Tag: affordable housing

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Did you know most states prohibit rent control? Or that here in California rent control is not allowed, only rent stabilization? Plus, the State of California won’t let any local jurisdiction put any building built after 1995 under any form of rent restriction!

Even in California, rent control comes in many shapes – but more and more places are strengthening tenant protections, and soon we will have a statewide movement big enough to repeal Costa-Hawkins, end the Ellis Act, and allow real rent control like Berkeley once enjoyed!

People are starting to realize that “rent control drives up housing prices” is just another landlord lie. If rent control drives up rents, why does it cost just as much to live in Albany (no rent control) as in Berkeley?

Here’s some good info on exciting changes all around us:

San Mateo County
http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county-times/ci_27620755/san-mateo-county-affordable-housing-crisis-inspires-talks
“If the supervisors were to adopt rent stabilization, the policy would apply only to the county’s unincorporated areas, including the rural coast and the hills of San Mateo and Redwood City. But County Manager John Maltbie said the task force could have a broader impact by engaging city leaders in the conversation.”
“Joshua Howard, with the local apartment association, said job growth has caused the demand for housing to skyrocket and that some property owners he called a “few bad apples” have taken advantage of their tenants by jacking up their rents. “We are discouraging property owners to not be the poster child for rent control,” Howard said about property owners who have raised rents exorbitantly and recent efforts to highlight the impacts on the area’s working poor.” http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/lnews/2015-02-25/san-mateo-county-to-study-rent-control-supervisors-form-blue-ribbon-task-force-on-housing/1776425139003.html

Emeryville Wants to Organize
https://neighborland.com/ideas/emeryville-rent-control

63% of Emeryville Households Rent
http://evilleeye.com/news-commentary/commentary/op-ed-the-800-pound-gorilla-in-the-city-is-housing/

Mountain View Wimps Out
http://www.sanjoseinside.com/2014/10/29/rent-control-off-the-table-in-mountain-view-for-now/
“While many of the prospective candidates for the council sympathized with Garcia, none seem keen to take on developers and big-monied apartment lobbies like the California Apartment Association’s Tri-County Division and the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors. Of the nine candidates, most said they simply don’t think rent control will work, including all three renters in the race.”

Rumors say San Jose Renters Want Better Protections
www.sanjoseca.gov/FAQ.aspx?QID=521
“Apartment rents can be raised without a hearing by 8%. They can be raised 21% if the last increase was more than 24 months ago. A landlord can propose a larger rent increase, but it can be contested by the tenant.”

Alameda – the City with a Rent Board but No Rent Increase Restrictions!
http://www.alamedamagazine.com/Alameda-Magazine/July-2014/Is-Rent-Control-the-Answer/

Richmond Housing Element Rejects Rent Control, for Now
http://richmondconfidential.org/2013/01/23/housing-plan-sparks-arguments-on-rent-control-just-cause-evictions/

Richmond Did Extend Good Cause for Eviction to Foreclosures:
Richmond Municipal Code § 7.105.020

Costa-Hawkins:
www.sfaa.org/pdf/CAA-Insights-Costa-Hawkins-Rental-Housing-Act.pdf

Rent Control Laws By State:
http://www.landlord.com/rent_control_laws_by_state.htm

California Cities with Rent Restrictions:
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Rent_Stabilization_Board/Home/Other_Rent_Control_Jurisdictions.aspx

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Riverwood_Gardens_DDC-1“Before vacancy decontrol modified rent control in California, 42 percent of tenants in rent-controlled units in Berkeley were 55 or older. But since 1999, because of California’s Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, landlords can charge market rates each time new tenants move into a rent-controlled unit. (Apartments built after 1980 are not under rent control.) Today, just 6 percent of people in regulated units are 55 or older, Harr said, adding that the situation is getting worse due to skyrocketing rents.”

Actually, what I said was rent controlled units with people who moved in before 1999 – before vacancy decontrol – CURRENTLY have 42% over 65 but only 6% of post-1999 tenancies have seniors. I also pointed out that senior housing is identified as a growing need throughout Berkeley’s Draft Housing Element, but there are few programs in the plan to actually address that need.

With me on the Gray Panthers panel was former Rent Board Commissioner Eleanor Walden, who spoke of senior and disabled residents feeling harassed by management at Redwood Gardens. That’s a 169-unit, HUD-subsidized senior housing complex on the Clark-Kerr part of campus, at the top of Derby. It’s a problem BTU has been getting a lot of mail about: affordable housing now managed by for-profit corporations, and Boards at “cooperative” senior housing that are not responsive to residents. We’ve heard from seniors in two places just this month!

Coverage of the Gray Panthers Meeting
http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_27443340/berkeley-seniors-call-affordable-housing

Problems at Redwood Gardens
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2014-12-19/article/42869?headline=Troubles-in-Berkeley-s-Redwood-Gardens–Lydia-Gans
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/tenants-seek-fair-treatment-at-berkeleys-redwood-gardens/

Berkeley’s Draft Housing Element Goes to City Council in April or May
http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_27491384/berkeley-commission-examines-housing-issues
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/housingelement/

 

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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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stairsRefusal to repair can be considered harassment in Oakland, but before you get too jealous that Oakland finally got an Anti-Harassment Law – there is a BIG catch: tenants will have to enforce the law by suing landlords – the city has no enforcement mechanism at all. So even though Oakland now defines actions such as repeated bogus eviction attempts, refusal to make repairs, and threats to report renters to immigration as harassment, tenants without the means to hire an attorney might not benefit from the new rules.

Such additional protections against harassment have been discussed often but never developed by our elected leaders. San Francisco, East Palo Alto, Santa Monica and West Hollywood are other Rent Control cities that have similar laws. If Berkeley renters want such protections, they will have to organize like Oakland renters did!

There is also an exemption in Oakland for new construction.

“James Vann, co-founder of the Oakland Tenants Union, responded in an email to the city council, “Why should it even be suggested that owners of new construction be made free to harass and retaliate against tenants with impunity! By what rationale does that make sense?” But the exemption remained.”
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2014/11/06/oakland-officially-okays-tenant-protection-ordinance

More info about the law:

http://oaklandlocal.com/2014/12/know-your-housing-rights-part-1-tenant-protection-ordinance/

https://oaklandnorth.net/2014/10/22/council_manuel/

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2014/09/25/dan-kalb-proposes-tenant-protection-ordinance-to-curb-landlord-harassment

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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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Berkeley Tenants Union had a good turnout at our first endorsements forum in many many years. Please read candidate responses to the joint questionnaire sent by Berkeley Tenants Union and Berkeley Citizen Action to learn more about why the members who voted on Sunday chose these excellent candidates!

Please be sure to support these candidates – they are the best to further the issues that impact Berkeley Tenants. BTU will send you more info on how to get involved alongside other tenants and our friends as the campaign season moves along!

The Pro-Rent Control Slate, chosen at the 2014 Tenant Convention
Chang, Harr, Laverde-Levine, Selawsky and Townley
http://berkeleyrentboard.org/

Tony Thurmond, State Assembly
http://www.tonythurmond.com/

Alejandro Soto-Vigil, District One
http://sotovigil2014.com/

Jesse Arreguin, District Four
http://www.jessearreguin.com/

Kriss Worthington, District 7
http://www.worthingtonworks2014.com/

Jacquelyn McCormick, District 8
http://www.mccormick4council.com/

Ty Alper, School Board
http://tyalper.org/

Karen Hemphill, School Board
http://karenhemphill.home.comcast.net/~karenhemphill/

For Berkeley Citizen Action’s endorsements, please visit their Website:
http://berkeleycitizensaction.org/

Candidate Questionnaires:

School Board 2014 Responses BCA BTU

City Council 2014 Responses BCA BTU

Assembly 2014 Responses BCA BTU

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FREE 2014 Candidate Forum
Sunday, September 21, 3:30-6:30pm
Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar Street

Linda Maio Declined the Tenants Union Invitation
Linda Maio Declined the Tenants Union Invitation

Berkeley Tenants Union, along with Berkeley Citizen Action and the Social Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, will hold a forum for candidates in the 2014 election on Sunday September 21 – it being at 3:30 SHARP!

Only longstanding Council Person Linda Maio (District 1) and District 8 candidate M. Alvarez Cohen declined to attend the event. Assembly candidates Echols and Thurmond will be there for us to get to know, plus all School Board candidates and all the other Council hopefuls.

Meet the candidates and hear their ideas! After the speeches, BTU and BCA members will remain to discuss ballot initiatives and vote on endorsements (separate ballots).

Here are Responses to the BTU / BCA Joint Questionnaire

School Board 2014 Responses BCA BTU

City Council 2014 Responses BCA BTU

Assembly 2014 Responses BCA BTU

 

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September-2014-Calendar-Printable-132Berkeley Tenants Union, along with Berkeley Citizen Action and the Social Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, will hold a forum for candidates in the 2014 election on Sunday September 21. Meet the candidates and hear their ideas! After the speeches, BTU and BCA members will remain to vote on endorsements (separate ballots). https://www.facebook.com/events/1491931991054041/

At BTU we’re very excited to get to know newcomers like Lori Droste and Sean Barry – and find out what they plan to do for tenants, or for landlords, or for real estate developers. So we are sending a few questions to the candidates and will be posting replies here on the website from Berkeley City Council, School Board, and candidates for the state Assembly.

2014 Candidate Forum
Sunday, September 21, 3:30-5:30pm
Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar Street
SAVE THE DATE