Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates recently released a list of thirteen recommendations to spur housing development to address Berkeley’s staggering affordable housing crisis. Some residents, however, see several components of mayor’s plan as an invitation for further displacement in Berkeley, where, according to a recent city staff report, the median rent jumped 12 percent in the last year alone.

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Bates’ recommendations, which will appear before the Berkeley City Council at their April 5 meeting, include proposals to increase the density bonus program’s income thresholds for multi-family housing, alter zoning and height limits for buildings, and increase the Affordable Housing Mitigation Fee from $28,000 to $34,000, but discount the fee for developers who pay early.

For Berkeley residents like Kate Harrison, a member of the Berkeley Progressive Alliance, the proposal has several flaws. Harrison said that the city’s own research shows that the current Affordable Housing Mitigation Fee — a charge on market-rate development projects that helps fund affordable housing in the city — could be raised higher than the mayor’s suggested amount, thereby generating more money for low-income housing. Though $34,000 was found in the study to be the amount that would still allow a for reasonable rate of return on new market-rate housing construction, meaning it would still attract developers, Bates is proposing to add an alternative option to keep the fee at $28,000 for those who pay early. Harrison said the plan gives an unnecessarily large financial benefit to developers and will cost the city precious affordable housing funds.

“The amount is wrong,” said Harrison, “the discount is way to big.”

But Bates’ says the financial feasibility portion for developers is important. “[$34,000] is a fairly big change. We have been at $28,00 and haven’t had too many takers,” Bates told the Express in an interview. “This also allows us to go to from 10 to 20 percent affordable units [in lieu of paying the fee], and [developers] will have to provide that housing or pay into the trust fund. We are trying to reach a balance by letting the developers make that decision.” 

“It may not be obvious to people,” Bates continued, “but by expanding the numbers from 10 to 20 percent, almost doubling what we have done on the commercial side, we will be incentivizing and getting more money in the housing trust fund to build affordable housing.”

In addition, Bates mentioned that the $28,000 discount fee may be raised, but that it will ultimately be up to the Council to decide.

Bates also said long zoning and permitting processes was another reason why he thinks the city would be better off if it can incentivize developers to pay immediately with the discount. “We thought we would be better off if we could use the money immediately,” he said.

Harrison also said that the city should be raising affordable housing development funds from other sources, but these sources aren’t even being considered. “For example, six of the council members are in favor of a landlord tax to reflect the fact that housing prices have gone up a heck of a lot,” said Harrison. “We see a $69 million increase in profit by landlords, a small amount of that should be taxed.”

For Harrison, another major issue with the mayor’s proposed funding source is that it relies on developers to generate revenue. “It is a good source of funding, but [it] only comes into play when you are building new things,” she said. “Use part of the [real estate] transfer tax for affordable housing, or add a tax on short term rentals like Airbnb and put it into the housing fund.”

Another member of the Berkeley Progressive Alliance, Rob Wrenn, also cited issues with the proposal. Wrenn said that the city’ density bonus program, an addition to the state density bonus program, a mechanism that allows developers to build more units above what exiting zoning rules allow in exchange for affordable housing on site, still wasn’t targeting low-income families.

Bates’ suggestion calls for a density bonus that will rise 15 percent above the existing 35 percent maximum density bonus currently allowed by the state. However, the additional units will only be granted to developers who add units affordable to households earning up to 120 percent of the area median income (AMI), or those who pay a fee for moderate-income housing.

Through the higher AMI target, Bates’ recommendation states that the City will be aiming to address the needs of moderate workforce households, which range from 80-120 percent AMI. “There is no sign of rent increases slowing and the 2015 nexus study demonstrated that 2014 households at 100 percent AMI need rental assistance,” the proposal reads.

“When developers come in they normally pay the State Density Bonus, so they provide for the 10 percent and 50 percent AMI and they get a 35 percent increase in the building,” Bates said. “But the market is so high that it really forces out all working class housing. The teachers, firefights, waiters and waitress can’t do it because rental prices are too high. But they don’t qualify for the low end and they can’t afford the high. The idea with City Density Bonus was to give an additional bonus if they provide housing for the working families.” 

Wrenn thinks the 120 percent AMI limit is too high and that it will divert affordable housing funds away from the majority of the region’s renters who make far less money.

“For a family of four, 120 percent of median income in Alameda County is $112,200. In Berkeley, renter households have a median income of only $38,539 and 82 percent of renter households have incomes below $100,000,” Wrenn wrote on the Berkeley Daily Planet. “Giving a bonus that benefits people at 120 percent of median income is questionable. The City’s Affordable Housing Nexus Study concluded that ‘households earning 100 percent of AMI or less are typically unable to afford the average market rate unit in Berkeley.’”

“There are no community benefits attached to these changes,” Harrison added. “If changes are to be made, the community deserves balanced development.”

Harrison, Wrenn and several other residents I spoke with also said that the mayor’s original suggestion to pass by-right approval for certain housing developments will undercut the City’s planning code.

“Right now, if you want to build something within the planning code, it doesn’t need a public hearing. But if I want to do anything outside of [the planning code], then it does,” Harrison said. “What this would say is that developers have the right to develop in certain corridors without that process. The attempt is to change the zoning in big swaths to allow taller buildings, and I’m not sure this can be done legally without changing the general plan.”

Robert Lauriston, a neighborhood activist in Berkeley, expressed similar worries. “Bates wants to eliminate community oversight over what gets built and make deals privately at city hall. In some cases neighbors won’t find out about what’s going on not until demolition starts.”

However, it seems Bates has already taken these grievances into consideration. 

“I am withdrawing the by-right approval proposal,” Bates said. “If it were to proceed, certain designated areas wouldn’t have to go through a long process if they met certain conditions like emergency efficiency and car parking. It wouldn’t be like they just suddenly open up the flood gates, but I’m not going forward with it.”

For Lauriston, a crucial element that still isn’t being addressed in the mayor’s housing emergency plan are its underlying causes, like rising home prices caused by the tech industry. “[The tech boom] brought high paying jobs to San Francisco and the Silicon Valley, and now those people are moving to Berkeley,” Lauriston continued. “Home prices in my neighborhood have doubled. I moved here twenty years ago, but I could not afford to more here today. The mayor isn’t doing anything to address that but build more market-rate housing so those people can move here.”

While opponents say there are positive elements to the mayor’s suggested plan — such as a request that the Rent Stabilization Board waive registration fees in order to incentivize landlords to rent to Section 8 tenants — many have said the suggestions are helping developers more than residents in need of housing.

“Bates proposal is a blueprint for the gentrification of Berkeley,” Wrenn said in an email. “It promotes massive development of for-profit market rate housing, while doing next to nothing to help non-profit developers and land trusts to build housing that people can actually afford.”

In response to the criticism, Bates said, “this is a package of ideas, all of which will go to the council, the planning commission, and our housing and community development [department], so none will be passed immediately. It will have tons of public scrutiny, people will have time to discuss these issues.” 

In response to rapidly rising rents and roughly 1,000 eviction notices each month, the Oakland City Council will vote this week on an emergency ordinance that would impose a moratorium on certain types of rent increases and no-fault evictions. The council is also expected to approve demolition of the old Biff’s Coffee Shop building to make way for 255 apartments and retail shops. Finally, City Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney wants Oakland’s official city motto to be “Love Life.”

[jump] Housing emergency: On Tuesday night the Oakland City Council is expected to declare a housing emergency, and to enact a moratorium on rent increases and affirm the city’s ban on no-fault evictions for tens of thousands of apartments that are protected by the existing Rent Adjustment Ordinance and the Just Cause for Eviction Ordinance.

There will be two versions of the housing emergency ordinance before the council. One was drafted by a coalition of organizations that brought the idea of an emergency housing ordinance to the city council’s rules committee back on March 10, and succeeded in getting the item scheduled for a vote. The groups behind that effort included the John George Democratic Club, Post Salon, Oakland Alliance, Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, and Block By Block Organizing Network. The other version of the ordinance was drafted by City Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney in response to pressure from these groups.

The version of the ordinance drafted by the community groups states simply that there would be “a 90-day moratorium on no-cause evictions and on rent increases not authorized by existing rent control provisions, so that the City can develop and implement strategies that protect and expand access for Oakland renters to housing which they can afford with their existing incomes.”

McElhaney’s version of the ordinance goes into a little more detail. Her ordinance would impose a 90-day moratorium on rent increases that are in excess of the annual inflation-adjusted amount currently authorized by Oakland’s Rent Adjustment Ordinance. But McElhaney’s ordinance would still allow landlords to petition the rent board to increase rents higher than the CPI-linked amount in order to obtain a “fair rate of return.”

McElhaney’s moratorium would cover units that are currently subject to Oakland’s Rent Adjustment Ordinance, but it would also end exemption for 2–3 unit, owner-occupied buildings. About 56 percent of Oakland’s rental housing stock is already covered by the Rent Adjustment Ordinance, and adding 2–3 unit, owner-occupied buildings would mean that a firm majority of rental housing stock would be covered under the moratorium.

McElhaney’s ordinance would also discontinue the exemption for buildings that are “substantially rehabilitated.” Under the current rules, landlords who expend 50 percent or more of the cost of constructing a new building in order to rehabilitate an existing apartment building can gain exemption from Oakland’s rent adjustment rules. McElhaney’s emergency ordinance would end this exemption for 90 days.

Finally, McElhaney’s version calls for administrative citations and even civil penalties for landlords who violate the 90-day moratorium. Both versions of the ordinance could be renewed beyond 90 days.

Neither version of the emergency ordinance would prevent landlords who own buildings constructed after 1983 from raising rents as much as they want, due to Costa Hawkins, a state law that bans rent control on apartments built after that date. Costa Hawkins also prevents the council from protecting tenants in single family homes and condos from big rent increases and no-fault evictions. The city’s existing just cause ordinance also exempts post-1983 units also from eviction protections, meaning that the 90-day moratorium on evictions would not apply to these rental units.

Biff’s Demolition: The city council is expected to green light the demolition of Biff’s Coffee Shop, the circular, Jetson-esque building on 27th Street just off Broadway in Oakland’s Broadway-Valdez neighborhood. The Hanover Company, a Texas-based developer, is proposing to tear Biff’s down in order to build a six-story, 255-unit apartment building atop ground floor retail space that will front Broadway.

Opponents believe that tearing down Biff’s would deprive Oakland of a historic resource, and they want to see the restaurant re-opened. Biff’s Coffee Shop was built in the early 1960s and was incredibly popular in its time. It was one of Northern California’s few examples of “Googie” architecture, a modernist style that included circular shapes, gravity-defying appearances, and an orientation befitting automobile lifestyles.
The Hanover proposal, which already gained approval from the planning commission, is to fill the block with dense housing and retail, and to de-emphasize parking and automobiles, instead catering to the lifestyles of high-income urban workers.

“Love Life”: LoEshe Adanma Lacy was shot and killed in 1997 near McClymond’s high school. She was only 16, and struck by a bullet intended for someone else. After her death, Lacy’s family set up the Love Life Foundation — one of many groups in Oakland created after the tragic death of a young person that seeks to reduce street violence. The foundation was named after Lacy, whose first name, LoEshe, means “love life” in the Ibo language. Ibo is an indigenous Nigerian language.

If the council adopts “Love Life” as Oakland’s motto, they will likely also install the words on signs at entrances to Oakland. Doing so would cost between $4,670 and $21,084. Other options include dedicating one of Oakland’s parks as “Love Life Park,” naming a street “Love Life Avenue,” or naming a city fund that provides violence reduction resources the “Love Life Fund.”

Pop tax: It increasingly looks like there will be a sugar-sweetened beverage tax on Oakland’s November ballot. According to numerous medical studies, sweetened drinks are a leading source of diabetes and tooth decay, and taxing sugary drinks has been proven to reduce consumption and raise revenue that can be used for nutritional education programs.

Councilmembers Annie Campbell Washington, Desley Brooks, and Rebecca Kaplan are proposing a tax of one cent per fluid ounce upon the initial distribution of sugary drinks in the city. According to a letter written by the councilmembers, the tax could raise $10 to $12 million a year for Oakland.

In 2014 Berkeley became the first US city to pass a soda tax, but not without resistance. The American Beverage Association, an industry group representing companies like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, spent $2.4 million in an effort to defeat the measure. The Oakland sugary drink tax will likely draw even more fire from the soda pop industry.

Correction: the original version of this article stated that there are over 1,000 evictions each month in Oakland. The City of Oakland does not track evictions and does not know how many evictions there are. But according to the Oakland Community Development Department, there were 11,050 eviction notices filed by landlords with the city from January 1, 2015 to February 29, 2016.

Today, the Express announced that Nick Miller will be joining the publication as Editor.

Miller hails from Sacramento, where he has served as the co-editor of the Sacramento News & Review (NewsReview.com) since 2012. Overall, Miller has worked at SN&R for twelve years, serving stints as arts editor, news editor, and managing editor.

[jump] Miller’s recent work as an editor and writer has focused on Sacramento city hall and the mayor’s office, economic inequality, social movements such as Occupy and Black Lives Matter, and homelessness. He has received over one dozen California Newspaper Publisher Association awards, including first-place for writing, investigative reporting, breaking-news coverage, and local-news reporting.

In addition, Sarah Burke, who formerly served as the Express’ Arts & Culture Editor, was recently appointed to the position of Managing Editor. 

Miller will start at the Express on April 25. In the interim, Burke is serving as editor alongside staff reporter Darwin BondGraham.

For more information, please view the official press release here.