Tag: Housing Advisory Commission

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Owners appear to move into this airstream when they rent their home in West Berkeley on AirBnb.
Owners appear to move into this airstream when they rent their home in West Berkeley on AirBnb.

EDIT: Planning Commission final public hearing 1/20
 Housing Commission Strengthens Recommendations for Local Law
Berkeley’s Housing Advisory Commission sent a follow-up to their earlier short-term rentals recommendations. The HAC did this both because the draft ordinance does not seem to reflect their recommendations and because there were additional issues to address.
“During the meeting, Darrow expressed concerns that current regulations could allow owners to turn rent-controlled housing units into short-term rentals by evicting all tenants in a building under the Ellis Act, a state law that allows property owners to evict tenants in order to “go out of business.”
According to the new language approved by the commission at the meeting, if an owner evicts a tenant from a unit through no fault of the tenant, the owner must wait five years before the property can be turned into a short-term rental. Additionally, owners must obtain a business license through the city and list their license number in their rental listings.”
http://www.dailycal.org/2015/12/06/citys-housing-advisory-commission-approves-short-term-rental-recommendations/

Draft Law Making Final Rounds
The draft of Berkeley’s Short Term Rental (STRs) ordinance is now available to the public. The next step is for the Planning Commission to hold a final public hearing, then the law will go back to the City Council, which last discussed the matter in July. Unfortunately, the staff report specifically says they did not address concerns from the Housing Commission in the draft.
It is also unfortunate that the draft law seems to contravene two Council referrals (one on ADUs and one on STRs) by allowing accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on the same property in which an owner occupies another unit as her primary residence to be used as hotel rooms. As usual, the language in the draft law is unclear:
“Host present” means the host is living at the premises of the dwelling unit that is being used for STRs during the short-term rental period or living in the Primary Residence or the Accessory Dwelling Unit.”
Read the Draft: 2015-12-16_Information_Item_Draft Short Term Rental Ordinance-Combined
The Planning Commission is expected to hold a public hearing on January 20 or February 3rd.

Berkeley Owners Sent Warning Letters
At the 4×4 Committee meeting in December, Planning Director Eric Angstadt told Council leaders and Rent Board Commissioners that the City Manager’s office sent warning letters to several STR operators who are violating Berkeley’s current ban on rentals of less than 14 days. BTU has done a public records request to see if letters were sent to the 4 owners BTU filed complaints about in May and June of 2015.

STRs in the News

Ousted Tenants Sue In Los Angeles
“Their rent-controlled building allowed them to enjoy below-market rents of less than $2,000 a month for their two-bedroom pads in the upscale neighborhood. That came to an end in late 2013 when the owners evicted them under the Ellis Act, a state law that allows landlords to get out of the rental business….Within weeks, their apartments began appearing on Airbnb — a short-term rental site geared at tourists — for nightly rates that could total $15,000 a month, they said.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/westside/la-me-1217-ellis-suit-20151217-story.html

Airbnb Fined for Offering Lodgings Without Permits in Barcelona
“With the aid of a software programme, the town hall detected listings for 1,891 lodgings that did not have proper permits on Airbnb, and another 3,929 on HomeAway, it said in a statement. Each have been issued a fine of €60,000 ($65,000).
Since taking office in June, Barcelona mayor Ada Colau, a former anti-eviction activist, has kept her pledge to try to curb a boom in visitor numbers that she fears could drive out poor residents and spoil the charm of Spain’s second largest city.”
http://www.thelocal.es/20151222/barcelona-city-hall-fines-airbnb

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Household-Income-DistributionOn Wednesday February 18 the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the Housing Element of Berkeley’s General Plan. The hearing is at 7 PM at the North Berkeley Senior Center. BTU needs tenants to come speak out!

Berkeley’s 2015-2023 Housing Element is the basis for housing goals and policies for the next eight years. It is important that renters comment on this draft now, in order to maintain tenant protects and expand development of actual affordable housing.

Your Berkeley Tenants Union has written an extensive critique of the draft, linked below. We hope you will attend the hearing or write the Planning Commission right away supporting our goals:

  1. Demo Ordinance: Rent controlled housing must remain protected from demolitions.
  2. The Affordable Housing Mitigation Fee charged to developers should be high enough to actually mitigate the lower-income housing needs created by new development.
  3. “Illegal” Units: City should provide path to legalize 4,000 rent controlled units which do not have permits – San Francisco’s program could be our model.
  4. Code Enforcement / Habitability: Increase proactive inspections; allow anonymous complaints.
  5. Better monitoring of Below Market Rate “Inclusionary” Rentals

Write to planning: JHarrison@cityofberkeley.info; aamoroso@cityofberkeley.info–

Full BTU Letter to Planning
2015.Planning Commission Feb 18.BTU

Article on first Housing Element hearing:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_27491384/berkeley-commission-examines-housing-issues

Draft Housing Element itself:
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/housingelement/

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Screen shot 2015-03-09 at 7.55.51 PMThis is from John’s letter to the Planning Commission for the February 18 hearing:

It is clear from the Draft Berkeley Housing Element document that Berkeley is falling short of providing a mix of affordable housing for lower income AND middle income residents. I will focus on middle income residents, and particularly in my view an acute need for additional family housing within the City of Berkeley. Recent projects within the City have included a limited mix of primarily studio rentals and high-end rentals and condos, but units falling in the middle of these two extremes are, in comparison, few. I cite Table 1-1 as an example, which indicates that between the years 2000 and 2006 Berkeley provided only 4% of the Regional Housing Needs Determination as set by ABAG for moderate-income residents. Further, Table 2-14 indicates a lack of Renter Occupied 3 and 4 bedroom units, units which could be utilized by moderate to large size families.

I quote from the Objectives section of the Draft: “Berkeley residents should have access to quality housing at a range of prices and rents.Housing is least affordable for people at the lowest income levels, and City resources should focus on this area of need.”

I do not argue with the egalitarian goal of this statement, but in reviewing the documentation in this Draft it is clear to me that the middle class, and particularly moderate-income residents with children (i.e., families) are the ones primarily being squeezed for housing in Berkeley. I do not see that trend reversing without an emphasis on strategies and programs to address this essential need.

John T. Selawsky
Member, Berkeley Tenants Union
Commissioner, Rent Stabilization Board

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See the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project for more Berkeley Areas!
See the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project for more Berkeley Areas!

In December, BTU wrote about a suggestion by the Housing Advisory Commission, spearheaded by new Councilperson Lori Droste, to lay the foundation to tax tenants on their rent control (“means testing”). The other City Council folks wisely either voted no or abstained on the item, so it is dead for the moment.

But here we have a study about this very issue by SF’s Anti-Eviction Mapping Project – it is fighting conjecture with fact – and we hope the Council and Housing Commission will review!

If you go to the Source data map, you can see data for Berkeley too!

“There are probably landlords in San Francisco who make less money than their tenants. But they are very much the exception and not the rule. That’s the conclusion of a new study by the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, which compares the median income of renters and property owners by census tract in San Francisco.

Let’s take a few examples. In Census Tract 176.01, South of Market, people who owned property had a median income of $111,330 in 2013. Renters had a median income of $17,396. Let’s move to the Mission, where there are increasingly wealthy renters. Median income for tenants? About $80,000. For landlords? About $154,000.”
http://48hillsonline.org/2014/12/29/debunking-myth-poor-landlord/

Owner vs. Renter, by Class – Map Includes Berkeley Data
http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/ownerrenter.html

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2401 Warring
2401 Warring

We at the Berkeley Tenants Union need your support on Tuesday, December 9 at the City Council meeting.

First, Council are considering a suggestion to tax the benefits of rent control on any long time tenant the government decides is earning a living wage. (Item 17)

Also, BTU members have appealed a dangerous decision by the Zoning Board which would set bad precedent and put over 4,000 units in Berkeley at risk. (Item 39)

Both items are expected to be near the beginning of the meeting, as early as 7:30 PM. Council meetings take place in Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

2401 Warring Street Appeal by Harr and Stephens

This is the latest in a series of disputes BTU has fought at the Zoning Board – at the core is the interpretation of the Demolition Ordinance. In this case, a huge building on Warring near Channing has been under rent control for many years because it was used as a boarding house. Now, a new owner has removed all the renters and wants to turn it into a triplex. Rent Board staff and the owner appeared at the Zoning Board in the summertime. BTU was there as well. Everyone – even the owner Nathan George – seemed to agree that it was fair that one of the triplex units would be new construction because the owner is adding a lot of space, but that the other two units needed to stay under rent control.

Yet when the decision was written up by the staff from the Planning department, they chose to word the agreement in a way that would be legally unenforceable. This can get complex, but the gist of it is that Planning wants to give the building a new certificate of occupancy, and state law Costa Hawkins says a new COO means no rent control.

This is not what the Zoning Board intended. So BTU members Katherine Harr and Lisa Stephens filed an appeal.

Once again, the City Attorney is saying the units are empty and therefore not rent controlled units under the Demolition Ordinance. This means any building where the landlord can get the tenants out could easily be torn down with no mitigations for the loss of rent controlled housing.

The City is also saying that although Planning was aware that the building was a boarding house, it was not licensed to be one. This opens up over 4,000 units that have rent control but are not in Planning records as “permitted units” to lose rent control because they, too, could get a new certificate of occupancy.

Means Testing

Yes, you heard us right: the Housing Advisory Commission has asked Council to begin the process of means testing rent controlled tenants. Item 17 on the City Council agenda for Tuesday is the first step toward a plan by certain bitter property owners and the Council majority to tax middle income renters on their low rents.

“One approach we believe should be explored is to determine if some of the long term tenants in Berkeley’s rent controlled housing have been enjoying low rents while their incomes have been rising,” they wrote. There are many disturbing things about the proposal: the underlying assumption that rent control is a charity program and only the very poor deserve housing stability; the invasive nature of the proposal wherein longer term renters would be forced to disclose their income while owners do not have to do so; and the idea that measuring only income and rent would give the government any idea who can afford to pay more for housing, without considering medical bills, student tuition or student loans, number of dependents or other factors.

While BTU is pretty sure portions of the plan are actually illegal, and we expect the Rent Board will work to educate Council on that aspect, we need renters to stand together to show that local efforts to whittle away tenant protections and pit lower income folks against teachers, firefighters and small business owners making mid-range salaries will not be tolerated. Means testing would make Berkeley a city of just the very rich and very poor – just what rent stabilization was designed to prevent!

This type of proposal would never have been considered in the progressive Berkeley of the past and is clearly retaliation against tenants for supporting the “Robin Hood” ballot measures to tax owners of multiple rental units on their profits under vacancy decontrol.

JOIN US TUESDAY at CITY COUNCIL – items are early on the agenda

RSVP to info at berkeley tenants dot org to learn the plan!

Council Item 17
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Clerk/City_Council/2014/12_Dec/City_Council__12-09-2014_-_Regular_Meeting_Agenda.aspx

Warring Street Appeal

Council Item 23
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Clerk/City_Council/2014/12_Dec/City_Council__12-09-2014_-_Regular_Meeting_Agenda.aspx

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billEllis Act Update

Mark Leno’s Ellis Act reform bill (SB1439) was amended so only San Francisco tenants will be protected if the law passes. Yet tenants all over California are rallying to support long-time renters who face a dire situation in San Francisco, so the bill passed the state Senate and is now in the Assembly. It goes to the Housing and Community Development Committee on Wednesday.

The Berkeley Rent Board voted in March to ask Loni Hancock and Nancy Skinner to work to amend the bill so it  protects East Bay renters. The Board will get an update from the legislative advocates on Monday June 16 on this and other state legislation.

There were no Ellis evictions filed in Berkeley from 2011 through 2013. The Rent Board gives a report once a year, but tenant advocates have told the Tenants Union that there are many renters in Berkeley threatened with Ellis evictions. When tenants leave without an official eviction, there is no statistical record.

http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/S-F-Ellis-Act-reform-bill-passes-in-state-Senate-5514880.php

http://www.thebolditalic.com/articles/5123-woohoo-ellis-act-reform-bill-passes-in-state-senate

Amended “Squatters Bill” Remains Threat to Renters

A bill in the state assembly intended to allow cities to evict squatters without going through a full eviction process in court could put any tenant without a written lease at risk of losing her or his access to the justice system. BTU worked to discourage our representatives in Sacramento to support the bill.

Recently, AB1513 was amended to only cover a couple places in Southern California, but if it is made law, it could set a dangerous precedent to allow the police to remove renters without the owner going to court. 

http://beyondchron.org/szetso-piece-ab-1513-update/

Berkeley Supports Renters Tax Assistance 

On June 3, Berkeley City Council approved a recommendation from the Housing Advisory Commission to support AB 2175 (Daly). The bill calls for restoration and expansion of State Tax Assistance to Renters, particularly seniors, the disabled, and low-income folks. Council voted to send letters to State Senator Hancock, Assembly member Skinner, and Governor Brown to communicate the City of Berkeley’s support for AB 2175. 

The Rent Board also voted in March to go on record supporting the bill, and will get an update on Monday June 16 from the legislative advocate.

Expanding Seismic Retrofit Requirements to Other Types of Buildings

In March, the Rent Board also voted to advise the City Council to review AB 2181, which would authorize cities to implement retrofit requirements on non-ductile concrete residential buildings by adding those structures to existing law regarding soft story buildings.

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JUNE 7 – Berkeley Neighborhoods Council Forum
Art House Gallery 2905 Shattuck Ave. 10 AM to 1 PM

For more info on the Neighborhood Preservation Forum see http://www.berkeleyneighborhoodscouncil.com/index.htm

JUNE 13 – Housing Crisis Conference The SF Public Press sponsors a gathering “to innovate solutions that address the need for affordable housing in San Francisco.” http://sfpublicpress.org/hackthehousingcrisis

JUNE 21 – Robin Hood Committee Party! – CANCELLED
The Committee for Affordable Housing and Robin Hood Initiative host a thank you party – next steps will be announced, but mostly this night will be for having fun and hanging out.

JUNE 24 – Housing at City Council
According to the Berkeley Citizens Action newsletter, the Berkeley City Council will consider several proposals from the Housing Advisory Commission on Tuesday, June 24.

JULY 13 – CALLING ALL PROGRESSIVES!
The bi-annual Convention will be held to choose a progressive slate for the November Rent Board election. The convention starts at 1:30 PM at the South Berkeley Senior Center. See http://berkeleytenantsconvention.net/ for updates.

All potential candidates who believe in rent control and will work so that affordable housing remains a priority in Berkeley are invited to seek the nomination and should contact the convention in order to participate in the screening process during June.