Labor unions appeal permit for proposed Southside student housing development | Housing

Two unions — the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County, a child organization of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, and the Northern California Carpenters Regional Council — have appealed the approval of a use permit for a proposed housing development geared toward UC Berkeley students.

The development, which was proposed by Yes Community Architects, will be located at 2425 Durant Ave. The complex will be 20 stories and 208 feet tall, consisting of 169 multifamily apartments for campus students. The City of Berkeley and the Zoning Adjustments Board, or ZAB, approved the project’s use permit at a hearing Oct. 9.

Yes Community Architects has requested concessions, or modifications of development standards that reduce the cost of providing affordable housing. The concessions would enable the company to build more units than what is usually allowed under the California State Density Bonus Law, or SDBL. The company has also requested to be exempt from apprenticeship requirements and health care expenditures under the HARD HATS Ordinance, as well as from apprenticeship standards for private development under Berkeley’s Southside Plan.

Adopted by the city in 2011, the Southside Plan states the city’s policies for key land use, housing, transportation and other areas of concern. The city amended the plan in November 2023 to allow larger, higher-density developments.

The city adopted the HARD HATS Ordinance in May 2023 in an effort to “enhance the good health” of construction workers and ensure that private contractors participate in “high-quality, industry-proven” apprenticeship programs.

Jolene Kramer and Andrea Matsuoka, lawyers at Weinberg, Roger & Rosenfeld who represent AFL-CIO and the Carpenters Council, submitted a letter to Mayor Adena Ishii, city council members and the city clerk Oct. 27.The letter contends that Berkeley should not grant concessions under the SDBL that would “waive local labor standards” and characterizes Yes Community Architects’ strategy of using these concessions to avoid construction labor standards as “novel and unorthodox.”

“The requested concessions are an attempted misuse of the SDBL to avoid important labor standards that the City enacted to protect public health and safety,” the letter states.

The letter alleges that the requested concessions would have a “specific, adverse effect upon public health and safety.” It notes that the construction industry has one of the highest rates of injury and that workers without health coverage, apprenticeship requirements and prevailing wage requirements are more prone to accidents and injuries.

“Given the policy behind the State Density Bonus Law, which is to build more affordable housing, it was surprising and disappointing, I would say, to our clients that the law would be used in this way to basically undercut labor standards on those projects,” Kramer said.

A hearing for the city council to reconsider the ZAB’s approval of the use permit with the concessions has been scheduled for Feb. 10, 2026.

Clarification: A previous version of this article implied that the development is exclusivey for UC Berkeley students. In fact, it is privately developed and consists of multifamily apartments geared toward campus students.