Tag: Berkeley City Council

By Posted on Posted in Issues

Governor Jerry BrownGovernor Jerry Brown is not a fan of inclusionary zoning, the principle way cities like Berkeley have met state mandates to build affordable housing. As Mayor of Oakland, Brown’s 2010 vote insured that our neighbor was the only major municipality in California without affordable housing mandates for developers. Now the fate of affordable housing in California is on Brown’s desk!

Brown has until Oct 12th to sign AB 1229 but he’s not going to do that without a billion phone calls from voters. The Berkeley Tenants Union has not formally voted on a position, but we are a member of the state-wide tenant organization Tenants Together, so we wanted to share their message:

AB 1229 (Atkins) passed through the California Senate last week. The bill restores the power to cities to adopt and enforce local inclusionary zoning laws that provide essential affordable rental housing in over one hundred jurisdictions in California. The bill is necessary because of a disastrous Supreme court decision (Palmer/Sixth Street Properties v. City of Los Angeles) that called into question whether cities could require developers to include affordable rental units in new projects. AB 1229 will promote the development of affordable rental housing in communities across California

Call the governor today at (916) 445-2841 and urge him to sign this important bill into law.

For Berkeley, a lot could be at stake, especially if the bad changes to the Demolition Ordinance get passed by the City Council and we begin to lose our rent controlled housing stock.

AB1229
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Huge_Victory_for_Affordable_Rental_Housing_AB_1229_Clears_Senate_and_Heads_to_the_Governor_11794.html

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB1229

News on Berkeley’s Affordable Housing Fee
http://www.dailycal.org/2013/09/08/berkeley-city-council-to-reassess-affordable-housing-fee/

San Jose Inclusionary Zoning Goes to CA Supreme Court
http://www.californialandusedevelopmentlaw.com/2013/09/16/california-supreme-court-to-hear-san-jose-affordable-housing-case/

Demolition Ordinance
http://theyodeler.org/?p=7882

Our petition:
https://www.change.org/petitions/berkeley-city-council-preserve-affordable-housing

By Posted on Posted in Issues

Berkeley has been expediting building permits and cutting fees for developers, saying our town desperately needs housing. One policy that some see as quite promising would make it easier to add a legal in-law unit on an existing property. But when it comes to low-cost housing for students, policymakers appear to be swayed by pressures from existing homeowners, because students are known to be noisy and make a mess, they say.

In fact, the initial legislation on mini-dorms approved by the Council in January seems to point to the sort of problems that cannot be anticipated by neighbors or Zoning Commissioners unless they make assumptions about the future behavior of possible tenants, perhaps unfairly: “Such buildings tend to impair the quiet enjoyment of the surrounding neighborhoods by creating trash and litter, creating excess parking demand, and being the location of numerous loud and unruly parties.”

“The council has various policies that are in contention with each other, and that’s just another one. ” – City Attorney Zach Cowan quoted in Berkeleyside.In July, the City Council began work on an ordinance that would curb proliferation of the so-called “mini-dorms” by requiring a public hearing for new construction with six or more bedrooms. The ordinance would only impact certain neighborhoods – the ones close to campus, according to the Daily Cal.

It seems to me that instead of regulating potential threats to civil society based on assumptions about young people, the Council might do better to look into why existing housing code is not enforced at existing properties. Several students said they would welcome more scrutiny of their housing, according to the Daily Cal: “We don’t feel safe, because we are in an attic that has no fire escape… We are a lot of people living on top of each other with no fire escape or anything — with no smoke detectors either — so in that sense, we feel really unsafe.”

I Urge Anyone In The Above Situation to Contact Code Enforcement! There are existing laws to protect you, and you may be entitled to a rent decrease too – ask at the Rent Board. Stand up for your own safety!

Students, please join BTU at our next Potluck, August 14.

As one commenter on Berkeleyside put it, “We have codes up the wazoo, often unenforced by the City and ignored by some property owner who make a living exploiting students.”

http://www.berkeleyside.com/2013/07/24/berkeley-officials-crack-down-on-mini-dorms/

http://www.dailycal.org/2013/07/28/city-ordinance-aims-to-limit-development-of-private-dorm-style-housing/

By Posted on Posted in Actions, Issues

We won!

Thanks to a couple dozen folks who wrote the Zoning Board, a sound position from the Rent Board, a good letter from the East Bay Community Law Center, and some very strong leadership by Zoning Commissioner Sophie Hahn, the 8 rent-controlled units on Walnut Street will be replaced with permanently affordable housing at the fancy new Acheson Commons development on University Avenue.

I hope the strong support for the message “empty units are still rent controlled units” from the public and the Zoning Commissioners will send a message to the City Council majority, who appear to be gutting the Demolition Ordinance for the benefit of developers and in complete disregard for the voter-approved Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance. Amendments being considered on July 2 could change Berkeley forever.

PLEASE SIGN OUR ONLINE PETITION

https://www.change.org/petitions/berkeley-city-council-preserve-affordable-housing

By Posted on Posted in Actions

As discussed at the potluck, Acheson Commons is before the Zoning Board Thursday. BTU is asking members to write, and members who wrote before to ask a friend to write!

We have sent a detailed letter about our position.
See the May 7 and 21 posts here for details: https://www.berkeleytenants.org/?tag=acheson-commons

In brief, we hope members will write something like this:

We, the members of the Berkeley Tenants Union, request that you rule in the public interest and require the 8 units on Walnut Street be replaced with affordable housing.

And send it to:
TBlount@CityofBerkeley.info
and
info@berkeleytenants.org (we will bring them to the ZAB meeting)

Thank you for helping!

By Posted on Posted in Actions

1930 and 1922–24 Walnut Street (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2009)
1930 and 1922–24 Walnut Street (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2009)

In general, activists’ response led to deeper discussion of the issues but we need ALL members to respond to these action requests if we are to impact policy and decisions!

The Zoning Adjustments Board continued the appeal of Equity Residential’s mega-development. ZAB got about a dozen letters from BTU members objecting to a new interpretation of the Demolition Ordinance that would allow destruction of any empty rental unit without replacing it with affordable housing. This issue dominated the ZAB discussion but was continued to Thursday JUNE 13. BTU needs you to SHOW UP and STAND AGAINST UNMITIGATED DESTRUCTION OF RENT-CONTROLLED UNITS! This decision will certainly impact how the City Council decides on the new version of the Demo Ordinance. Don’t allow them to say empty units can be torn down – or you will be evicted soon!

By Posted on Posted in Issues

Smoking

Berkeley’s City Council postponed a vote on a ban on all smoking in all multi-unit housing in the city until their May 28 meeting. BTU has not taken a position.

From Berkeley Patch:
Berkeley could become the first rent-control city in the nation to ban secondhand tobacco smoke in all multi-unit housing if the City Council adopts an anti-tobacco ordinance that was on the May 7 council agenda, according to city staff.

The city law would make it illegal to expose neighbors in multi-unit buildings to secondhand tobacco smoke and would require all new leases in such housing to include no-smoking clauses.

The proposed ordinance was developed by staff during the past year from study of smokefree housing laws in other California cities and consultation with Berkeley’s Community Health Commission and Rent Stabilization Board, according to a detailed, 28-page staff report prepared for the council meeting. The staff met also with the Medical Cannabis Commission and the Commission on Aging, according to the report.

The staff report is attached to this article.
http://berkeley.patch.com/articles/berkeley-eyes-anti-tobacco-law-in-multi-unit-housing

By Posted on Posted in Actions
1930 and 1922–24 Walnut Street (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2009)
1930 and 1922–24 Walnut Street (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2009), courtesy of BAHA

Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board voted unanimously to approve Acheson Commons in December – but their vote included allowing a dangerous new interpretation of Berkeley’s Demolition Ordinance which will certainly lead to future evictions in Berkeley! Please write them NOW!

Thursday May 9 the ZAB is to reconsider allowing deep-pockets developer Sam Zell’s Equity Residential to tear down eight rent-controlled units on Walnut Street, but not replace them with affordable housing at the 205-unit development, which is one of the first under the Downtown Area Plan.

It seems the City has a new view of the Demolition Ordinance which allows destruction of empty rent controlled units without requiring replacement. They say if no one lives there, it isn’t “rent-controlled” – this will lead to evictions! This is also the view city staff were pushing for the revision of the Demo Ordinance, which should be before the City Council later in the summer, so we need to show that Berkeley won’t stand for unmitigated destruction of affordable housing while developers make billions on new bedrooms for dot-com commuters.

PLEASE WRITE TO ZAB RIGHT NOW! TBlount@CityofBerkeley.info

Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Issues

Our awesome web guy and I went to the Berkeley Public Library and took some photos from their file on the history of the rent strike, the birth of rent control, and the struggles of the Berkeley Tenants Union in the 1970s and 1980s. We will post some of the scans and copies of full-text articles at a later date – here’s the really fun stuff!

Click on each photo for a closer view.

April-28-BTU---01April-28-BTU---03

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