If you are a Berkeley homeowner with questions about that backyard shed you rent to college kids, now is the time to legalize it without penalty fees. Beginning this year, and running through Dec. 31, 2028, the city of Berkeley has opened an amnesty program to improve housing safety.

Unpermitted accessory dwelling units, including converted garages or in-law units, can now go through a process to meet housing code with no penalty fees. The unit must be constructed or converted before Jan. 1, 2020.

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Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.