Take Action Now!
Scroll for actions and events related to housing and mobility in North Berkeley.
All official BART-related info is at City of Berkeley BART Planning page and BART's North Berkeley TOD page
What's next for North Berkeley BART?
Take action by Friday, Sept 29!
Get up-to-date on ADUs
Read Berkeleyside’s coverage about the ADU restrictions mentioned in our last email. The item has been continued to October 3, where hopefully council doesn’t knowingly* vote to violate state law! If you want to make your position clear, send a quick email to council@berkeleyca.gov saying:
I support state law with regards to parking requirements for ADUs and I support a uniform 20-foot height standard citywide for ADUs. Please reject Alternative 2’s time limit for conversion of an accessory structure into an ADU.
If you can, show up Oct 3 at 6pm via Zoom or in person at 1231 Addison to support legal and sensible ADU policy!
*- Berkeley City Council and the mayor have been informed that the ADU proposal as written would violate state law.
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.