Berkeleyside has scoured planning documents and our archives to bring you the latest information about housing built, under construction, approved and proposed in Berkeley as of August 2019. This updated interactive map (originally published in March) shows the locations of about 5,800 units in the city.
Different markers in the map above show project status. Click each marker to learn more about each project. The caveat: We’ve done our best from the available information but will update the map going forward. See an error or have a question? Please use the tips form to let us know. We appreciate the chance to fix our mistakes and make our reporting more complete.
This map includes 87 housing projects in Berkeley: 23 have been built, 15 are under construction, 24 have been approved and 21 have been submitted or are in the pre-application phase. One — with 260 units proposed, half of which would be affordable at 80% of the area median income, aka workforce housing — is tied up in a lawsuit. Then there are the group living projects, most of which are dormitories: two are complete (913 beds) and one (with 254 beds) is under construction.
Put another way, for general housing: nearly 1,300 units have been built since about 2012, about 90 of which were below-market-rate (BMR) units; 1,047 are under construction (including 81 BMR units); 1,444 units have been approved (with about 84 BMR units); and another 1,252 (with 102 BMR units) have been submitted.
These numbers do not reflect millions of dollars in Housing Trust Fund fees that have been or are slated to be paid to the city; Berkeleyside has asked staff about how to get those figures. The Housing Trust Fund is the money the city uses to build and support affordable housing projects in Berkeley. The money can be leveraged 4-to-1 to seek outside funding. Money generally comes into the fund when developers choose not to include affordable units within their projects, or who do not include the full number of those units. Rather than building on site, they can pay a fee into the city’s Trust Fund instead.
In addition to the projects above, another 519 units have been approved, are under construction or have been built for seniors, artists, people with special needs, those who have been homeless and other specialized categories.
For now, the Association of Bay Area Government tally shows Berkeley still has more to build in an effort to help meet the regional need.
We’ll continue to share data on Berkeley housing as it becomes available. The city released its second pipeline report in July about housing proposed or built in the city along with its affordability levels. Berkeleyside mapped that data separately but found a number of errors in the city report. (We alerted the city and updates were made.)
One interesting data point from that report: “The number of building permits issued for new ADUs increased from one in 2015 to 80 in 2018, for a building permit total of 171 since 2015.” ADUs are not reflected in the map above.
Please note: Berkeleyside has also updated our March 2019 guides to projects that are still in development and those that have been completed. We still need to add a handful of projects that are on this map to those lists. This map is the most comprehensive and accurate housing information available at this time.
View the 2019 Berkeley housing pipeline map larger, but be sure to come back to share your thoughts in the comments. And let us know what we’ve missed or should tune into.
