Tag: Grassroots House

By Posted on Posted in Actions

potluck_01Our friends from the Eviction Defense Center will provide Tenant Counseling from 6 to 6:30 PM before this month’s BTU gathering.

Come break bread with tenants, smart landlords, activists, and everyone who wants to keep rent control strong and working in Berkeley. Bring any dish you like – but vegetarian food is always encouraged!

If any members have an announcement to share, please contact us before the meeting to be allocated time. We will keep announcements brief, but both of the issues BTU has been focused on this summer are coming up before the Planning Commission, Rent Board and City Council. Learn what you can do to stop dangerous revisions to the Demolition Ordinance, and finally move forward the requirement to retrofit the apartment buildings identified in 2005 as “Soft Story.” EDC will also say a few words about the problems they are seeing most from Berkeley tenants.

When:  August 14, 2013 6:30-8:30

Tenant’s Rights counseling at 6pm, potluck from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Where: Grassroots House, 2022 Blake, Berkeley between Milvia and Shattuck map

Children are welcome.  Please contact us if you would like to share childcare arrangements.

Note: beginning September 18, Potlucks will be the third Wednesday of the month.

By Posted on Posted in Issues
Acheson Commons

City Council has sent back the Acheson Commons plan to the Zoning Adjustments Board. The 200+ unit development at Shattuck and University has united labor, environmentalists and affordable housing advocates, according to the article below.

One of the big problems with the current plan is that 8 rent controlled units will be eliminated, but NOT REPLACED with below-market rentals — I say this means the Zoning Board isn’t following the current Demo Ordinance, but City staff are saying all EMPTY UNITS ARE NOT RENT CONTROLLED and not protected from destruction.

*BMC23.080 Board shall approve a Use Permit to eliminate a controlled rental unit only when it finds that: *

*2. The replacement dwelling unit shall be available for occupancy to Households for Lower Income or Very Low Income Household*

BTU might be asking you to comment when this gets back to Zoning — but then again, it looks the developer is once again offering the rent controlled houses for sale, which would comply with a different part of the Demo Ordinance:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/contra-costa-times/ci_22903585/eye-east-bay-richmond-debuts-environmental-disasters-tour

More on the Council decision to remand:
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2013/03/27/acheson-commons-sent-back-to-berkeley-zoning-board/

Illustration by LSA Associates, Inc.

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Happy Dog

You are invited to the Berkeley Tenants Union April Potluck

Come break bread with tenants, smart landlords, activists, and everyone who wants to keep rent control strong and working in Berkeley.

When: April 10, 6:30-8:30 pm
Where: Grassroots House, 2022 Blake, Berkeley between Milvia and Shattuck
RSVP: info (at) berkeleytenants.org (Children are welcome. Please include in RSVP. There will be childcare.)

There will be a 15-minute orientation for folks who want to table at the Saturday Downtown Farmer’s Market.

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Park Street Alameda

Alameda has no rent control. In the letter we have linked to below, their “Rent Review Board” warns landlords that increasing rent more than 10% a year could result in a public push for rent control, “which is bad for landlords and tenants alike.” OH MY!

BTU wants to remind you that we have a good system here in Berkeley, but we can’t take it for granted, and must stand together to keep what we have! One reason we have stronger tenant protections than San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose or Alameda is because our Rent Board is elected. But we need more than just a handful of Commissioners looking out for us – we need you! Come to the April 10th potluck, or drop by our table at the Saturday Farmers Market on April 13 and 27 to learn more about how just a few hours of your time each month could make a big change in Berkeley.

http://alamedasun.com/editorial/11642-open-letter-from-rent-review-board

http://thealamedan.org/news/council-members-rising-rents-could-prompt-controls

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Spring Tulips

You are invited to the Berkeley Tenants Union April Potluck

Come break bread with tenants, smart landlords, activists, and everyone who wants to keep rent control strong and working in Berkeley.

When: April 10, 6:30-8:30 pm
Where: Grassroots House, 2022 Blake, Berkeley between Milvia and Shattuck
RSVP: info (at) berkeleytenants.org (Children are welcome. Please include in RSVP. There will be childcare.)

There will be a 15-minute orientation for folks who want to table at the Saturday Downtown Farmer’s Market.

By Posted on Posted in Actions

Handful of Money

Senator Mark Leno (D – San Francisco) has announced the introduction of SB 603, a bill to promote fair treatment of tenant security deposits. SB 603 would require deposit funds to be held in separate accounts — and it will require interest payments to tenants on any funds held — another rule tenants in Berkeley are lucky to have already.

But many tenants know that having a law and getting access to interest or even return of a security deposit are two different things. So Leno’s bill calls for penalties if deposit funds are improperly withheld. SB 603 is co-sponsored by Tenants Together — the statewide organization of which BTU is a proud member — as well as the Western Center on Law and Poverty and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

Watch this space for more on what you can do to help make this bill into law!  Right now, you can show your support here:
http://www.itsyourdeposit.org/take-action/

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ABC Warning screen shot

On May 20, several BTU members joined with UC Berkeley students for Housing Advisory Commissioner Igor Tregub’s Third Annual Day of Seismic Safety. We visited a number of buildings on the City’s “soft story” list — mostly apartments built over garages – which engineers identified as expected to pancake in an earthquake, leaving no time for residents to escape. Although the Planning Dept. tracks compliance with part of the 2006 law known as “Soft Story Part One,” city staff has said they cannot afford to check to make sure landlords are following another part of the law — the part where they tell tenants the building they are living in could kill them!

We visited many buildings that have posted the required signage since the first and second Days of Seismic Safety, but some which still have not posted the warning signs.

We spoke to a number of tenants who want to join with BTU in asking that the city actually enforce the law and, more importantly, make “Soft Story Part Two” — in which the buildings actually get retrofit!

Most importantly, as the news story linked below tells us, landlords want tenants to pay for the retrofit and blame rent control for not repairing their unsafe buildings. Please JOIN US to resist unwarranted rent increases!

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=9035388

By Posted on Posted in Actions, Issues

soft story sign

BTU will join in the third annual Day of Seismic Safety March 20

Beginning at 5 PM on the steps at UC’s Sproul Plaza, Berkeley activists will join UC students in visiting tenants who live in units on the city’s list of unsafe “soft story” buildings. BTU will join with others in pushing the city to require these buildings be retrofit!

Hundreds of Berkeley properties meet the city’s soft-story definition— a wood-frame structure with five or more units and a ground level containing large openings like storefronts, garages or tuck-under parking. Jennifer Strauss,  external relations officer at the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, compared soft-story buildings to houses on  stilts. “The large open spaces on the ground floor that are unreinforced cannot withstand lateral forces,” Strauss said. “When the ground shakes back and forth, they end up collapsing.”

Read more here — and comment on the article if you can! http://www.dailycal.org/2013/03/14/seismic-safety-worries-city/