BERKELEY—Some of the city’s most affluent neighborhoods, bustling street corridors and empty single-family homes are being eyed to try and develop nearly 9,000 new homes over the next eight years, after the Berkeley City Council unanimously gave a 656-page plan the green light Wednesday.
Now, state housing officials just have to approve it.
The city will submit its state-mandated Housing Element, which lays out a roadmap and vision for denser development, to California’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) this month.
After HCD rejected Berkeley’s previous draft in November, the council worked to craft a clearer path forward to removing sluggish construction hurdles, spurring denser housing in historically exclusionary