Berkeley's recommended Elmwood rezoning would raise the height limit on only a few College Avenue properties. Planners have named them: the Webster Street post office, the parking lot behind the Wells Fargo branch, and the strip mall anchored by a 7-Eleven near Russell Street. The Planning Commission added the building that houses Five Little Monkeys and Nabolom Bakery. Almost every other storefront between Russell and Webster would keep the zoning it has today.
The yard signs around the neighborhood suggest something much bigger. They show a bulldozer marked "city hall" knocking down a row of shops while a high-rise looms behind it. If you're comparing the Elmwood with other Berkeley neighborhoods and trying to figure out what the street might look like in five years, start with the parcel list and skip the poster.
The short list, lot by lot
The Corridors Zoning Update began with College Avenue from Russell to Webster as the study area. Later drafts narrowed the higher limits to designated "Mixed-Use Opportunity Areas" and left existing rules in place on the other parcels. In the Elmwood, the sites below are what that framework covers.
- The Elmwood Post Office at Webster Street. It was built in the mid-1970s. Planners call it one of the few places in the Elmwood where housing could realistically be built.
- The parking lot behind the Wells Fargo branch. The branch opened in 1925 as the Mercantile Trust Company Building and is already a city landmark, as is the former hardware store next door. The rezoning targets the lot behind it.
- The 7-Eleven strip mall near Russell Street. It opened as a grocery store in the 1930s and was heavily renovated in the 1970s.
- The Five Little Monkeys and Nabolom Bakery property. Planning staff didn't propose it. Commissioners added it when they approved their version of the plan.
City staff's draft mapped about 0.9 acres of opportunity area in the Elmwood under the fixed-site approach it recommended. That's a small footprint for a fight that has produced stop-sign stickers reading "stop the towers."
How one Planning Commission vote changed the numbers
The plan went to the Planning Commission on May 6, 2026. Commissioners voted 6–2 to recommend the targeted approach, with amendments that made the allowed buildings larger than staff had proposed.
| Staff draft, May 2026 | Commission recommendation, May 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Height cap on College Avenue opportunity sites | Four stories, 48 feet | Five stories |
| Upper-floor step-back from neighbors | Required | Eliminated |
| Five Little Monkeys/Nabolom property | Not a candidate site | Added as a candidate site |
The Elmwood is the low end of the three corridors. The recommended caps are six stories on Solano Avenue sites and seven on North Shattuck.
The amendments also changed the incentives. Under California's density bonus law, developers often include affordable units because doing so lets them build past local limits. Commissioner Charles Kahn, who voted against the amended plan, argued that higher base caps give developers less reason to include those units. A taller limit on paper can produce a building with a different mix of units than the shorter limit would have.
How many homes College Avenue would actually get
These are planning staff's estimates from before the commission's amendments:
- Targeted rezoning across all three avenues: just over 1,700 new homes
- College Avenue's share: up to 146
- Solano Avenue: 617
- North Shattuck: 1,036
- A blanket rezoning of all three streets, for comparison: about 1,814
So the targeted approach was estimated to deliver nearly the same total as rezoning every parcel, while leaving most storefronts alone. Councilmember Mark Humbert, who represents the Elmwood, and Planning Commissioner Darrell Owens both support the limited version on that basis. In the city's most-modeled scenario, College Avenue carries fewer than one in ten of the new homes.
The plan could still get bigger
The Planning Commission only advises. At a November 2025 worksession, five of the nine councilmembers said they wanted a blanket seven-story cap on all three avenues, in line with streets like San Pablo Avenue. Humbert was the only one who backed limiting the rezoning to specific properties. Some housing advocates also want the whole streets rezoned. Berkeley Neighbors for Housing and Climate Action urged the city to zone "across these entire streets, rather than just certain parcels."
The list of four lots is a recommendation. The City Council can adopt it, expand it, or replace it with blanket heights.
When the Council might vote
Nobody has a firm date.
"City Council has changed its mind around when it's going to bring this before council no less than a dozen times since the process began."
That's Donald Simon, president of the opposition group Save Berkeley Shops, speaking to the Daily Californian in a story published September 10, 2026. He expects a vote before the current councilmembers' terms end in late November. In the same story, Councilmember Igor Tregub said by email that "it is unclear when it will come to Council" and that he didn't expect a vote before next year.
The city's project page still says Council consideration is expected "later in 2026." The Council's October 13 agenda includes the San Pablo Avenue Specific Plan but not the corridors update.
Even after a vote, the rules might not take effect right away. If the Council adopts the ordinance, Save Berkeley Shops plans a referendum. It would have one month to collect signatures from about 6,000 registered Berkeley voters. If it qualifies, the ordinance would be frozen until voters decide at the 2028 general election. Through the first four months of 2026, the group's political action committee reported raising more than $75,000 toward that effort. The group has also proposed an alternative it calls "community zoning." It would offer developers faster permits and larger projects in exchange for modest family homes, affordable units, and ground-floor retail.
The November election matters too. In Berkeleyside's October 7 interviews with District 1 candidates, Ross Bernet and Daria Wrubel backed the commission's targeted version. Moni Gangopadhyay said any height increases should depend on affordable housing. Steve Kromer opposed the update.
Why the historic district isn't a backstop
Some residents and merchants also pushed to have the Elmwood commercial strip declared a historic district, which would have made demolition and redevelopment harder. The Landmarks Preservation Commission turned it down 5–4 in June. The application covered 34 properties from just north of Russell Street to the post office at Webster. Most of those buildings went up between 1907 and 1928.
City planners had found that 28 of those properties could qualify. That narrower list would have left out the post office, the strip mall, and the Wells Fargo parking lot, the same sites the rezoning targets. So the historic district and the rezoning, which looked like opposing forces, were largely focused on different buildings. Commissioner Paul Schwartz suggested landmarking buildings one at a time instead.
A few quick answers
Has anyone filed to build on one of these sites? A city rendering of a hypothetical project was captioned by Berkeleyside with the note that no project had been proposed for that site. Our research didn't turn up a filed application for any Elmwood opportunity site. Neither of those amounts to a full check of city permit records.
Why is Berkeley doing this at all? In the eight-year housing plan it adopted in 2023, the city committed to allowing denser development on College, Solano, and North Shattuck. Those avenues currently have some of the lowest height caps in Berkeley.
Do the Solano and North Shattuck sites follow the same logic? Yes. Specific lots are named there too, such as the Andronico's grocery store and its parking lot on Solano and a vacant bank branch next to the Cheese Board pizzeria on North Shattuck. The height caps are higher than on College.
If you're looking at a home a few blocks from College Avenue and want to know how each opportunity site sits relative to a particular street, garden, or view, Hope Broderick & Co can walk the corridor with you and check each address against the city's current maps. Start your home transformation with an informed look at the block around it.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
