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Daily Planet Staff 

Progressives on the City Council point to the pending eviction of seniors Grace Christie and Jill Hutchby as a perfect example of why the city needs to pass new laws protecting tenants. 

At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Councilmembers Kriss Worthington, Dona Spring, Linda Maio and Margaret Breland will introduce a resolution to place a measure on the November ballot that will guard against the eviction of seniors, disabled and ill people. 

But Robert Cabrera, president of the Berkeley Property Owners Association, says new laws are not the way to protect tenants. 

“The idea is to increase the housing supply and preserve the existing stock,” Cabrera said. 

Before considering such a ballot measure, the city ought to look at the very population it hopes to protect – the elderly, ill and disabled. 

Such a law could make landlords more reticent to rent to people in these categories. 

“These are the hard questions that Berkeley does not want to face,” he said. 

Cabrera added that he understands the plight of elderly tenants firsthand. An aunt, who owned 30 percent of a building in which she lived, left the country to care for an ailing relative in Argentina. When she returned, the rent board would not allow her to reclaim her apartment since she did not own more than 50 percent of the building and did not have owner move-in privileges. 

“She was living on $750 per month,” he said. 

Cabrera accuses the city government of looking at only one side of the coin. 

Attached to the resolution on Tuesday’s agenda, are San Francisco’s Measure G, which was approved by voters in November, and an initiative being circulated by Berkeley’s Green Party. If the council approves the resolution, the City Attorney will work with rent board attorneys to write an ordinance. Then the council will approve a final draft in July. 

The ballot measure could include: 

• Requiring a property owner who moves into an apartment in a building he owns to live there for at least 36 months. 

• Requiring a landlord to offer a tenant being evicted the right to rent any other unit owned by the landlord that becomes vacant. 

• Prohibiting a property owner from moving into a unit where the tenant is 60 years old and has lived there 10 years, where the tenant is disabled and has lived there 10 years or where the tenant has a catastrophic illness and has lived there five years. 

• The specific unit occupied by the property owner, after an owner move-in eviction, would be the only unit which future landlords could occupy.