choose your poison no, wait! - bpoahenry manoucheri, founder of century city-based multi-family...

Inside this Issue

The Advocate forBerkeley’s Rental Housing Providers

Founded 1980 • Charter Member, California Rental Housing Association2041 Bancroft Way, Suite 203, Berkeley, CA • www.bpoa.org

oct2019

Choose Your Poison — No, Wait!

Editorial ..........................................................Page 2Coalition Corner ..............................................Page 3State Lawmakers Pass Rent Cap Bill ..............Page 4Statewide Rent Control Won’t Help ................Page 5“Housing Crisis Act” Headed to Gov.’s Desk ....Page 6Bay Area Housing Production Up in 2019 ......Page 7Backroom Housing Deal Reflects Failed Policies ...Page 8Monthly Meeting Info .....................................Page 9Berkeley: More People living in Cars & RVs ...1BRHC Adds New Staff Member .....................Page 12Services & Businesses .....................................Page 13

Kathryn Snowden, President, BPOA

From being a headache in a handful of cities, rent control is now a raging fever coast to coast. Bernie Sanders, who sees it as a panacea for housing affordability, proposes a federal version, and Donald Trump pegs it as the cause of homelessness, although he and Ben Carson aren’t doing much to alleviate either cause or effect. (Writ-ing in the Daily Cal, 19 September 2019, Kate Finman reports that Trump and Carson have rejected Gavin New-som’s reasonable request for federal housing vouchers to help low-income people pay rent and find housing.)

A tsunami of housing reports, policy proposals, and legislation hit our state both before and after Prop 10’s defeat. You remember Prop 10 — that’s the one where the voters firmly rejected futher rent controls. The CASA Compact, reports from the Council of Economic Advisors and the Terner Center, and numerous bills — AB1482, SB2, SB3, SB50, SB329, and SB330, et al. — all swirl around us, with rent control consistently in the mix.

Everybody’s got a plan. Bernie Sanders even floated a national price tag: “One trillion dollars.” Trump wants to call in the EPA to clean up San Francisco’s streets. Amid all this confusion, it’s easy to throw up your hands and dream of starting anew in some amiable tax shelter.

A Professor at U.C. Berkeley, Horst Rittel, famously called housing “a wicked problem.” One trait of such prob-lems is that they are symptoms of bigger ones. In the U.S., one of our biggest problems is a lack of political will to invest in the public realm — the framework of public goods and services that support basic livability. The average American assumes that such investments would result in punitive tax rates — Sweden at the height of Sixties socialism, for example. But Singapore exemplifies how a market economy can provide education, healthcare, housing, and transit as basic services while avoiding the kind of entitlements — welfare instead of working — that are truly costly. If you have a job in Singapore, basic services kick in. If you start earning more, you can buy better housing closer in, or stay where you are. Public housing there is owned through long-term leases, and children can inherit units.

I’m not arguing for Singapore’s system. I just note that it’s an alternative that works, and that Singapore has a globally competitive tax rate. Western Europe — Denmark and Germany, for example — have long had build

continued on page 10

MeMbers Meetingsaturday, OctOber 5th

ST JOHN’S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 2727 COLLEGE AVENUE IN BERKELEY 94705

SEE PAGE 9 FOR DETAILS

Converting Debate into Conversation: How Mediation

Can Save in Legal FeesCome learn about the alternatives to

demand notices and legal fees!

october 2019 bPoA MoNtHLY2

BPOA Monthly is a regular publication of the Berkeley Property Owners Association, a trade association dedicated to assisting rental hous-ing providers with upkeep and management of residential rental property and coping with Berkeley’s rent law.

2019Board of DirectorsKathy Snowden, PresidentSid Lakireddy, TreasurerJon Vicars, Vice PresidentGeorge SoengenRichard Genirberg, SecretaryJim SmithWill FlynnPaul TulejaAlbert SukoffMark Tarses

Editor:Albert Sukoff

Advisor: Michael St. John

Our Office Location:2041 Bancroft Way, Suite 203 Berkeley, CA 94704

Phone 510.525.3666

Email [email protected]

Website http://www.bpoa.org

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About the Newsletter

Our articles are contributed on a volunteer basis by members and other interested parties, although we do accept paid advertising. We are always happy to include material submit-ted by members and welcome suggestions on how to improve our publication.

All articles in this publication represent the author’s viewpoint and not necessarily the position of our organization.

Direct comments and material to our Bancroft Way office or to [email protected]

FATAL CONCEITSAlbert Sukoff, Editor


Last month’s editorial dealt with social and economic problems which are largely unsolvable but which are nevertheless targeted by expensive political programs which offer very few real results. Just how fruitless these efforts are is demonstrated in three areas about which I read or viewed critiques in the last month. All three are examples of how large scale, broad based government pro-grams may be well intentioned but, in the end, the politicians and bureaucrats don’t know what the hell they are doing.

Housing the HomelessKQED radio recently aired a discussion of an ongoing debate about the home-less. The two sides have names. It’s Housing First vs. Housing Ready. Advocates of the former believe that until an unsheltered citizen — that’s the PC terminol-ogy de jour — actually has a place to live, he/she cannot get his/her act together to become a self-sufficient member of the community. With this model, the mantra is that it takes the security of a roof overhead to be able to address one’s issues. The other side believes that no, one must at least attain a certain level of stability to be able to assume the responsibility of housing occupancy. Housing Ready has been the predominant approach for decades. Housing First is ascen-dant. In the KQED broadcast, they talked about the capabilities of those indi-viduals who are currently unhoused; there was no mention of drug addiction or mental illness or lack of any marketable skills. Maybe these underlying issues were just too obvious to discuss. The bottom line for me was that this was a de-bate for, by and among social workers. They were incapable of entertaining the notion that all they had to offer was palliatives. Their livelihood and self-image is wrapped up in what they do. In the end, they tackle an unsolvable problem, spend a lot of money over decades to not make a positive difference and then come up with a new approach, with a new name, and thereby get a couple more decades of funding. The point is that the issue isn’t housing but rather drug abuse and natural mental illness and minimal marketable skills. Some cases are just hopeless.

Education and Income Inequality.I watched an interesting lecture on You Tube by a life-long education activ-ist who confessed that, after decades in the field, she has concluded that even very good schools will not result in equally proficient adults. Here, the chicken-and-egg debate is between Income First and Education First. The speaker had reluctantly concluded that without a steady stream of stabilizing income, poor families would not escape the ghetto, good educational opportunities notwith-standing. Her argument was that the life of the poor is just too stressful and too demanding to overcome. (No one told this to our immigrant grandparents.) What the poor needed first need to improve their plight, the argument goes, is up-front money. She did not address the possibility that the problem here is neither education nor money but culture. It isn’t ignorance or poverty that keeps whole groups in poverty; it is culture. It applies equally in urban ghettoes, Appalachian hollers and obsessed theocracies.


By Krista Gulbransen, Executive Director


The Berkeley Rental Housing Coalition (BRHC) is the political and legal voice of Berkeley’s rental housing providers.

The Impact of AB 1482 on BerkeleyMost everyone now knows that out of 2019/2020 Sacra-mento legislative session came Assembly Bill 1482, known as “The Renter’s Rights Act.” It took a long and twisted journey from its original format, following in the footsteps of Oregon’s earlier-in-the-year rent cap bill. Author Assem-bly Member David Chiu (San Francisco) was adamant in his intention to broker a deal between the legislators, tenants and rental housing providers. He wanted to make sure that it was one the Governor would sign when it came across his desk. As the second to last day of the legislative session came to a close, Assembly Members overwhelmingly voted the legislation through. It is expected the Governor will sign the bill and the it will take effect starting January 1, 2020.

Our organizations were a part of the negotiations of the bill through our state association, the California Rental Hous-ing Association. We maintained that the author’s refusal to exempt owners of fewer than 10 units was going to drive those owners out of business. From the beginning, we drew a line in the sand on vacancy decontrol, stating clearly that negotiation on the ability to raise the rent to market when a tenant leaves was not negotiable. We hoped we could get the author to agree to in essence “override” the current rent regulations of cities like Berkeley, Oakland and San Fran-cisco. But it became very clear early on that the legislator intended to protect the stricter rent control ordinances that were already in place in 15 cities in California.

At the end of the day, the California Association of Realtors also thought the lack of exemptions for small owners was preposterous (as well as the rent cap getting moved from 7% + CPI to 5% + CPI) and it publicly opposed the legisla-tion. The California Apartment Association (who tends to represent the larger owners and developers) went neutral during the last two weeks of the legislative session, while the California Building Industry Association came out in support of AB 1482. By September 12, Chiu was able to tout the ability to broker a deal with approval of some of the big industry players, which in turn helped him to push it through both the Senate and Assembly.

But many members have written in, asking how this legisla-tion will impact Berkeley given that our current rent control and just cause for eviction protections are already written

into the Rent Stabilization Ordinance. Below are some com-mon questions, with the answers as we understand them at this time.

Will the state rent cap apply to units in Berkeley?Yes. Berkeley will now have a two-tiered rent control sys-tem. All those units that are currently under rent control, according to the city’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, will re-main under rent control and will only be able to raise their rents according to the allowable Annual General Adjust-ment (AGA). In addition, there will be a group of units that will now be subject to the state’s rent cap of 5% + the Con-sumer Price Index (CPI). The bill exempts those units that were issued a certificate of occupancy within the previous 15 years. However, any housing that was previously exempt as “new construction” under Costa Hawkins and is older than 15 years, will be subject to the rent cap of 5% + CPI.

Will single family homes and condos be exempt from the rent cap as they are under the Costa Hawkins Rental Act?Single family homes and condos will remain exempt from rent control and the rent cap, as long as the owner is not a real estate investment trust (REIT), a corporation, or a limited liability corporation in which at least one member is a corporation. There will be requirements for the owner to provide a written notice to the tenant that the property is exempt from the state’s rent cap.

Will AB 1482 impact Golden Duplexes or new ADUs where the owner occupies a unit on the property? No. AB 1482 provides for an exemption from the bill’s regulations for owner-occupied duplexes, and for parcels with accessory dwelling units or junior accessory dwelling units in which there are two units to a parcel and the owner lives in one of the units. There is nothing saying that local officials or tenant activists won’t try to remove the Golden Duplex exemption through a ballot measure in 2020, but we are hoping AB 1482’s exemptions for owner-occupied duplexes will discourage them from doing that.

Will the Just Cause provision of AB 1482 impact units in Berkeley?No. Most all of Berkeley’s units have Just Cause for evic-tion protections because of Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization


In a significant victory for California renters struggling to find affordable housing, state lawmakers on Wednesday sent a sweeping rent cap bill to the governor’s desk. Assem-bly Bill 1482, which passed the Assembly Wednesday after-noon 46-22, is set to limit rent increases across the state to 5 percent plus inflation. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who helped broker a compromise between tenant advocacy groups and apartment owners, is expected to sign the bill into law in the coming days. The state joins Oregon, which passed similar legislation in February, and New York in enacting widespread rent caps.

“The question we have in front of us is what kind of a soci-ety do we want to live in?” said Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco), the bill’s lead author, just before the vote. “What kind of neighbors are we?”

In places like Oakland and San Francisco, which already have rent restriction, tenants may not notice much differ-ence. And according to a recent Zillow analysis, the legisla-tion would have benefited only around 7 percent of Califor-nia renters if it had been in place last year, because rents in many places have ticked up just a few percentage points.

Still, Michael Lane, deputy director of the housing advocacy organization SV@Home, said the measure stands to have a sizable impact on cities that passed rent control measures a long time ago, like San Jose, because it will extend protec-tions to newer apartments than have typically been cov-ered. And in wealthy suburbs across the Bay Area, the new rent cap could have significant impact.

“It’s a historic day,” Lane said. “Hopes are high and this is one more step, but there’s still lots of work to do.”

Newsom praised lawmakers.

“In this year’s State of the State address, I asked the leg-islature to send me a strong renter protection package,” Newsom said in a statement. “Today, they sent me the strongest package in America. These anti-gouging and evic-tion protections will help families afford to keep a roof over their heads, and they will provide California with important new tools to combat our state’s broader housing and afford-ability crisis.”

AB 1482, which sunsets in 2030, will apply to apartments built at least 15 years ago, as well as houses and condos of the same age that are owned by large corporations. Tenant advocates also succeeded in pushing lawmakers to include just cause eviction protections for renters who have been in their home at least a year. That means landlords can’t kick out renters following the rules of their lease unless the

owner is moving in, tearing down the residence, renovating it or taking it off the rental market.

Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) pushed back at the notion the measure will hamstring landlords. “They still have a tremendous amount of flexibility to raise the rent,” Wicks said.

The measure does carve out exemptions for owners who live with their tenants, as well as owners who live in one part of a duplex and rent out the other unit. And landlords will be allowed to raise rents to market rates when a tenant moves out.

The measure is a significant political win for Newsom, who had taken a risk by backing the legislation before it had a clear path to passage. Last year, state voters shot down a ballot measure, Proposition 10, that would have strength-ened local rent control policies across the state by eliminat-ing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which restricts how far cities can go with rent control measures.

While the California Apartment Association said it would remain neutral on the bill, the California Association of Realtors and most of the state’s Republican lawmakers opposed the measure, saying it would decrease the value of rental properties and deter developers from building more badly needed housing.

“We can build our way out of this if you allow it,” said As-semblywoman Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore).

Jared Martin, president of the California Association of Realtors, said in a statement after the vote he was disap-pointed. “Although we did not prevail, we remain stead-fast in our commitment to overcome California’s historic housing supply and affordability crisis,” Martin said. “Much more work remains ahead of us, and as we have said from the beginning, REALTORS® appreciate the commitment of Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrats and Republicans to con-tinue working to incentivize the production of new housing for rental and sale.”

But Democrats and renter advocacy groups have said the measure is necessary to stem a ballooning homelessness crisis and help families anticipate rent increases. “Building more housing is going to take a lot of time,” said Assembly-man Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance). “And in the meantime, in my community, even in affluent parts of my district, I’m hearing more and more stories of people that can’t keep up with their rents.”

By Emily DeRuy, Bay Area News Group, September 11, 2019


Natalie Hoberman, September 12, 2019

When New York passed its historic rent reform law in June, Los Angeles-based landlords shuddered at the thought that California could be next. Some claimed they would shift their investments into projects in other states, while others began raising rents as a precaution.

Three months later, their fear became reality. On Wednes-day, California lawmakers voted to expand rent control in the state for the first time in 25 years. The landmark bill — which has a 10-year lifespan — will cap yearly rent increases at 5 percent plus inflation and provide tenants with expanded protections against evictions. Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign the bill into law.

But local real estate pros were split on whether California’s rent reform measure will have as big an impact as New York’s legislation has had on the industry.

Andrew Starrels, a Holland & Knight partner who special-izes in land use, said investors are now “balancing against the general feelings that recessionary times are coming. This is another drag in an investor’s model so I’m sure there will be some deals that won’t get made.”

But he doesn’t expect the bill will “be fatal to either side,” re-ferring to tenant advocates and landlords. “We got tremen-dous demand for investment, very high values and I don’t know that this is going to send everybody elsewhere.”

Doug Bigby, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council took a stronger position, arguing the measure will “discourage investment, shrink the availability of affordable housing that already exists and squeeze even more people struggling in the housing market. This makes the problem worse,” he said in a statement.

Assembly Bill 1482 represents one of the biggest steps in addressing the affordable housing crisis. For affordable housing advocates, the law will be a victory.

“Tenant protections like these are an important measure to address the upstream causes of people losing their homes,” said Leonora Camner, managing director of Abundant Housing L.A. “I think we’ll continue to see more protections for renters.”

Value to investorsBut some developers and property owners interviewed for this story said all was not lost, and that the five percent rent cap will still provide value to investors.

The bill still allows for vacancy decontrol, which New York’s rent regulation eliminated, meaning California apartment owners can still raise the rent to market rate when a tenant vacates a unit.

Henry Manoucheri, founder of Century City-based multi-family builder Universe Holdings Development, said he’s “disappointed” the bill was approved, but not the least bit “shocked.” His firm had been preparing for the past two years. He raised rents on properties that weren’t under rent control and bought more buildings that were, for their predictability. Roughly half of the firm’s 3,000 units across Southern California are rent-controlled.

Manoucheri expects the bill will cause landlords to spike rents on their vacant units, something he’s already seen in neighborhoods like Inglewood, which has a significant num-ber of rent controlled buildings. He said landlords may also choose to cut back on renovations or value-add investments that require pouring money into repairs and rehab.

Eric Sussman, a real estate investor and professor at the

continued on page 7

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The “Housing crisis Act of 2019” is heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, seeking to boost homebuilding in “urban-ized” zones throughout the state, according to the bill’s author, state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-berkeley. The bill won final passage Friday, Sept. 6, with business backing but over the objections of the League of california cities and 56 cities and counties. Newsom has indicated he would sign the measure.

Senate bill 330, which received scant news coverage, would ban population and housing caps in “urban clus-ters,” ban housing construction moratoriums, forbid density reductions and allow demolition of affordable and rent-controlled housing only if the demolished units are replaced. It also includes anti-displacement provisions, requiring relocation assistance to tenants forced to move from affordable rental units and allowing them to stay in their homes until six months before construction begins. It also blocks local governments from changing the rules on pending developments by hiking fees or changing per-mit requirements once a project applicant has submitted preliminary development plans, a statement by Skinner said. The bill would sunset at the end of 2024, and its provi-sions would be subject to limits in existing laws such as the coastal Act and the california environmental Quality Act.

“our failure to build enough housing has led to the highest rents and homeownership costs in the nation,” Skinner said in a statement. “My bill gives a green light to housing that already meets existing zoning and local rules and prevents new rules that might limit housing we so desperately need.”

Much of the state’s needed housing has already been planned by local communities, Skinner’s statement said.

one UcLA study shows local governments have approved zoning for 2.8 million new housing units. That’s 80% of Newsom’s goal to build 3.5 million new units by 2025.

“but that housing is not getting built,” Skinner’s state-ment said. During the first half of 2019, residential build-ing permits actually dropped 20% from the same period a year ago, U.S. census figures show.

The measure’s passage comes after pro-development Sen-ate bill 50 got postponed earlier this year. That bill, which will be revisited in 2020, seeks to boost homebuilding by allowing mid-rise, multi-family construction near major transit lines and by allowing four-plexes in single-family neighborhoods. Increased homebuilding long has been a goal among republican and Democratic administrations alike, with state housing officials calling for the construc-tion of 200,000 units a year — a target reached just 24 times in the past 65 years, figures from the construction Industry research board show. Newsom, however, seeks to up that goal to more than 350,000 new housing units per year, a target yet to be achieved in the Golden State.

The Housing crisis Act won backing from major business groups, according to the Senate Floor Analysis, including the california business roundtable, the california build-ing Industry Association and the california Association of realtors. but local governments opposed the measure, including local government associations in Los Angeles, Santa clara, San Mateo, Marin, orange and Ventura counties. The bill also was opposed by the coalition to Preserve LA and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which backed Measure S, a 2017 ballot proposition seeking a two-year moratorium on major developments in Los Angeles.

Jeff Collins, Southern California News Group, September 7, 2019

HOLL LAW & MEDIATION

BENJAMIN J. HOLLAttorney/Mediator

Tel 415-324-8860

Fax 510-665-6005

Email [email protected]

369 Pine St., Suite 420

San Francisco, CA 94104

www.holl-lm.com

The “Housing Crisis Act” bans cities from imposing building caps or restricting development


You can view the entire text of AB1482 at http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.

xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB1482

continued from page 5

Bay Area Housing Production Up for 2019The number of apartments to be built in the Bay Area is expected to rise in 2019, with more than 11,000 units being built. Citing a national survey, CBS San Francisco pegs the exact number at 11,378.

The San Jose area is expected to add 6,044 apartments this year, a rise of 283 percent compared to last year. The bulk of new apartments in Silicon Valley (2,290 units) are being built in San Jose, but 1,685 units are being built in neighboring Milpitas, 814 apartments are being built in Mountain View and 718 units in Sunnyvale.

Apartment construction is also up in San Francisco-Oakland area. The area, which encompasses San Francisco, along with Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and San Mateo Counties, is expected to add 5,334 apartments, up 22 percent. The bulk of the construction is in Oakland, where 1,850 units are being built. Across the bay in San Francisco, 1,204 new apartments are expected.

San Mateo County is expected to add around 1,000 apartments after two years of decline.

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University of California Los Angeles, said AB 1482 “is not going to work.” While it could lead to fewer evictions in the short term, Sussman said it will also reduce the number of real estate transactions and investment in the state.

Through his firm Clear Capital, Sussman has also been preparing. Clear Capital owns around 3,500 units, though most are outside California. The firm sold many of its assets in the past year.

Another component of the bill is that landlords will be barred from evicting tenants unless they can prove “just cause.” It will apply in cities that don’t have rent control laws, and will likely expand protections in the ones that do, like Los Angeles, West Hollywood and Inglewood.

The new measure comes less than a year after voters state-wide rejected Proposition 10. That would have repealed the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995, opening the door to expanded rent control laws.

AB 1482 covers buildings that are 15 years old or older, but does not include single-family homes. Once the bill becomes law, California will become the third state in the nation to have statewide rent control. Oregon is the other,

besides New York.

California Apartment Association, the largest landlord asso-ciation in the state, had led the battle against the measure. But CAA ultimately withdrew its opposition during final negotiations.

“We now, of course, need to address the largest issue facing the state, which is the production of affordable housing,” spokeswoman Debra Carlton wrote in an e-mailed state-ment. “While this legislation is a temporary solution, we must get serious about moving forward on production, which is the only way we address our housing crisis.”


QUOTE OF THE MONTHThose who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel

that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.

– Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

Housing solutions have been touted for the past year as the top priority of our legislative leaders. Leaders have continued to highlight various reports about the need for more housing including the most recent report that stated that Southern california needs to build 3.5 million new housing units to ease the crisis.

However, instead of moving forward with progressive and innovative policies that would expedite new housing or encourage californians to take the risk and buy their first rental property, they have decided to shelve most of those proposals and support failed policies that have been rejected by voters and communities for years.

We represent the thousands of small rental property owners in this state and are disappointed to see a back-room deal emerge with state leaders and large corporate interests. This deal ignored the interests of thousands of mom and pop rental property owners. The provisions of the deal are enshrined in Assembly bill 1482 and now is supported by associations whose members represent Wall Street while disproportionately harming small rental property owners.

Why place restrictions on the smallest rental property owners? Such restrictions will force them out of their properties and further shrink the available housing supply.

In fact, the legislation would apply to anyone who just owns one duplex or fourplex. These small mom and pop property owners often have taken huge personal risk to purchase a rental property. every time this risk is taken by a small business owner, it helps to alleviate the hous-ing crisis by creating new housing units.

Now this legislation most likely will force many of them to sell their properties and discourage anyone else from taking such a risk. only large corporations are poised to take these risks as they plan to raise rents every year to the maximum.

Let’s just look at the cities that have long-standing rent

control policies such as San Francisco, Santa Monica, and New York. These are the same cities that have some of the highest rents in the nation with massive housing shortages.

This is why those areas that implemented rent control had a higher rate of gentrification than communities that do not have these policies. What has this legislation done to prevent this from happening across the state? When government increases the burden on the property owner, then the property owner is going to be forced to sell. And most likely, the small property owner is going to sell to a large corporation.

For those that do not sell, rents will not stabilize, but will continue to increase. There is currently no provision to pass on a rent increase not taken one year for a future year when an increase is needed to offset new and higher taxes or costs to the property.

This will result in property owners being forced to take the maximum rent increase allowable since there are now rent caps and no ability to bank these increases for the fu-ture if it becomes necessary in order to make ends meet. This means renters who do not currently experience an-nual rent increases will now experience rent increases of over five percent every year. This may make it even harder for many families to afford to live in california.

There is a reason why the voters of california overwhelm-ingly rejected rent control last election and why 56 of 58 counties have rejected rent control. It does not work. It forces more gentrification, Wall Street corporate own-ership, forces out small mom and pop businesses, and continues to drive up rent on families.

While this backroom deal looks baked, it is not too late for legislators to do the right thing. reject Ab 1482 that will raise rents on californians while benefiting the larg-est corporations. We can do better.

Sid Lakireddy is president of the California Rental Housing As-sociation. He is the penultimate president of BPOA.

Sid Lakireddy 09.09.2019


This month’s topic isConverting Debate into Conversation: How

Mediation Can Save in Legal FeesWith Carole Conn, The San Francisco Bar Association

Come hear about the alternatives to demand notices and legal fees with a discus-sion about how mediation can help any conflict. Do you have problems with:

Your tenants consistently paying rent late?Tenants disturbing other tenants with noise?

Tenants that regularly violate your guest rules?

As ever, it’s fun, it’s free and you always learn something.Join us at 9:30 am for coffee, pastries and networking!

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Too Much MeritocracyAnother good idea considered by some to have gone awry is that principal of meritocracy. What could be fairer and more just than positions of wealth, prestige and power going to those who have earned them through educa-tion, effort, talent and the application of intelligence? Apparently, however, merit begets merit and the elite are still self-perpetuating, even if not by arbitrary crite-ria. It’s still the old alternative Golden Rule: He who has the gold, rules. I have seen this. The teenager closest to me, essentially my grandchild-equivalent, has had every imaginable advantage. At 14, she’s been to almost as many countries as I have. She has had the best private education that money can buy. She has been blessed with a plethora of beneficial extracurricular opportunities. She has parents who are skilled at parenting. She is a terrific

kid who has so far avoided the pitfalls of opportunity. She is not spoiled nor does she suffer from a sense of entitlement. But she is undeniably heavily advantaged. However well she does in life, all this will play to her benefit. It’s too complicated to consider here, but think of the regulatory complications of a government effort to even the playing field, adjusting not only for unequal access to opportunity but for privilege per se. It would be affirmative action on steroids.

And so...to beat the dead horse once again: what other government effort can you think of that was supposed to be an answer to high rents and forty years later (eighty in New York) hasn’t solved the problem but has rather made it worse?




ing societies that develop innovative, cost-effective hous-ing. We could learn from their example. Here in Berke-ley, there’s considerable opportunity to densify existing housing just by adding to it, but the city has resisted this. Maybe it’s finally changing.

Rent control isn’t an issue when options are available for people at every level. Unlike unfair rent control, which is

what we mostly have here — a lottery at owners’ expense — these options imagine that many home owners will be socially mobile, making their way through life and re-thinking their housing needs as they go. Oh, if only! We may need to organize a field trip.

Oh, sorry: “fact-finding mission.” But seriously, the ge-niuses in charge need to get out more.

Ordinance. Costa Hawkins provides for exemptions of rent control, not Just Cause provisions, so Berkeley has always maximized its ability to extend eviction protections to all tenants in Berkeley.

Will I still be able to raise my rent to market when a tenant vacates the unit?Yes. The language of AB 1482 makes clear that vacancy decontrol remains in place as written in the Costa Hawkins Rental Act of 1996.

What if I rent a room to a tenant in which I share a kitchen or a bathroom?According to AB 1482, you remain exempt from the provi-sions of the law which includes both the rent cap and Just Cause.

This is a complex change in the rules, many of which won’t apply to Berkeley. But if you have properties in a non-regulated jurisdiction, it is wise to consult your real estate attorney and tax professional to determine if any of the exemptions of the law apply to you.

This information is brought to you by me — the Executive Direc-tor of the Berkeley Rental Housing Coalition (and BPOA). The only way this information will keep coming to you is if you help to financially support the BRHC. Please consider joining the BRHC. Your BPOA membership is automatically included. If you are interested in lending your support so we may continue as a strong organization, please contact Krista Gulbransen, Executive Director at 510-304-3575 or [email protected].


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The number of people experiencing homelessness in Berkeley went up 14% in the last two years, climbing from 972 individuals in 2017 to 1,108 in 2019, according to a new report released by EveryoneHome, which conducted an on-the-ground-survey of the population in January. Since January 2015, Berkeley’s homeless population has increased by 32.8%.The number of people who are unsheltered went up from 68% (664) of the population in 2017 to 74% (813) in 2019. For the first time, most of Berkeley’s unsheltered homeless population is sleeping in RVs and cars, followed by those sleeping in tents and on the street, according to the report. About 161 people live in vans with another 157 living in cars, making them 39% of the unsheltered homeless popu-lation and 29% of the overall homeless population. About 251 people, or 23% of the total homeless population, live in tents. while 231 people, or 21% of the total homeless popu-lation, sleep on the street, according to the report. These statistics are the results of volunteers fanning out across Berkeley — and Alameda County — on Jan. 30. Hundreds of trained questioners and volunteers walked every census tract looking for people living on the street, in cars and RVs, and in abandoned buildings. In addition, counts were made in shelters.The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires counties to do this kind of “point-in-time count”

(meaning on a single day) every two years in order to receive federal funds to address homelessness issues. HUD counts people as homeless when they are:

• Living in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designated to provide temporary living arrange-ment; or

• With a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, including a car, park, abandoned building, bus or train station, airport, or camping ground.

While the homeless count is up 14% (Berkeleyside had reported in July that the number was 13% because we only had access to an informal report), the increase was smaller than those in nearby cities. Oakland’s homeless population increased by 47%. San Francisco went up by 30%. And in Alameda County, the population increased by 43%.There were some positive developments, according to Mat-thai Chakko, a city spokesman. All families experiencing homelessness had shelter in 2019; that was not the case in 2017. The number of homeless families stayed flat. And the number of youth and transition-aged youth decreased by 57%, from 189 in 2017 to 82 in 2019, he said. That may be due to a new counting method, though, he said.

Frances Dinkelspiel, Berkeleyside, September 12, 2019


The Berkeley Rental Housing Coalition is growing! We just celebrated our fourth anniversary as the political and legal arm of the BPOA. We recently did a search for a part-time assistant with the goal to find someone who could help grow our organization. We are pleased to announce we have hired our newest employee — Teresa Baker.

Teresa has spent over twenty years in the property manage-ment industry, working for large developers such as Avalon Bay and Shea Properties. She had previously worked as a California realtor. During her time in property management, Teresa had the opportunity to focus on issues around afford-able housing were she developed expertise in managing tax credits for housing developers.

Her hobbies include a passion for working with outdoor orga-nizations, brands and retailers on the issues of diversity and inclusion. She spreads the word about diversity and inclusion in the outdoors through speaking engagements and other events across the country.

Teresa will be assisting on policy, research and legal projects for the BRHC.

Expect to see Teresa at future meetings where you can wel-come her to the BPOA and BRHC family!


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Michael St. John, Ph.D., Principal ConsultantAndrew W. Fingado, Associate Consultant

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Contributions or gifts to BPOA are not tax deductible as charitable contributions for federal or state income tax purposes, but are generally deductible as trade or business expenses. Please note that no portion of payments to BPOA are made to lobbying

efforts or campaign committees. For further information, please consult a tax professional or the Internal Revenue code.

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Products and services advertised herein are not warranted, expressly or impliedly by the publisher or by its board of directors.The publisher takes no responsibility should the quality of the products and services not be as advertised.

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US POSTAGE PAIDOAKLAND, CAPERMIT #25082041 Bancroft Way, Suite 203 Berkeley, CA 94704 • www.bpoa.org • [email protected]

Berkeley Property Owners AssociationMeMBeRS MeetiNg

Converting Debate into Conversation: How Mediation

Can Save in Legal Fees

Come hear about the alternatives

to demand notices and legal fees with a

discussion about how mediation can

help any conflict

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(Parking available in the church lot)

SEE PAGE 9 FOR DETAILS

SaTUrday, OcTObEr 5TH9:30am Refreshments • 10:00am Meeting

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