One measure is supported by tenants and another by landlords. Only one measure can become law.

 

When Berkeley voters go to the polls Tuesday, they will be confronted with not one but two rent control measures.

 

The measures mirror each other in many respects. Both have provisions for rent relief, and tenants rights. But backers of both say they could not be more different. And in this small city that was the first in California to enact rent control, they are hotly contested. 

 

Tenants rights organizations favor Measure BB, while landlord groups are pushing the other, Measure CC.

 

Both sides have spent tens of thousands of dollars to win voters to their side, but one has significantly outspent the other.

 

“CC was put on the ballot by corporations. It guts the rent control ordinance,” said Leah Simon-Weisberg, Executive Director of the California Center for Movement Legal Services and representative of the East Bay Tenant Union PAC, which helps fund the campaign for Measure BB.

 

She pointed to hundreds of thousands of dollars in Measure CC’s campaign coffers, much of which has come from groups like the National Association of Realtors.

 

On the other hand, those behind Measure CC view Measure BB as a circumnavigation of election rules.

 

“Measure BB was the result of a citizen’s initiative that failed on the streets, essentially,” said Krista Gulbransen, Executive Director of a landlord organization called the Berkeley Property Owners Association.

 

What Gulbransen was referring to was the inability of Measure BB’s organizers to collect enough signatures by the deadline to have it placed on the ballot, unlike Measure CC. Instead, they brought it to the Berkeley City Council, which voted to put it on the ballot anyway.

 

At that council meeting in August, dozens of local renters and landlords, groups that have long been at odds in the progressive enclave, filled the chamber’s seats and lined up behind the lectern to make their voices heard.

 

One after another stressed the stakes of the decision.

 

“We have to start prioritizing people over profit. We have to protect those who have no protections,” said Berkeley Rent Board commissioner and tenant Dominique Walker, who backed Measure BB. 

 

“In the interest of those who need it the most, we are counting on the city of Berkeley leadership to vote to protect tenants,” she added.

 

Other speakers saw things differently.

 

“I have been asked as a permit consultant in the last months to assist in removing housing from the market permanently, quite a few units. This is a shame, and it’s because of this adversarial, ‘landlords are evil’ approach to housing that I feel really doesn’t work and is a real chill on housing production and maintenance in our city,” said Bryce Nesbitt, who helps homeowners navigate local rules concerning the permitting of accessory dwelling units and additions.

 

Hours later, the council elected to bring both measures to the voters, setting up the latest battle in Berkeley’s 50 plus year tug of war over rent control. In the months since, powerful coalitions have coalesced around each measure.

 

Measure BB, pushed by tenants and their advocates, would expand rent control measures by setting aside money from the city’s general fund for rent relief. It would also remove rent control exemptions for some units in which the owner also lives on the property, prohibit nonpayment evictions if the tenant owes less than a full month of rent, allow tenants to organize into associations with bargaining power, require landlords to negotiate with those tenant associations, limit utility charges and set the highest allowable yearly rent increase at 5%.

 

On the other hand, Measure CC, touted by landlord associations, uses an existing tax on large landlords to establish a rent relief fund, expands exemptions for rent control on some properties, curtails the Rent Board’s authority to intervene on tenants’ behalf in disputes with their landlords, forces the Rent Board to be audited every three years while removing compensation for commissioners, sets allowable yearly rent increase at 7.1%, provides the city’s Code Enforcement department with exclusive discretion to determine whether units meet habitability standards, allows nonpayment evictions if the tenant has not paid for more than 90 days, allows evictions for health code violations and allows tenants a more limited right to organize.

 

Though the measures share some language, their intentions are diametrically opposed to each other – BB expands rent regulations and CC contracts them. For that reason, city rules dictate that only one can pass on election day. If both get more than 50% of the vote, the one with the most votes will be implemented.

 

But because of the ways that these measures will appear on the ballot, it can be difficult to get a clear sense of what separates them. According to the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury Association, a non-partisan group that evaluates the language of local measures for clarity, BB and CC are especially muddled.

 

Measure CC was spearheaded by an organization called the Berkeley Property Owners Association. The BPOA, a politically active trade association with a membership of more than 700, serves local landlords. 

 

The BPOA created a political action committee and legal defense fund in 2015 called the Berkeley Rental Housing Coalition. Sitting members of the Board of Directors are representatives from Bay Area leasing, management and finance companies, including Vindium Real Estate, Premium Properties and Vanguard Properties.

 

Since 2015, BRHC has provided financial support to pro-landlord campaigns, including collecting funds in 2020 for Californians to Protect Affordable Housing, the organization leading the opposition to statewide Proposition 33, which would repeal the Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act.

 

BRHC is behind the Yes on Measure CC, No on Measure BB political action committee. In their latest campaign finance disclosures, the PAC reported receiving a $160,000 contribution from the behemoth National Association of Realtors and $20,000 from the California Association of Realtors. Their total campaign expenditures to date add up to over $282,000, more than seven times the spending of their opponents.

 

Measure BB, by contrast, emerged from Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board recommendations for updating the city’s hallmark Rent Stabilization and Eviction for Good Cause Ordinance. 

 

A majority of the city council supports the measure, with notable abstentions coming from members Rashi Kesarwani and Mark Humbert. 

 

A coalition of unions and tenants rights groups created a political action committee called the East Bay Tenant Union PAC to support the measure. The PAC’s notable donations have come from UAW Region 6 Western States PAC, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, SEIU Local 1021 Issues PAC, Tenants Together and a number of small donations under $500. As of their last campaign filing, the PAC has spent about $37,500 on the race.

 

Both sides are making an effort to define the messaging related to the two local housing measures. 

 

During an interview, Gulbransen started off by touting the rent relief component of Measure CC. She said that the BPOA worked with the city and the Eviction Defense Center to administer the Berkeley housing retention program that emerged from the pandemic and leveraged $1 million from the general fund to keep close to 1,000 households from being evicted.

 

“It is not regularly funded, and it is certainly not funded at a level in which we can appropriately keep the number of people that need help from getting evicted,” said Gulbransen.

 

The BPOA’s proposed solution with Measure CC would be to use 20% of a tax that has already been implemented on large Berkeley landlords for the fund.

 

“In essence telling the city what to do, because the city has not done that of their own accord,” Gulbransen said.

 

The city did not respond to a request for comment, but the Eviction Defense Center is listed as a supporter on the Yes on BB, No on CC East Bay Tenant Union PAC’s website.

 

Gulbransen also framed the measure as a way to protect small landlords, those who have one or two units that they rent out, from burdensome regulation. She highlighted a component that would restrict the Berkeley Rent Board’s ability to intervene on a tenant association’s behalf when they have a dispute with their landlord.

 

“We don’t think that the Rent Board should be involved or have any authority in that regard,” she said.

 

“The more compliance heavy and the more legislation there is, especially for a small owner who is not running a rental property as their primary business, they usually have some other regular full time job, if it becomes too complicated and too risky, which is really the primary issue here, they have not put forward their units,” she added.

 

Simon-Weisberg disagrees with that characterization.

 

“This has always been the game. Corporate landlords are the ones paying for it, but what they try to do is pretend, ‘it’s not the big corporate landlords, it’s the small ones,’” she said, pointing out that many owner-occupied small buildings, such as golden duplexes, will remain exempt from most rent control restrictions.

 

Simon-Weisberg went on to say that the passage of Measure CC would reduce protections for Berkeley tenants for the first time in 50 years.

 

On the other hand, Simon-Weisberg framed Measure BB as an opportunity to expand tenants’ rights. She noted that it would allow seniors at non-profit owned buildings like Harriet Tubman Terrace and Strawberry Creek Lodge to organize and escalate ongoing complaints to the Rent Board. In the past, seniors at these buildings have struggled to have complaints about property management addressed.

 

At the same time, Berkeley residents will be joining their fellow Californians in deciding whether to pass statewide Proposition 33, which would scrap the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995. Should it pass, long standing prohibitions on local rent control ordinances will be lifted, and places like Berkeley will be allowed to limit residential rental rates and increases. 

 

If that happens, the Berkeley City Council chambers will almost certainly be filled, yet again, with quarreling tenants and landlords.