A number of proposed amendments to Berkeley\u2019s Rent Stabilization Ordinance could appear on the ballot this fall if approved by the Berkeley City Council on Tuesday. The amendments are mostly aimed at expanding tenant protections.<\/p>\n
The proposed changes, authored by Councilmember Cecilia Lunaparra, represent minor updates to the ordinance, which underwent more significant expansion after Measure BB passed in 2024. They result from a collaborative process between the Rent Board and city council members.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis measure strengthens certain aspects of what was in the ballot measure, while at the same time correcting for some unintended consequences \u2026 \u201d said cosponsor Councilmember Igor Tregub in an email.<\/p>\n
A significant change in the proposed amendments sets a 10% limit on annual rent increases, tying the limit to state law. Currently, the state limit does not apply to Berkeley landlords because Berkeley\u2019s generally stricter rent code supersedes state law. The limit applies regardless of \u201cbanked\u201d rent increases, which accrue when property owners do not charge the maximum cost dictated by the Rent Board\u2019s rent ceiling.<\/p>\n
The proposed changes would also enable the Rent Board to reduce or waive registration fees for nonprofit housing providers.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike landlords in the private market, we cannot raise rents to market upon vacancy to accommodate increasing costs,\u201d said Courtney Pal, policy manager with nonprofit housing provider Resources for Community Development, in an email. \u201cThe registration fees levied represent a substantially higher portion of rent revenue at our non-profit owned properties than in the private market.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an earlier version of the proposed amendments, the most contested change involved golden duplexes, which are duplex units where both a tenant and an owner live, among other requirements.<\/p>\n
While these residences are typically exempt from rent control and eviction protection policies, the earlier version of the amendments would remove that exempt status if the landlord fails to provide notice of the property\u2019s exemption from rent control as part of the initial rental agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very difficult for most tenants to understand whether a unit they\u2019re moving into is or is not a golden duplex,\u201d said Soli Alpert, the current chair of the elected Rent Stabilization Board.<\/p>\n
The new noticing requirement would ensure prospective renters are aware of golden duplex status.<\/p>\n
Krista C. Gulbransen, executive director of the Berkeley Property Owners Association, criticized the amendment for being too harsh on landlords who aren\u2019t aware of the changes, recommending instead for the exemption to kick in once the noticing requirement was fulfilled.<\/p>\n
Gulbransen also said the proposed changes would incentivize landlords to increase rent year after year instead of allowing landlords to \u201cbe nice to the tenant\u201d in difficult circumstances like the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
According to Alpert, these concerns would be addressed in an updated version of the amendments that will be released today.<\/p>\n
Alpert and Gulbransen estimate that there are more than 1,000 golden duplexes in Berkeley.<\/p>\n
Tenants\u2019 right to organize would expand under the new amendments. Current law affirms the right to organize for tenants living in properties with 10 or more units and all residences owned by property management companies. Under the proposed changes, that threshold would be reduced to five units.<\/p>\n
Other changes to the rent code include a shift to paperless billing for rental registration fees paid by landlords with five or more rental units and allowing the city to enter special agreements that would result in new rent-controlled properties. It would also prevent tenants from being exempted from rent control mid-tenancy if the unit was not exempt at the beginning of the tenancy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re going into the council meeting with what will be a consensus proposal,\u201d Alpert said, emphasizing that the changes are \u201ccommon-sense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A number of proposed amendments to Berkeley\u2019s Rent Stabilization Ordinance could appear on the ballot this fall if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[764,153382,13775,1610,153384,153383,153385,14328,153381,153380,143,145,144,32084,40208,108098],"class_list":["post-379198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-berkeley","tag-berkeley-property-owners-association","tag-cecilia-lunaparra","tag-city-council","tag-courtney-pal","tag-elected-rent-stabilization-board","tag-golden-duplex","tag-igor-tregub","tag-krista-c-gulbransen","tag-measure-bb","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-rent-stabilization-ordinance","tag-resources-for-community-development","tag-soli-alpert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}