![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/San-Pablo-Ave_Sara-Martin-5.jpg\")
Several new apartment buildings have opened along San Pablo Avenue in recent years, including The Grinnell, which replaced a former auto shop at Blake Street. Credit: Sara Martin for Berkeleyside<\/p>\nSeveral new apartment buildings have opened along San Pablo Avenue in recent years, including The Grinnell, which replaced a former auto shop at Blake Street. Credit: Sara Martin for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n
San Pablo Avenue is a corridor in flux, with new apartment buildings rising where auto repair shops once stood and a diverse array of merchants working to foster attractive shopping districts in spite of stubborn vacancies<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now city officials are considering a set of zoning changes<\/a> that could accelerate the pace of change, by allowing taller and denser housing developments that might bring thousands of new apartments to the avenue.<\/p>\n Backers of the proposal contend it will help revitalize San Pablo by bringing in more prospective customers who will patronize the area\u2019s businesses and spurring improvements for pedestrians that make the four-lane state highway a more attractive place to visit and linger.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m hoping that this plan will help us bring more people and foot traffic to San Pablo Avenue, so that we can work toward filling the storefronts that have been vacant for so many years,\u201d said Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani, who represents the north end of the corridor.<\/p>\n The plan\u2019s critics similarly want a more inviting experience along San Pablo \u2014 but contend the City Council isn\u2019t moving to adopt zoning rules to deliver that change. They fear the proposal to raise height and density caps will instead lead to a wave of development that pushes out small businesses and leaves what they view as an unattractive street.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t just want blocks of housing, you know what I mean?\u201d said Meryl Siegal, a co-founder of the group Beautiful San Pablo. \u201cDevelopers will be getting a lot, and we want to see more incentives to build community [and] provide some gathering spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n The debate over San Pablo Avenue reflects Berkeley\u2019s long-running schism<\/a> over whether new development makes the city\u2019s neighborhoods more vibrant or less appealing. And it mirrors one unfolding over a similar proposal to change zoning rules along portions of three major streets in wealthy neighborhoods<\/a> \u2014 Solano, College and the north end of Shattuck avenues \u2014 to encourage more housing.<\/p>\n But while the two zoning plans are unfolding simultaneously, there are key differences between them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Where College, Solano and North Shattuck are in parts of the city that for generations used their zoning code and discriminatory practices to exclude those who weren\u2019t wealthy and white, San Pablo is the main thoroughfare of West Berkeley \u2014 a historically red-lined area<\/a> now far along in the process of gentrification. And unlike the other three avenues, which have not seen new housing developments break ground in decades, developers have built several new apartment buildings along San Pablo; more projects have been approved, although high interest rates have slowed housing construction in recent years.<\/p>\n Most noticeably, the effort to rezone San Pablo hasn\u2019t generated the intense backlash from merchants, shoppers and nearby residents<\/a> who oppose the plan to add more housing along College, Solano and North Shattuck \u2014 even though the San Pablo changes are likely to result in far more housing. Berkeley\u2019s Planning Department estimates<\/a> the San Pablo Avenue Specific Plan could result in as many as 6,750 new apartments, while the zoning changes along the other three corridors might combine to create fewer than 1,800 homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Siegal says that\u2019s because San Pablo \u2014 which stretches for more than two miles, from Berkeley\u2019s southern border with Oakland to its northern one with Albany \u2014 isn\u2019t as cherished in its current form as neighborhoods like the Elmwood District.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not as cohesive as the other corridors,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Councilmember Terry Taplin, a supporter of the zoning changes whose district includes the southern half of San Pablo, contends West Berkeley\u2019s residents aren\u2019t as opposed to new development as those who live in the Elmwood and North Berkeley.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople down here are much more welcoming to new neighbors, and people down here embrace change,\u201d Taplin said.<\/p>\n A draft of the San Pablo plan<\/a> that was presented to the Berkeley City Council last month envisioned putting the avenue\u2019s tallest buildings at its busiest intersections, setting an eight-story height cap around Ashby Avenue, University Avenue and Gilman Street. Other blocks would have a five-story limit, up from three stories today.\u00a0<\/p>\n But those limits aren\u2019t absolute \u2014 California\u2019s \u201cdensity bonus law\u201d allows developers to exceed height caps and other zoning restrictions in exchange for including a share of affordable apartments in their project. Developers often use the law to build projects that are 50% bigger than zoning would normally allow, which would translate to 12-story buildings at San Pablo\u2019s major intersections. And state legislators have sweetened the incentive in recent years to allow projects that include more affordable homes to double local limits<\/a>.<\/p>\n The draft proposal from Berkeley\u2019s Planning Department also suggested steps to support small merchants, such as undertaking a parking management plan and creating a business improvement district.<\/p>\n And it listed several ideas to create a better pedestrian experience, including improved lighting and incentives for developers to create publicly accessible but privately owned open spaces at street level. Planners also suggested Berkeley could block off certain smaller streets where they intersect with the avenue to create new public spaces \u2014 one-block-long Cowper Street, near Allston Way, could become a cul-de-sac with a plaza, for example.<\/p>\n The council, which holds the final vote on the rezoning, backed the vision of a denser avenue during a Nov. 6 meeting to discuss the draft, though several members called for planners to simplify the proposed regulations.<\/p>\n Taplin and Kesarwani said they wanted to see a seven-story height limit along all of San Pablo, rather than stepping the cap up or down. That\u2019s the height several council members and advocates from local \u201cYes In My Backyard\u201d groups want Berkeley to impose along all of its commercial streets \u2014 including Solano, North Shattuck and College \u2014 saying the city should treat those corridors equally.<\/p>\n Some Council members were also wary of the idea that Berkeley should encourage developers to build privately owned plazas, saying they would prefer the city focus on creating fully public open spaces. And Kesarwani was dubious about design standards in the plan that called for steps such as varying the facades of buildings, saying that could require reducing the number of homes in a project and wouldn\u2019t satisfy critics of new housing anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people who have a problem with the design of new buildings, honestly, are against all development, in my experience,\u201d she said during the November meeting. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re winning anybody by having these numerous and complex and costly design standards.\u201d<\/p>\n Planning staff are expected to update the rezoning proposal in response to the council\u2019s comments, and will bring a revised draft back to the Planning Commission and City Council for a final vote next year.<\/p>\n Will San Pablo\u2019s next chapter be \u2018uninviting\u2019 or \u2018thriving\u2019?<\/p>\n Siegal and others from Beautiful San Pablo came away from the Nov. 6 council meeting frustrated. They felt West Berkeley got short shrift to begin with \u2014 the council began its discussion of the San Pablo plan at 11:15 p.m., after hearing five hours of comments from the public and council members about the proposal to rezone College, Solano and North Shattuck avenues. They also aren\u2019t happy that council members seemed to have little interest in provisions the group supported such as promoting privately owned plazas, which they contend would improve the experience of walking down the avenue.<\/p>\n The group has called for the city to cap height increases at five stories and limit what Baldwin describes as \u201csingle-demographic buildings,\u201d highlighting as an example dorm-style \u201cgroup living accommodation\u201d projects such as one that recently opened at 2435 San Pablo<\/a>. Without more stringent regulations, group members fear the avenue will be lined with apartment buildings that have vacant commercial spaces facing out onto sidewalks with few amenities.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like what we\u2019re going to end up with is the same as the MacArthur BART station development, which has had empty-storefront ground floors forever,\u201d said artist Aimee Baldwin<\/a>, another co-founder of Beautiful San Pablo. \u201cIt feels like a wasteland \u2014 you might as well see tumbleweeds down there.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/San-Pablo-Ave_Sara-Martin-9.jpg\")
Long a low-slung commercial strip, San Pablo Avenue today is a corridor in flux. City officials are considering raising height limits along the avenue to as tall as eight stories. Credit: Sara Martin for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/large-BS_Natera_220607_SanPabloLot_Nico_001-1200x801.jpg\")
Berkeley has approved a plan to build a six-story building at this vacant lot along San Pablo Avenue in Northwest Berkeley, though the project has not broken ground. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside\/Catchlight Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside\/Catchlight
\nCouncil calls for seven-story height cap throughout San Pablo<\/p>\n![\"Several](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Natera_SanPablo_250321_05.jpg\")
Pedestrians walk past an empty storefront at the intersection of San Pablo and University avenues. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside\/Catchlight<\/p>\n