Oct. 1: Give input on Ashby BART affordable housing developer

Meet and give feedback on each of the two developers proposing to build affordable housing at the Ashby BART station’s East Parking Lot.

Each team will present on their credentials, experience, and past projects, and will answer questions from the audience. 

Attendees can share feedback on the developers’ qualifications using a survey during the event. A developer will be selected in the coming months. That team would later present designs for public feedback.

Attend in person to hear presentations by the two developer teams being considered:

• Satellite Affordable Housing Associates (SAHA), Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley, and D.  Matthews Development Consulting
• Related Companies and The Kelsey

For questions, to request an accessibility accommodation, or to learn about future input opportunities, please contact Kelly deWolfe at KdeWolfe@berkeleyca.gov or (510) 981-5424.

Selected developer team will later propose designs

A panel of staff from the City of Berkeley and BART, along with South Berkeley residents, will give each developer a score. The highest scoring developer will be brought to City Council for approval, which is expected to be by the end of the year.

After approval, the developer will create a vision for the Ashby East Lot site and present designs for public feedback. 

The City of Berkeley has reserved $8 million to help fund affordable housing at the Ashby East Lot. This is just a part of the $26.5 million that the City has reserved overall for affordable housing at the Ashby BART station lots. These City funds help developers compete for additional funding from highly competitive state and federal sources. 

Housing at BART stations across Berkeley

There are three projects to turn the parking lots at Berkeley BART stations into housing, with a heavy emphasis on increasing the amount of affordable housing.

Voter-approved funding through Measure O has helped fuel the work of City of Berkeley staff to not only make these projects viable, but also to speed up their construction start and viability.  

The Ashby West Lot project proposes hundreds of new apartments, at least half of them affordable. It also includes retail, a public plaza, and improved BART access. The City has committed $18.5M to support affordable housing at Ashby West Lot. The City is contracted with affordable housing developer Resources for Community Development to support affordable housing projects as a part of this larger, multiphase development project.

The North Berkeley BART project proposes more than 700 units of mixed market-rate and affordable housing, including four affordable and one market-rate project. The City of Berkeley is contracted with the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) and Insight Housing to produce 269 units of affordable housing in the first phase of development, including 85 permanent supportive housing apartments (final unit counts subject to change). The City has committed $26.5 million to support affordable housing at North Berkeley BART.

Housing Trust Fund Supports affordable housing

Each of these affordable housing projects are partly managed by the City’s Housing and Community Services Division in the Health, Housing, and Community Services Department.

The division manages the Housing Trust Fund program, which pools money from local, state, and federal sources. This fund helps build and preserve affordable housing. The division’s efforts have put Berkeley on track to reach more than 2,400 City-assisted affordable units by 2035, more than double what existed in 2010.

If you, family members, or friends are looking for affordable housing:

• See our affordable housing resources
• Sign up for Berkeley’s affordable housing newsletter
• See currently available units on the Doorway Housing Portal

If you are curious or you’d like to be a part of the process of creating affordable housing at Ashby BART, attend our in-person meeting on October 1 and weigh in on the developer teams.

Affordable housing information

• Ashby East Lot Developer Presentations (City of Berkeley)
• Ashby West Lot project (BART)
• North Berkeley BART project (BART)
• Affordable Housing Resources (City of Berkeley)
  • Berkeley’s affordable housing newsletter
  • Doorway Housing Portal