was said by many of my colleagues,
it's clear that these concessions are legally allowed
under state law.
I do want to encourage the developers to partner
with the unions, with the trades,
to provide the strongest working additions for this project.
I know that that was mentioned,
but I think it is really important
that if you are going to come and say
that you care about that,
that you have those conversations as well.
By working with the building trades,
you ensure high-quality, skilled, and well-trained workers.
I think when we look at what's happening on the state level,
we can see that the state government
really wants to make sure that we have more housing.
That is the entire purpose of being able to waive these
in the first place, and if we do think
that this is something that's important at the state level,
then we need the state to weigh in.
So I wanna echo those comments of my colleagues.
I think many of you have stated that already.
And I know that this is very challenging for a lot of you.
So I wanna thank you all for your comments.
So is there a motion?
I'll make a motion to adopt a resolution
denying or approving the appeal or I'm sorry,
denying the appeal and affirming the zoning
adjustment support decision to approve the use permit.
Second.
Can you take the roll, please, clerk.
Our motion includes the correction read into the record by our staff.
Councilmember Kessner-Wani.
Yes.
Taplin.
Abstain.
Bartlett.
Abstain.
Trigum.
Abstain.
O'Keeffe.
Abstain.
Blackaby.
Yes.
Lunapara.
Yes.
Humber.
Yes.
And Maryishi.
Yes.
Motion carries.
Thank you.
Okay.
Okay, so before we move on to the next item I do want to give us a 10-minute stretch break.
So we're going to do that and we will be back soon.
Thank you.
Recording stopped.
It's got to be easier now that we know.
Yeah, yeah, our break is over.
I will please ask you to take your seats.
If you're having a conversation,
please take your conversation outside, thank you.
Recording in progress.
Have a seat, come on guys, thank you.
All right, very good, so we are back from our break,
thank you all so much for waiting.
We are moving on to item numbers 3A and 3B,
that's the Zoning Adjustment Board
appeal 2029 University Avenue,
and also 2029 University Avenue,
one of them is use permit application zp2024-0182 student housing oriented
and the other is use permit application zp2024-0181 multifamily all right staff
please take it away thank you again mayor presenting again for staff on this
item is Neelu Karimzadegan. And I think she's just pulling up the deck now.
I lost it. While you're doing that I can say we're officially opening our public
hearing. Good evening again my name is Neelu Karimzadegan and the projects
Before you are the appeal of the ZAB approval
for use permit ZP 2024-0181
and use permit ZP 2024-0182
at 2029 University Avenue.
There are two separate permit numbers
and project schemes proposed for this site.
One scheme is oriented toward multifamily housing
and the other is oriented towards student housing.
Two different applications were submitted for this site
in order to provide the developer
with maximum flexibility in identifying equity partners
and securing project financing.
In this presentation, I will go over both project scopes,
project timelines, density bonus information,
appeal issues, and staff recommendation.
The project site is located along University Avenue west of Shattuck Avenue within the downtown mixed use district or CDMU outer core and within the city's downtown area plan.
Both projects proposed to demolish the existing 2 storey commercial building and a 10 car garage structure on a 12,385 square foot lot.
and to construct a 23 story, 256 feet tall,
approximately 191,000 square foot residential building.
In the upcoming slides,
I'll be describing the two proposed schemes
which have approximately the same building enveloped.
The multifamily oriented scheme
would be containing 240 dwelling units,
including 18 very low income
and 18 moderate income units
for 100% density bonus. The student housing oriented scheme would be containing 160 dwelling
units including 12 very low income and 12 moderate income units for 100% density bonus.
Shared program in both schemes are the ground floor residential program that includes the
lobby, bike room, mail room as well as the trash room, back of house service areas and
utilities. 2900 square foot community spaces, 2200 square foot fitness center
and 2,055 square foot roof deck is provided on level 23. 29 off-street
parking spaces are located on the second floor garage and there is, there
are 167 long-term bike parking spaces available. Building envelopes are
approximately the same units are larger within the student oriented housing
making this design include less total number of units. 160 units in the student
housing oriented scheme versus 240 units in the multifamily scheme. Other program
differences in the two schemes are the unit types, number of bedrooms, density
bonus numbers a number of short-term by parking spaces. Multifamily oriented
design program include 240 dueling units that include 80 studios, 60 junior
one-bedroom, 61 bedrooms and 42 bedrooms and that's for a total of 280 bedrooms.
Student oriented design program include 160 dueling units that include 60
the project was submitted in the
of 2016-2025 and the DRC had a favorable recommendation
to the ZAP.
This public hearing tonight is the fourth meeting
of the project.
Under the city's density bonus procedure,
the base project for the student housing scheme is 80 units
as the maximum allowable density for the sites.
The base project and the resulting 23 story proposed project
both have an average unit size of 1200 square feet.
By providing 12 very low income
and 12 moderate income units on site,
which is 30% of the 80 unit base density,
the project is eligible for 100% density bonus
or 80 additional units for a total of 160 units.
Under the city's density bonus procedure,
The base project for the multifamily scheme is 120 units
as the maximum allowable density for the site.
The base project and the resulting 23-story proposed project
both have an average unit size of 801 square feet.
By providing 18 very low-income
and 18 moderate-income units on site,
again, 30% of the 120-unit base density,
the project is eligible for 100% density bonus,
or 120 additional units for a total of 240 units.
Both projects are requesting three concessions
and a number of waivers.
Concessions requested on these projects are exemption
from the apprenticeship requirement,
healthcare expenditure and bird safe building.
Waivers on the project are usable open space,
height, set back, building with over 120 feet height,
and projections above height limit.
On December 1, 2025, the Building and Construction
Trade Council of Alameda County
and the Northern California Carpenters Regional Council
filed an appeal of the ZAB's decision
to approve both projects.
Appellant's detailed appeal issue letter
attached to the staff report and I have a summary of appeal points and I will go
over each separately. Appeal issue one, the provisions regarding apprenticeship
requirements and health care expenditures are not appropriate subject
of a concession because they do not pertain to development standards. Staff
responses that a concession can be used to reduce the cost of building affordable
housing. And according to the definition it can be a reduction in site
development standard or a modification of zoning code requirement or any other
regulatory incentive. A pill issue to the request of concessions would not result
in identifiable and actual cost reductions. Staff responses that
according to the applicant requested concessions for exemption from
apprenticeship requirements and healthcare expenditures would result in
cost saving as presented and the city could reject the concession upon a
finding that they would not result in identifiable and actual cost reduction.
However the request that concessions would result in a total cost reduction
of four million seven hundred thirty two thousand dollars for the applicant and
and the city has no information to make findings otherwise
and therefore cannot make a finding
based on substantial evidence that this exception applies.
Appeal issue three, the concessions
would have a specific adverse impact
upon public health and safety.
Staff responses that the city may deny concessions
only if it can make findings
supported by substantial evidence
that the concession would cause a specific adverse impact
on public health or safety.
State law defines specific adverse impact
as a significant, quantifiable, direct,
and unavoidable impact based on objective,
written health or safety standards
in effect when the application was deemed complete.
Staff concludes that appealants
have not provided sufficient evidence
showing the concessions would create such an impact
and the city itself does not have other evidence
that would support making this finding.
Therefore, staff advised that the city cannot make a finding
based on substantial evidence that this exception applies.
For reasons stated in appeal point one, two and three,
staff find that these concessions are appropriate
and that the city cannot make the factual finding necessary
to deny them.
tonight's staff recommends that the council conduct
a public hearing and adopt the resolution
to deny the appeal and approve use permit
ZP2024-0181 and ZP2024-0182.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We will now move on to the appellant.
We'll have a five minute presentation.
Let's see, am I waiting for an invitation to share my screen?
Okay, it says it's rejoining and it's spinning.
There, let's see.
Okay. As I'm a novice at this,
I don't see share my screen option.
We've been doing too much teams.
Thank you for bearing with me.
That doesn't want to seem to share my presentation version,
but there we are.
Thank you for bearing with me.
My name is Scott Littlehale
and I'm executive research analyst
for the North Coast States Carpenters Union,
formerly NorCal Carpenters Union,
now representing carpenters, drywallers,
and other construction craft workers
between Bakersfield, California,
all the way up to the Canada border.
And here tonight to talk about this high rise project
at 2029 University Avenue,
the Hardhats concession specifically,
which we argue if granted will hurt workers
and importantly, degrade public health and safety.
We've already covered healthcare expenditures
and apprenticeship fee out waivers.
These are not union standards.
These are distinct from union standards.
And the claims made by the development proponent,
we argue are non credible and unsubstantiated
about their costs.
We ask, in particular, to remand the ZAB
to request corrected, supported documentation
given those unsubstantiated and we argue erroneous estimates.
And we ask that perhaps the staff develop some capacity
on doing cost benefit analysis of things
that have such clear, direct, substantial, significant,
adverse impacts on public health and safety.
We also ask, or I ask, that the council go on
record officially with the legislature about taking labor standards passed by
local ordinance off the density bonus concessions menu. I want to spend one
minute on the real stakes for construction workers in California of
not having adequate health care and training. You probably already know that
construction workers face some of the highest injury rates including fatal
injury rates that are four to five times higher than all other working people.
But those 10 deaths per 100,000 construction workers are dwarfed by
deaths of despair, dwarfed by deaths from overdose, dwarfed by deaths by suicide.
What's the connection? Lack of training, injury, addiction to painkillers,
substance use combined with low job security, low pay and household income,
of job stresses on top of that, lowest among all major occupational groups of health care
coverage. On top of that, 25% of the workforce due to immigration status being ineligible
for any of the social insurance benefits included the unemployment insurance that was mentioned
earlier. Not to mention SNAP, other forms of benefit. 63% lower average employer expenditures
for residential construction workers compared
to non-residential construction workers.
These low road model outcomes are what Hardhats was designed
to combat.
Through investment and training
and retention promoting health insurance,
health insurance coverage, it's not a union standard,
but it is designed to reduce financial stress,
diminish turnover of the construction workforce
which we hear repeatedly we need
so badly, increase skills retention and boost productivity.
The applicant's cost documentation, we believe, is definitely unsubstantiated and with a little
bit of math, clearly erroneous.
You see before you on the screen and then hard copies that were distributed, the simple
costs of taking what was put in the record by the applicant in terms of costs for healthcare
under hard hats and apprenticeship and dividing it by 240 multi-family units.
Do a little bit of division and you estimate that that would be 2,500, over 2,500 construction
craft work hours per unit.
I'm sorry, that's not credible, that's 30% higher than an average across 14 different
Alameda County A1 projects that we have wage records and hours records for.
And it also has a hidden assumption that there is zero percent of this high-rise work performed
by a contractor that has health, has made commitments to health benefits, could be union
or non-union, or that has made commitments to some training at the low, low rate of three
dollars and ten cents an hour according to the hard ads ordinance.
Questions that this council asked would ask is were any baseline training or health expenses
deducted from that cost. I've heard things all over the map tonight. But the
implication of what was put into the record is that that number is zero and
that's just not credible. If they aren't going to contribute anything, shouldn't
we ask why not and at what cost to public health and
and safety. With that, I'll conclude. Thank you.
Okay, can the applicant come up a percent, please? I don't have a share screen yet. Oh, here we go,
found it. Good evening again, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council. Thank you, staff,
for all the time and energy that's gone into your work to get us here. Very briefly,
I'm going to introduce Travis Brooks, our project council,
because that's really what these issues are turning on.
I will say, though, that, and thank you
for the reminder from the planning director earlier,
you don't need me to substantiate our numbers.
Your consultant did that for you a year and a half ago,
when they said there'd be a 20% lift
on construction projects with the imposition
of these ordinances.
With that, let me turn it over to Travis
and we'll walk you through the rest.
Great, thank you, Mark.
And thank you all for your time tonight,
and thank you for the time
that you've all spent to come here tonight.
I think it's really important to frame the narrowness
of the issues being considered on this appeal.
We're not here to question the virtues
or goals of the hard hats ordinance,
and we're not asking you to eliminate
or nullify the hard hats ordinance.
Regardless of the outcome of this appeal,
the hard hats ordinance will still apply
throughout the city to market rate projects,
commercial projects, and to all projects
where concessions to reduce or eliminate
the hard hats provisions are not asked.
The narrow question in this appeal instead
is what does state housing law require the city to do
in response to my client's three requests for incentives
that it is entitled to request under state law
In exchange for the significant expense,
it is incurring to provide dozens
of critically needed affordable housing units.
And we talked about that first requirement
that an incentive must result in actual
and identifiable cost reductions.
We've done that here.
These incentives will result
in approximately $5 million in cost reductions.
that certainly clears the state law threshold
if it's anywhere near that range
for an incentive or concession to be appropriate.
And there's case law that says,
it's the Schreiber case, the 2021 case out of LA
that said, by virtue of asking for an incentive,
a presumption actually arises
that the incentive will result in cost reductions.
Next slide.
So density bonus law incentives and concessions
are intended to be flexible and broadly defined,
broadly applied with regard to development standards
that can be reduced or eliminated.
It's any site or construction condition
that applies to a housing project
pursuant to any ordinance or other condition
adopted by the local government.
I do think that clearly that doesn't only apply
to physical site constraints.
It also complies to locally adopted policies.
But if that weren't enough,
even if the hard hats ordinance did not fall
under the definition of a development standard
that could be eliminated through an incentive,
we certainly fall within the other regulatory incentives
category that we could ask for
under K-3 of the Density Bonus Law.
We already talked about the interpretive rules
that bind you here.
density bonus law directs you to interpret it liberally in favor of producing the maximum
number of housing units. There are also pro-housing interpretive rules under the HAA that are
applicable here. So as laudable as the label provisions of the hardhats or ordinance are,
for our purposes here, those label provisions just do not enter the calculus as to whether
or not you can deny the incentives that we've requested. Next slide. Great. And
again we've already talked about the narrow health and safety findings that
can be made. There are very specific requirements that must be met to make
that finding. There are four very specific requirements and words that all
have meanings that must be met. So specific adverse impact must be
significant quantifiable direct and unavoidable as a record shows those four
requirements have not been met here to deny the incentive request and they
must be based on objective written public health and safety standards that
existed at the time we submitted our preliminary application as laudable as
the hardhats ordinance is it is not a health and safety standard it is a
labor policy document the OSHA provides the health and safety standards with
I'll pass it on to Mark.
Thank you again.
Just a last slide here,
showing the potential revenues generated by the project.
And there was a question earlier about permit fees,
impact fees versus the cost of hard hats.
You can see that the city's fees are quite high
compared to the overall cost of the hard hats requirements.
Thanks, Mark.
Yeah, that's, thank you very much, everybody.
Okay.
All right, very good.
Do we have any council questions?
Okay, no, it's not working.
Okay, well, you can start while I try to fix it.
Go ahead, council member.
Thanks, I have three questions for staff.
Could a developer waive
Living Wage Ordinance as a concession?
Short answer is yes, and it goes back
to the definition of concession.
government code section 65915K3 that says any other regulatory incentive can be a concession.
Okay, so this product is waving the birth safe glass, could someone wave any green building
codes you might adopt at some point beyond what the SAA requires?
answer to that I believe is no. The Green Building Standards are part of the
building code so the project would have to comply. Thank you and then so for
City Manager or whomever were there to be a proposed amendment to state law
would it be possible for council to be alerted in the occasion if it happens
or we might get that from our state lobbyists.
Sure, absolutely.
Yeah, great, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And Council Member Tragob.
Thank you so much.
While this is not the direct subject of the appeal,
we are seeing this whole matter de novo.
So I'm noticing that one of the requested concessions
This is around board safe glass for 400K for staff.
Have there been other instances you have absorbed
of waivers or concession requests of board safe glass
on a project since the inception of the board safe ordinance?
Yes, I don't have the exact addresses,
but I do remember concession on board safe.
Okay, for the applicant how did you base the 400K number
and did you consider, were there any alternatives
that may have been equivalent on cost
to not having board safe class?
Are there any board safe treatments that you looked at
that might not add cost to the project?
There are no bird safe treatments that we're aware of that don't add cost to a project.
The one that you're looking at with that cost assumption is as inexpensive as it gets.
You can go everything from applying stickers to the glass, little dots,
four inches on centers, all the way up to fruited glass, which is quite expensive.
That's not a reflection of a fruited glass requirement.
That's more of a reflection of the stickers, the dot stickers requirement,
like you see on the B of A building downtown.
Okay, thank you, Council Member Blackaby.
Thanks, Madam Mayor, and thank you to the applicant
and the appellant and staff for being here.
Kind of like in the first round,
I just wanted to kind of dive into some of the cost numbers
a little bit, on the apprenticeship requirements,
you know, the cost saving about 1.9 million.
I was just going back again to hard hats
and refreshing my recollection
on what the apprenticeship requirement is.
And it says, under the ordinance for covered projects,
contractors must perform at least one
of the following, either participate in the Joint
Labor Management Apprenticeship Program
or use a state approved program or contribute
to training funds, making hourly contributions
to the Apprenticeship Council for every
apprenticesable craft hour.
When you calculated this number, kind of what was the,
what was the, how did you determine that cost,
was it against one of those three?
Or Paul.
Could ask my client to come up.
Sure.
I was wondering if you used a joint labor management
apprenticeship program.
Is that more economically viable?
Good evening, everybody.
My name is Paul Menzies.
I'm CEO of Laconia Development.
We are the developer of this project.
These estimates were put together
by looking at actual cost estimates for the bird's
safe glass.
And the other estimates were put together
in conjunction with contractors, many of whom
we've worked with before, who provided information to us.
So I guess my question is, so are we
saying that participation in a joint labor management?
Again, I'm just trying to find out,
is there a way of meeting the apprenticeship requirement
under hard hats that cost less than $1.9 million?
Does anyone know the answer to that?
I don't believe so.
Do you know what is the cheapest method of meeting that?
Am I asking the question the right way?
What I'm trying to figure out is which of these three prongs
is the most economical way of reaching it?
And is that what this 1.9 million reflects?
That's what I'm trying to ask.
I'm sorry.
I don't quite understand that question.
Yeah, go ahead.
Go ahead.
No, under the three options, this test
is for the least expensive option identified
by the contractor.
Right, just so I know which one.
don't I don't recall off the top of my head which one it was okay do you have
follow-up questions no I just wish I wish we knew that but okay that's all I
got thanks okay thank you councilmember Bartlett thank you madam mayor and this
question I guess is for the for the team what's our methodology for measuring
impacts on public health and safety. I mean we I think we rely on objective
standards that are established in the municipal code and so if the appellant in
this case had identified objective standards in the municipal code that
would constitute health and safety risks we would have taken those into
consideration. But I'm not they didn't raise specific objective standards and
I haven't been. I don't think our team has been made aware of any specific
codified objective standards for health and safety that would be violated by
the project. Thank you. I'm gonna go to council member actually Vice
Marilyn Apara because you've asked already. So we'll come back to you. Thank
Thank you, I think the appellant wanted to respond to Councilmember Blackavy's question,
so I just wanted to give them the opportunity to do so.
Thank you very much Councilmember Blackavy, I mean there were as you noted three different
options so even if one were not to take advantage of the training opportunities of participating
in an apprenticeship, one could contribute to an existing State California Apprenticeship
Council training fund at the rate of three dollars and ten cents per
apprenticesable construction craft work hour. That's where I did the math on the
earlier slide to get to the, in my opinion, inflated estimate of hours
worked by construction craft workers per unit compared to a range of other
projects that we've looked at. So it's either that the workers that they're
intending to hire are less productive by 30% or the number is incorrect. The
value of the apprenticeship is harder is harder to calculate and that goes to
the methodology questions that were asked earlier. Thank you for the
opportunity. Did you have a question or that was... no okay thank you. Going back
to Councilmember Traka. I had the same question as the Vice Mayor. It's been
answer it. Very good. Any other questions? Okay, thank you all for answering our
questions. We will now move on to public comment. So if you have public comment
on items 3A or 3B, this is the zoning adjustment boards appeal for 2029
University Avenue. Please come on up. I will. Go ahead. You're ready. Again, E.J.
Sire. So I mean if $400,000 for bird-safe glass is going to make or break a
a project, and that's what's needed for a concession.
I think there's other issues there.
But I just want to point out a couple of different things.
Everybody keeps talking about state legislature
needs to fix this stuff and all that.
If everybody just did what the bosses said
and waited for the bosses to fix stuff,
then there would never be a union at all anywhere.
1598 University is really a good example
of what happens when you don't have any standards
whatsoever on any of these projects.
1598 University, I use that example
because we were told we, as in everybody in this room
right now, was told multiple times
that we were going to have local workers on those projects,
we were going to have good, good, good paying jobs
on those projects, every license plate except for one,
the day that we were all out there on a strike line,
many of you sitting up on the dais right now,
every license plate except for one
was from the state of Washington.
So congratulations to the developer,
you employed people from Washington
to take that money back with them.
And I also want to point out,
the litigation keeps getting mentioned over and over again,
who's going to litigate?
It's not this side of the room with safety vest on,
it's the other side that would be threatening that.
Thank you.
Real quick, Daniel Gregg, North Coast States Carpenters Union.
Just kind of speak to Igor's point earlier that all these stalled projects are because
of hardhats.
Hardhats only applies to the three projects we're going to talk about tonight.
So none of these projects in his district or throughout are stalled because of hardhats.
I just wanted to bring up the point that this is new to me that a city will allow a developer
to have two different applications for the same parcel. I've seen where cities have decided
what they want to see there on two different proposals, but I can imagine that they're
going to do a real tight cost analysis on these projects about where they can get the
highest rents, and that's the one they're going to go with.
And I was very happy to be able to do that.
Second, at the ZAB hearing for 2029 University,
Mark Rhodes stated that contractors on this project
would provide healthcare to the construction workers.
Five minutes after he stated the project
had not gone out to bid yet.
He said the workers would have healthcare,
but not as good as the unions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I was just wondering if the development team
is willing to make that commitment tonight
that all the workers on this project
will have some form of healthcare.
Good evening again. I'm Tim Frank, and I'm also carrying a minute from Jesse Parales.
Thank you. I want to note that construction trades are fundamentally
pro-housing, you know. We don't get a single work hour out of any job that
doesn't get built. So we want jobs to be built. We support the idea of actually
building to a very aggressive envelope. We would like to see a lot of building a
a home's built near the campus.
We just want it done under fair circumstances.
Now Mark suggested that if we have a labor standard
and we apply it here, nothing will get built in Berkeley.
And I actually would suggest
that that doesn't comport with reality.
We actually have one of the strongest
railroad markets in the East Bay.
This is a place where we could actually establish
a standard and make it work.
If you look at this from a statewide perspective,
the last time California built 200,000 homes in a year
was in the 1980s, when a majority
of the residential construction work were,
a majority of the workers were union workers.
Since then, we've seen union busting
from the people on the other side of this aisle here tonight.
And we haven't built more than a little over 100,000
any time in recent history.
The suggestion that actually accommodating the system
that actually pays a wage high enough to allow people
to afford housing without an additional public subsidy
that requires the kind of training
that also makes the job site safe and improves productivity,
that just doesn't hold up.
What we need is public policy that is demanding an approach
that is actually fair to the workers
that will help build the strong workforce we need.
I mean, these guys are complaining about a lack of skill work.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
And we have a solution.
Thank you.
OK.
OK, hello.
Thank you for having me today.
Thank you, Mary.
So I want to hope the iron hats on this one,
because this building is way over five floors.
And I don't know much about buildings,
but I know if you build something over five floors,
you have to be very careful because it can fall.
So I know that much, right?
The height is over the 5.4 limit way over,
so there must be all precautions taken.
There has to be hard hats being used,
involvement of OSHA and even extra non hard hat helpers
if possible.
If that can make it more affordable for people hiring,
if you could mix the workers,
that way you can have some hard hats,
because we're building for this big,
you cannot have any mistakes or it can't fall,
or it can fall on someone in maybe the next five years,
you don't want what's happening in San Francisco
to happen here with that tilting building.
You don't want that in Berkeley.
Also, this structure is very dull and ugly looking.
It resembles a prison style building.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, mayor and council members.
My name is Vince Agrua with Sheet Metal Workers Local 104.
I just want to thank everyone here tonight.
I know this is a special called meeting.
It's a Monday night.
We're all frustrated to be here to varying degrees,
but I want to thank all of your leadership on this.
What I want to say is that what we've been served tonight
by the applicant was pure disrespect.
We, when we were framing the hard hats ordinance,
it took years to meticulously craft this
to be amenable to development,
to make sure that it worked and it penciled
to the point where we were working numbers for months.
They came here tonight and we clearly just heard
a bunch of BS.
They can't tell you how much with which apprenticeship
works for them, how they got their numbers,
they worked with some contractors.
That's the nature of this industry.
It is underhanded, people pay under the table,
people are undocumented and exploited oftentimes,
particularly in this city, and that's why we're here.
Thank you all so much for your time tonight,
and I'm sorry we were disrespected.
Thank you.
Hi, Stephanie Lindegan, Berkeley Resident, Local 22 member.
I was not planning on speaking twice or staying this long
because it's past my kid's bedtime, I'm a single mom.
But I feel passionate, so I stayed, I'm here.
I just want to say this feels very fishy.
I work for a general contractor.
So I do interface with the cost items.
We have brought down our budgets by millions of dollars
sometimes by value engineering.
Why are we looking at it with such a narrow lens
and allowing them to only look at taking away
healthcare rights, taking away training?
I can tell you someone who's not training
who's gonna take twice as long to do the job.
That's gonna be costly.
So why are we looking at with such a narrow lens
as being more creative?
Let's think about the other concessions
that could be offered like value engineering,
looking at the budget as a whole and not narrow it down
to taking the things away that Berkeley cares about.
All Berkeley residents care about this.
Thank you.
Are you speaking as well?
No, other public comment?
Okay, he's behind the camera guy, so.
All right, is there any public comment online
for items 3A or 3B?
Zoning Adjustments Board Appeal
2029 University Avenue.
All right, two hands raised.
First is Kelly Hammergren.
Okay, I just sent you this document.
Road safe glass, loss of nature,
is detrimental to our public health.
and at the Zoning Adjustment Board meeting on November 13th.
Mark Rhodes handed in an estimate of project costs
of $391,326 for the art ordinance
and an estimate of $400,000 for bird safe glass.
The board members, that is a difference of $8,674
to protect birds from bird glass collisions.
The board members asked the developer to make a swap
and to put in the bird safe glass
and that if funds were found later
to add in the public art later.
The developer declined and I asked Kelly
to request that tonight.
Kelly, I'm sorry, your time is up.
Thank you.
Okay, next is Joey from Evho.
There you go.
Hi, my name's Joey.
I'm not this year on behalf of Evho.
That is just must've been logged onto the wrong Zoom account.
I'm sorry about that, but my name's Joey.
I'm the chair of the Berkeley Commission on Labor.
That's the capacity over here.
I'm sorry I had to leave the meeting
and log back in on Zoom.
Yeah, once again, we urge the council to stand behind the hard half's ordinance to the extent possible. And if that means, you know, engaging in legal action to defend the audiences that we pass in our city, because we believe in them, we think that's worth doing.
We think it's worth taking a strong stand and we support, you know, all the calls on the developers to stand by strong.
Labor practices, whatever the results of the hearing is tonight, we hope that they will, you know, uphold strong labor standards, provide health care for their workers and so on. Thank you.
Thank you, Joey. Thanks for being here with us virtually. I think that that's it for our public comment online. Just those 2.
Okay, very good. All right. Is there a motion to close the public hearing? 2nd.
And if there's no opposition to closing the public hearing then we will close the public hearing
Alright public hearing is closed
We'll now move on to council deliberations starting with council member Kaplan
Yes, thank you. And thank you for everyone to everyone for saying so late
And director Klein card if I wrong, but it sounds like the city doesn't currently have adopted objective health standards
Or is that?
It was a response. No, I'm sure we do have we do many codified objective standards related to health and safety, but
I'm just saying that none of those this this project hasn't been identified to be violating any of those objective standards. Thank you
This is a novel thing we're dealing with now
But I wanted to state that I am committed to continuing the work that we began with the hard hats ordinance
Something Kelser Traigube said last round really moved me
Especially the line about, or the part about having a red line
It makes total sense for our community to advocate and fight for
the rights of workers
And that's what we've attempted to do here with hard hats
And people are well within a reason to be suspicious and wary of
efforts to exploit workers for profit.
If we hadn't spent our entire lives seeing that,
I don't think people would be so concerned tonight
or in general.
And I do want to see the state come into alignment
with us around hard hats and the applicability
of the ordinance.
I know that perhaps there's not votes
to deviate from the soccer combination tonight.
But I, when I hear everyone, when I look into the crowd,
I see so much of my own family
that there's no way I could, I could,
I could set aside my principles this evening.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Tragob.
Thank you for the record.
I will largely echo without repeating
the comments that I made for the previous item,
which was ZAB appeal 2425 grant use permit application
ZP24-0162.
I did want to add one thing,
since 1598 University came up,
and I was on the ZAB when I was, I believe,
part of a unanimous ZAB when we approved that project.
And in my two years on the council,
no project before or since.
Well, I don't know what happened before,
but certainly no project has been grounds
for more warranted constituent complaints
where various parts of the code
continue to be violated over and over by the applicant.
And in my previous line of work, as an engineer,
as a safety engineer, generally,
when there were multiple violations,
It demonstrated a systemic issue,
which could often be corrected with training.
And that means we had approved a project where
the crafts that were working on it,
presumably for not receiving the training
that frankly they deserve, nor our community.
My heart starts right now.
I would love to see a project approved.
in my district that will actually break ground
and not be built on the backs of the workforce.
For all the aforementioned reasons,
I hope the state does its job.
I look forward to working with Council Member Tapland
and others on this body to see what objective standards
we might need to develop as well.
But I will respectfully be laying off this item as well.
Okay. Thank you councilmember Humbert. Thank you Madam Mayor and this is where I
fulfill my promise to to be very brief. This appeal raises the same legal
questions I addressed in my in the prior item regarding the scope of density
bonus concessions and the specific adverse impact standard. I reviewed
independently the records for the 2029 University Avenue applications including
the distinct concessions requested, cost documentation, and testimony received on this item, and
I reached the same conclusions for the same reasons.
I'd like to incorporate by reference something lawyers like to do, my comments on the policy
and legal questions surrounding the 2425 Durant Project as the basis of my reasoning for 2029
University Avenue.
Therefore, I'm compelled to reject the appeal, affirm the Zab's decisions, and grant necessary
permits for the two versions of the 2029 University Avenue project. Thank you.
Thank you. Councilmember Bartlett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And not to a
believe the point that I made earlier, but again I'm not convinced that the
denial of health care to workers in the city of Berkeley is not without impact.
And with that being said, without a clear record of that, whether it came with,
whether it didn't come from the challenger
or from our own city staff,
with the absence of that impact statement
and that analysis, I don't feel comfortable
throwing our workers through the wind.
Thank you, any other council comments?
Okay, I will just add my comments,
basically as it incorporated as before,
as you were saying, Council Member Humbert,
but thank you everyone so much for coming out
and for sharing your perspectives with us this evening.
We really do appreciate hearing the impact.
I think that's really essential.
And thank you so much, as always,
to staff for your work on this.
Is there a motion?
I'd like to make a motion to deny the appeal
and affirm the zoning adjustments board decision
to approve use permit.
Should I cite them both?
OK, ZP 2024-0162 and ZP 2024-0182.
Second.
councilmember.
Are there any questions?
Can we take the role, please.
Clerk.
Okay.
On the motion.
Councilmember kiss or wanting.
Yes.
Taplain.
Epstein.
Bartlett.
Abstain.
Traga.
Abstain.
O'Keefe.
Abstain.
Blackaby.
Pass.
Unipara.
Yeah.
Humbert.
Yes.
Mary she.
Yes.
And councilmember Blackby.
Um.
Okay.
motion fails staff can you talk to us about what happens if the motion doesn't
pass if council doesn't take action on this and there's abs decision we'll
stand thank you okay that was the final item for this evening since this is a
special meeting that's all we have left on here so is there a motion to adjourn
So moved. Second. If there's no opposition to adjourning, we will adjourn for this evening.
Okay. All right. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.