According to early results on Tuesday, Berkeley voters appear to have favored a proposition to amend the city’s rent stabilization policy.
Measure X, which was placed on the ballot after a City Council vote, seeks to amend the city’s Rent Stabilization and Eviction for Just Cause Ordinance to give tenants and tenant associations more agency, among other changes.
The measure requires a simple majority of votes to pass, and as of Tuesday night, 66.5% of the votes counted were in favor of the measure.
One of the changes laid out in the measure is capping rental increases at 10% in a one-year time period, the city attorney’s impartial analysis of Measure X said. This is in response to some landlords who “bank” rent increases and then impose a hefty increase in rent that tenants cannot adapt to.
The measure also proposes administrative changes to streamline bill payment and registration processes and gives the Rent Stabilization Board the authority to waive fees for nonprofit affordable housing providers.
The Berkeley Tenants Union, the Oakland-based nonprofit East Bay Housing Organizations, and Berkeley-based nonprofits Resources for Community Development, Satellite Affordable Housing Associates and the Bay Area Community Land Trust all endorsed Measure X.
But opponents believe that the measure imposes restrictive rules on small property owners, which could make renting a riskier proposition for them.
Jeffrey Neidleman, president of the Bridge Association of Realtors, and Krista Gulbransen, executive director of the Berkeley Property Owners Association, authored the argument against Measure X.