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An eight-story, 110-unit building has been approved for the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Virginia Street in North Berkeley. Credit: Stackhouse De La Pe\u00f1a Trachtenberg Architects <\/p>\nAn eight-story, 110-unit building has been approved for the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Virginia Street in North Berkeley. Credit: Stackhouse De La Pe\u00f1a Trachtenberg Architects <\/p>\n
A planned eight-story North Berkeley apartment complex that got the green light from the City Council on Tuesday could be a preview of what\u2019s to come in that and other wealthy neighborhoods that have seen little recent housing development.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to approve the 110-unit building pitched by developer Patrick Kennedy at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Virginia Street over the objections of neighbors who sought to block the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe building is out of character with the neighborhood and will ruin our North Shattuck commercial district,\u201d Vijesh Unnikrishnan, who lives near the project site, told the council. Unnikrishnan spoke on behalf of a group calling itself the North Shattuck Alliance, which he described as \u201cresidents, families, workers [and] small businesses who care deeply about the future of our neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
The proposed development at 2109 Virginia St.<\/a> would replace the two-story, Tudor-style building<\/a> that today holds the travel agency Going Places Travel and was the longtime home of the deli Poulet before it closed in 2023<\/a>, as well as some nearby parking lots.\u00a0<\/p>\n While most of the city\u2019s recent housing construction has been geared toward UC Berkeley students, Kennedy has said this project is meant to appeal to empty-nesters<\/a>, such as those who now live in the Berkeley Hills and want to downsize to an apartment that has the North Shattuck neighborhood\u2019s famed shops and restaurants a short walk away.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would provide more opportunities for young families to move to Berkeley, it would allow a lot of legacy Berkeleyans to stay in Berkeley \u2014 where they desperately would like to go, instead of moving to Walnut Creek \u2014 and it would generate a huge amount of additional taxable property,\u201d Kennedy said in comments Tuesday night.<\/p>\n The Zoning Adjustments Board approved the project last September, but several neighbors appealed the decision to the City Council.<\/p>\n Eighteen of the project\u2019s units would have below market-rate rents, with nine apiece reserved for renters who are considered very low and moderate income<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those affordable units allowed Kennedy to more than double the three-story height limit Berkeley normally imposes on development along the northern blocks of Shattuck Avenue, thanks to California\u2019s density bonus law. Kennedy also used the law, which lets developments that include a share of affordable homes exempt themselves from some local ordinances, to sidestep a Berkeley regulation limiting the amount of parking<\/a> spaces in new buildings; the project will have a 109-space parking garage, along with storage for 64 bikes.<\/p>\n Berkeley may soon allow taller buildings on North Shattuck, Solano and College<\/p>\n The building at 2109 Virginia St. is just the second new housing development proposed on North Shattuck in the past decade, even as thousands of homes have been built in downtown Berkeley and the Southside district near campus. (The other, also by Kennedy\u2019s firm Panoramic Interests, is under construction a block away at Francisco Street.)<\/p>\n City Council members want to change that, and have voiced their support for raising height limits<\/a> along North Shattuck, as well as Solano Avenue in North Berkeley and College Avenue in the Elmwood District, to encourage more housing construction.\u00a0<\/p>\n Supporters of the plan say doing so will allow more people to live in those desirable but historically exclusive neighborhoods<\/a>, which today have some of the city\u2019s most expensive housing. But the proposal has sparked opposition from neighbors and small business owners, who fear the changes could unleash a wave a development that pushes out treasured local merchants and brings unwelcome change to the shopping districts they love.<\/p>\n The broader debate over the zoning changes \u2014 which the council is expected to take up later this year \u2014 colored the discussion of the Virginia Street project Tuesday night. A slide deck Unnikrishnan presented to the council ended with an image, generated with artificial intelligence, that depicted concrete apartment towers looming over a corner marked \u201cThe Cheese Board.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is clearly not the future of Shattuck Avenue that you want to see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Speakers during a public comment period called the Virginia Street proposal a \u201cmonstrosity\u201d and a \u201cbehemoth.\u201d Others questioned whether harmful chemicals at the site, where a dry cleaner once operated, had been adequately cleaned up; city staff said they had.<\/p>\n Resident Art Goldberg bemoaned that what he described as an \u201corgy of construction\u201d elsewhere in Berkeley could come to North Shattuck.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want high-rise buildings in that area,\u201d Goldberg said. \u201cThere are other places to put housing.\u201d<\/p>\n Addressing the council, he added, \u201cYou people are not representing us, the citizens \u2014 you\u2019re representing the developers.\u201d<\/p>\n Although some council members expressed sympathy for the neighbors, saying they understood how the new development represented a change that some could find hard to accept, none backed their efforts to block the project.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some noted they wouldn\u2019t have had the power to do so in the first place; spurred by the housing crisis, California lawmakers have slashed the authority of cities such as Berkeley<\/a> to block developments that comply with state and local housing regulations, as Kennedy\u2019s project does. Even if that weren\u2019t the case, several members said they were happy to approve the project, which would bring more homes to a neighborhood rich with public transit service, popular businesses and other desirable amenities.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a sentiment that approving this sort of project is somehow against the will of the voters, and it\u2019s not democratic, and I have to push back against that,\u201d said Councilmember Shoshana O\u2019Keefe. \u201cI think it\u2019s clear from the makeup of the council that the people of Berkeley \u2014 and also people who don\u2019t live in Berkeley, by the way, who wish to \u2014 want more housing, and they want housing projects like this one.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\tPlan to add housing in 3 wealthy Berkeley neighborhoods faces backlash, but City Council is undeterred<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tNovember 7, 2025Nov. 7, 2025, 8:34 p.m.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t9-story housing next to Cheese Board? Berkeley could OK taller buildings on 3 popular streets<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tAugust 25, 2025Aug. 26, 2025, 9:15 a.m.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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