Take Action Now!
Scroll for current actions and upcoming events related to housing and mobility in North Berkeley. Brush up on talking points here
North Berkeley BART
BART has released the chosen developer teams early concepts
Objective Design Standards (ODS): Learn more
BUSD housing at former Oxford Elementary
Next meeting is March 8
BUSD's 7-11 committee is tasked with advising how the district will use or dispose of the Oxford Elementary School site at 1130 Oxford, a 54,000 sf parcel at the edge of the Berkeley Hills. BUSD has the chance to adopt a plan that develops this property into workforce housing and/or some combination of missing middle housing and low income housing.
Up to 60 units of 100% affordable workforce housing could be built in this desirable, high-resource neighborhood but many committee members want the district to sell the land. Speak up for teachers living closer to work, for more housing in high resource neighborhoods, for walkable and transit-accessible affordable homes.
Hopkins Street Safety Improvements
The next Hopkins safety improvements meeting is postponed to April 18. More info to come! Learn more about past meetings. Brush up on talking points
All official BART-related info is at City of Berkeley BART Planning page and BART's North Berkeley TOD page
Tips for giving public comment or writing letters
Start out with your name and your location relative to the area in question, e.g. "2 blocks from," "a 5 minute walk away," "across the street from."
If it helps, write down what you want to say ahead of time. You absolutely do not need to be a good public speaker to make an impact with your public comment.
Keep it short. You’re not going to have a lot of time; all speakers get a strict time limit, sometimes as little as 1 minute. Stick to 1 or 2 talking points. (If you can, practice your comments beforehand and time yourself to make sure you get to say everything that you want)
Call out someone else by name that you agree with. i.e. “Janet really hit the nail on the head when she said…” or “I agree with Alex that...” or "Let me piggyback on what Amir said and..."
Telling a personal story means a lot and it's something only you can add to the conversation.
Development at North Berkeley BART is not a done deal. We need to speak up not only to make sure it houses lots of people, but we need to speak up to make sure it happens at all!
There's a small but loud group who are scared of change. They think more neighbors in their neighborhood is a bad thing and want to be able to continue to park their cars wherever they want. These securely housed people are highly motivated to maintain the status quo and have the luxury to go to every meeting. We need to show up too.
Vocabulary
TOD = Transit-Oriented Development
MOU = Memorandum of Understanding
CM = Councilmember
EIR = Environmental Impact Review
ODS = Objective Design Standards