Two Berkeley Rent Control Measures With Different Agendas

BERKELEY, CA — Voters in the city of Berkeley will find two different rent control measures on their ballots Nov. 5. Both include language that supports the right of tenants to form associations and collectively come together to work with landlords, but the similarities end there.

Measure CC was placed on the ballot through a petition drive by the Berkeley Property Owners Association, which represents landlords, said Mayor Jesse Arreguin. Measure BB was written by members of the Berkeley City Council, with input from the Berkeley Rent Board, as an alternative plan. The council voted 5 to 3 in favor of placing Measure BB on the ballot.

Most of the 26,000 rental units in Berkeley are covered by some portion of the city's Rent Stabilization and Eviction for Good Cause Ordinance, also called the Rent Ordinance. It includes enforcement and protections for renters and landlords and is administered by an elected commission called the Rent Board.

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Mayor Arreguin said Measure CC would prevent the Rent Board from being able to provide a rent reduction in the case that a unit is not meeting habitability standards. The Rent Board right now can conduct hearings and apply enforcement, he said, adding that Measure CC would prevent that.
"That's actually really important because a lot of the rental housing in Berkeley is older, and there are frequently habitability issues that need to be addressed," he said.

"Currently, the Rent Board can insert themselves into the middle of a lawsuit between a tenant and an owner," said Krista Gulbransen, executive director of the Berkeley Property Owners Association, which authored Measure CC.

"We don't think that it's fair or proper for them to insert themselves into the middle of something that's already being worked on between two parties," she said. "So, we lessened or reduced their ability to do that."

Measure CC would remove the Rent Board's ability to intervene as an interested party in litigation and modify the board's powers and duties by requiring a city audit every three years. It would also remove the monthly stipend commissioners receive.

Both measures stipulate conditions for renters' associations. Measure CC allows tenants representing two-thirds of occupied units to form an association. Measure BB sets that majority at one more than 50%.

"I think the advantage of tenant associations is that it gives groups of tenants the ability to collectively come together and to work with property owners to address issues, you know, whether there's rent issues, and to be able to negotiate," said Arreguin.

"That's particularly important in properties that are owned by corporations or out of town property owners," he said. "Increasingly, a lot of our rental properties in Berkeley are being bought by hedge funds."

If a property owner does not confer in good faith with requests from a tenant's association, then the renters can go to the Rent Board and the board can penalize the owner by reducing rent. Measure CC has no such enforcement tools or penalties.

"Our enforcement tool is language that says owner must confer in good faith," said Gulbransen.
The city's Rent Board runs a Housing Retention Program that offers grants up to $8,000 to people at risk of eviction, due to unexpected circumstances.

"That money is not always available," said Gulbransen. Measure CC would create a new program that pays directly to property owners.

"Sometimes the tenant will report back that there is no money available from the city at this time because they have run out. It's not an ongoing source of funding" she said. During the COVID-19 eviction moratorium, the rent relief programs were funded by the federal government, she said, but that money is no longer there.

Gulbransen said Measure CC would raise money from a fund that comes from an existing tax on large landlords in Berkeley. It would require that 20% of those tax proceeds be used for direct rent payments to property owners on tenants' behalf. The measure would require the finance department to create rules regarding this program, with input from an oversight committee of nine members, appointed by the mayor and city council. The other 80% of the proceeds would go to the city's general fund.

Gulbransen said that landlords also pay for the Rent Board with a registration fee. According to the Rent Board's website, annual registration fees range from $212 to $344 per unit.

"That's how the Rent Board gets funded at $7.5 million a year," Gulbransen said, adding the board uses that money to pay for free legal representation for tenants from the East Bay Community Law Center and the Eviction Defense Center.

Leah Simon-Weisberg, chair of the Rent Board, said Measure CC would redirect money away from affordable housing.

"As part of that ballot measure, they would take the power from the city to allocate a fund to the construction and the preservation of affordable housing and instead turned it into only rental assistance," said Simon-Weisberg. "And we in the city of Berkeley already spend more for rental assistance than anybody else."

How many of the rental units in Berkeley are corporately owned?

"I would say that the majority, if not all of the large buildings are corporate, everything that was, built along Shattuck with all these new buildings you're seeing. That's all corporately owned."

Story by Ruth Dusseault, Bay City News.

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