The former Highlands Lutheran Church is slated to become affordable housing for Berkeley’s seniors.
Originally constructed in 1958, the roughly 14,000-square-foot building functioned as the Highlands Lutheran Church until the church decided to sell the building in 2024. After several failed developments including a preschool, Mounashram Inc., a faith-based non-profit, bought the property last February for $1.48 million.
While Mounashram intends to eventually rezone the property to convert it into four affordable housing units, the formal planning process is just getting started. So far, Phil Workman, a rezoning consultant working with Mounashram, has focused on fielding community feedback and has attended meetings with Berkeley Regis United Neighbors (BRUN), the area’s registered neighborhood organization. Workman said he plans to canvas around the church to meet with more neighbors about Mounashram’s plans for the property.
Workman attributed the idea to transform the church into housing for Berkeley’s aging population to resident and BRUN zoning committee member Alejandra Castañeda, who reached out to him after finding one of his community engagement fliers while out for a walk. Castañeda said she would love for the property to offer income-restricted housing to all ages but thought that this was one way to make the concept more attractive to other residents.
“It feels like something that people who usually oppose denser housing development could not say no to,” Castañeda said. “It will be a sort of low-hanging fruit.”
To Castañeda’s delight, the idea was a hit at BRUN’s zoning committee meeting last month. Castañeda even brought up the issue of parking, just to “say it out loud,” and was “pleasantly surprised” when other BRUN committee members voiced their support of the project regardless of potential parking challenges.
Workman acknowledged that the property’s proximity to Skinner Middle School could complicate parking and said that he would continue to keep an open dialogue with residents. After several more meetings with residents, Mounashram plans to file an application with the city to rezone the property, likely as residential mixed-use.
This would allow them to build multiple housing units, which is not allowed under the property’s current single-unit classification. From there, the organization will submit a concept plan for approval from the city, but Workman declined to give a specific timeline for when residents could expect to see construction on the church begin.
In the meantime, Mounashram has been leasing the space to El Siloe, a Spanish-language church that holds weekly services and other community events. Workman said El Siloe’s lease is through the end of next summer.
The church has a long history in the Berkeley community. Over the past several decades, Highlands Lutheran has provided space for community organizing and after-school programs, something local historian Marie Edgar said she hopes will continue under the new ownership. This was echoed by residents, whose number one ask for the redevelopment was to preserve the church’s sanctuary to honor and continue its history.
For Castañeda, the property’s future was just as important.
“Everybody should have access to healthy, dignified housing and a building and land that sit there mostly unused most of the time while we’re having a housing affordability crisis seems wrong, just morally speaking,” Castañeda said. “Having that (senior) community in a smaller space, but still aging in place in their home neighborhood, would seem like a really good option.”