Landmark Properties Building Student Housing at UC-Berkeley

Georgia-based Landmark Properties is planning to build a 12-story student housing project across the street from UC-Berkeley. 

The site at 2530 Bancroft Way currently is occupied by Bancroft Clothing Company. Landmark has filed plans to replace the store with a 110-unit dormitory, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury News.

The tower, which will include 11 affordable units, will feature ground-floor commercial space encompassing 2,200 SF.

The development will include 11 studios, 11 one-bedroom units, 35 two-bedroom apartments, 12 three-bedroom units, and 41 four-bedroom apartments, according to the report.

Landmark has developed several housing projects in the neighborhood around the campus, including The Standard at Berkeley, a 318-unit project at 2580 Bancroft and the 98-unit Stonefire apartment complex at 2010 Milvia.

In November, Landmark paid $28M for a site, currently occupied by a commercial building, at 2190 Shattuck Avenue. The Athens, GA-based company has filed plans to build a 25-story, 326-unit apartment tower. 

A bill passed by the state Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom this month appears to have nullified legal challenges to UC Berkeley’s controversial plan to build student housing on a site that includes the counter-culture landmark known as the People’s Park since 1968.

In February, a state appeals court ruled that the project, which plans to build housing with 1,100 student beds, could not move forward because the increase in residential noise could be considered a form of pollution under the CEQA.

In a unanimous vote, the Legislature specified in its bill that residential noise is not considered a significant environmental effect under CEQA.

Newsom has backed the Berkeley project, earmarking $100M for it in the state’s 2022-2023 budget and filing an amicus brief in the lawsuit against it, declaring that the legal argument put forward in the residents’ complaint exceeded the original intent of the CEQA law.

In February, a state appeals court in San Francisco overturned a lower court ruling last year that gave UC Berkeley the green light to clear the 2.8-acre park and erect a student housing campus with 1,100 student beds and 125 units set aside for homeless people who live in the park in makeshift shacks, including some Vietnam War veterans who say they’ve been there since the 1970s.

Last year, the University of California said it would have to deny enrollment to 5,000 first-year and transfer students because it could not meet a set of court-ordered student housing requirements.

Three court challenges to UC Berkeley’s project were jointly filed last year by Local 3299, a union that represents UC service workers, and two community groups, Make UC A Good Neighbor and Berkeley Citizens for a better plan.