Berkeley's Rent Stabilization Ordinance
A History of Rent Control and Rent Regulations in Berkeley
In 1978 the first rent regulations were ushered in by way of Measure I. It was passed to insure that owners shared with tenants the property tax savings they were receiving from the recent Prop 13 state tax law. Measure I required that owners roll back their rents to what they had been on June 6, 1978 which was supposed to be a reflection of the 80% of tax savings owners were going to get under Prop 13. When Measure I expired at the end of 1979, the Council enacted a temporary rent law that extended the provisions of Measure I for another 6 months. At that time, it limited the rent increase to be no more than 5% and an owner could not increase the rent just because their mortgage costs may have increased.
By June of 1980 a collection of Berkeley housing activists wrote and passed Berkeley Rent Stabilization Ordinance (Berkeley Municipal Code Chapter 13.76). It provided extensive rent and eviction controls and created "rent ceilings" which was the maximum amount of rent an owner could charge every year. But the only way it was passed was by exempting owner-occupied parcels of up to four units in total. But that wasn't good enough for the activists and by June of 1982, voters had passed an amendment to the ordinance which only allowed for certain owner-occupied two unit parcels to be exempt. This became known as the Golden Duplex law and remains in effect today.
Between 1980 and 1995 Berkeley had what is known as "strict rent control." This meant that all rents on all rental units in Berkeley were regulated by Berkeley's Rent Board. Each year, the Rent Board would calculate the allowable amount an owner could raise the rent on a sitting tenant, as well as controlling how much they could increase the rent once a tenant vacated the unit.
By the late 80s, Berkeley's rental housing owners were struggling to keep up on improvements of their properties since their profit was controlled by city government. Some people started calling Berkeley "a dump" because of all its blighted apartment buildings. In the early 90s, a group of small owners in Berkeley got together with other interested parties in the Bay Area and decided to take their issues to the state capitol. In Sacramento they worked with legislators Democratic Senator Jim Costa and Republican Assemblymember Phil Hawkins to limit the ability for local jurisdictions to restrict the rents on certain properties in California. This became known as the Costa-Hawkins Rental Act of 1996. It prohibited rent control on single-family homes, condos and townhomes, as well as on buildings built after 1995. The idea was that if rent control were placed on newly constructed, and heavily financed units, developers would not build in California. While Costa-Hawkins is still in place today, both legislators and citizens initiatives at the state ballot have tried to do away with it. IN 2018, the rental housing industry defeated Prop 10. In 2020 it defeated Prop 21. And now in 2024 it works to defeat Prop 33.
The Rent Stabilization Ordinance dictates the duties and powers of the nine-member elected Rent Board. They have the ability to administer any program which regulates rents and evictions in Berkeley. The rent board is elected every two years, with four year terms. A commissioner may serve up to two terms total (8 years max). The seats are At Large meaning all voters in Berkeley vote on all available seats in a ranked choice voting scenario. Currently, the Rent Board is comprised only of tenants, with no rental housing provider representation. The Rent Board itself serves both tenants and rental housing providers.
