Berkeleyside30%
Ashby BART developers show what housing could look like, and how long it’ll take 16%
By Daniel Ekonde0%
7/17/2026, 9:53:13 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Availability Heuristic, and Framing Effect, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 8.1% saturation with 83 hits. Analysis detected 753 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,023 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 31.9% and a BS Rank of 16% (14,485 of 17,127 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 84.60% of the article peer group.
Renderings from the developers show five apartment buildings rising at the station's parking lot.
The project could break ground in 2029.
The development team picked to build hundreds of apartments at the Ashby BART station presented the first images showing the design of the project to more than 150 participants from community and advocacy groups at a meeting Thursday.
The open house at the South Berkeley Senior Center featured numerous display boards exhibiting the project, which will include as many as 600 apartments, half of which would be affordable, atop the station’s West parking lot between Martin Luther King Jr.
Way, Adeline Street and Ashby Avenue.
The development depicted in the renderings would be made up of five buildings and include 25,000 square feet of commercial and office spaces.
The images show a row of six-story buildings lining Martin Luther King Jr.
Way, while the tallest building in the complex rises eight stories above Adeline Street, or nine from the ground level of the sunken parking lot.
The developer group Adeline Alliance Partners is made up of Idaho-based The Pacific Companies, Strategic Urban Development Alliance and Relequity Enterprises of Oakland, and Resources for Community Development, the Berkeley nonprofit builder which would be in charge of the affordable units.
There would be 85 parking spots for BART riders, who currently have access to 535 parking spaces at the station’s west lot, as well as up to 300 parking spaces for residents.
Each apartment would have one bike parking space and 308 more bike spaces would be available for BART users.
The renderings showed the BART entrance would be sandwiched between two buildings, a canopy of trees in front of it, creating a shaded transit hub featuring a bikeway, a bus stop and pedestrian walkway.
A plaza would be built on the east side of the development, along Adeline Street, which would be a community space and home for the weekend Berkeley Flea Market.
Plans to break ground in 2029
The renderings that were presented Thursday are not final, as there will be many public engagement and listening sessions between the team and community members on how to move forward with the project, according to Justin Smith of Relequity Enterprises.
Smith said the project is expected to break ground in 2029.
That would put the Ashby development about two years behind a similar effort to build housing at the North Berkeley BART station, where developers hope to start construction next year on the first of more than 700 planned new homes.
“Our approach is to really understand the context of this community and work within that to develop a design that really speaks to what we hear,” said Smith.
He said the group would be “responsive” throughout the design process.
Smith said the project could cost at least $500 million and the low-income apartments would be constructed first.
The group will seek permits next year from the city of Berkeley, which described the project as a “partnership” between it, BART and Adeline Alliance Partners, after gathering input from stakeholders; the final design would be finished in 2028.
Housing developments on BART property are eligible for an expedited approval process that does not require the development team to seek approval from city boards such as the Zoning Adjustments Board or City Council.
The BART Board of Directors voted last year to award Adeline Alliance Partners the contract to build the project over another developer group, the Ashby BART Strategic Alliance.
Community members remain divided over the project
All 10 Adeline Alliance Partners members from development to design were present in Thursday’s open house.
BART officials including the Transit Oriented Development Group manager Carli Paine and Berkeley City Manager Paul Buddenhagen attended as well.
Paine told the audience the project will fulfill BART’s goal of increasing ridership as the future residents will live next to the station.
She said the vision is also to ensure that the future apartments are occupied by Black residents; community groups have called for the project to repair harms done when the South Berkeley station was built, displacing homes and businesses in what was then a predominantly Black neighborhood.
Smith told the audience there would be many meetings, including a Zoom session next Wednesday, engaging the community on the project.
He implored the participants to write comments and recommendations on sticky notes and paste them on the displayed boards if they didn’t want to talk to any member of his team.
One sticky note asked: “Where are children's playgrounds?”
Lori Hines, a South Berkeley resident added a recommendation beside it: “Swing seats.”
Hines said she is happy with the design of the space because it encourages different forms of transportation access, like bicycling.
“It's really important that they do the housing development right at BART because it's a transportation hub, a living hub,” said Hines “It's it's just perfect.”
She said it would be “lovely” if the apartments would be open to low-income individuals.
Darinxoso “Dar” Oyamasela, a prominent community advocate and president of the Harriet Tubman Terrace Tenant Council, a South Berkeley housing union representing low-income senior citizens and residents with disabilities, was not impressed by the design.
“600 [apartments] stacked on top of each other is just ridiculous,” said Oyamasela.
He also questioned what the group's definition of low-income homes would look like.
“According to certain standards, you're low-income if you [make] $100,000 [per year] but many of the residents in Berkeley who live here, especially in my building, don't get $20,000.”
Oyamasela said housing priority should be given to families who were removed from the area when BART constructed the station.
A 2023 city policy makes those families the top priority for affordable housing in Berkeley.
Wilhelmenia Wilson, Executive Director of Healthy Black Families, said her organization is partnering with community members to push for 100 percent affordability, a plan that could mirror that of Maudelle Shirek Building across Ashby BART, which comprises 87 low-income apartments for residents averaging $21,000 per year.
“If it's been done in one place, it can be done,” said Wilson.
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