Public Comment

The National Association of Realtors Fund (NARF) has now spent $107,517.28 supporting four of the candidates running on the “Homeowners for Rent Board” slate in this year’s election. A couple of campaign mailers were paid for with some of these funds and more may be on the way. 

Another outside group, the Committee for Ethical Housing, has reported spending $28,779.85 supporting all five members of this slate. Major Funding for this oddly named committee comes from Highview Strategies in Sacramento. Berkeleyside reports that Russell Lowery, managing partner of High View Strategies, made the donations. Berkeleyside further reports that Lowery is executive director of the California Rental Housing Association. 

One of the “Case Studies” listed on High View Strategies Web site is a campaign to defeat a rent control initiative. They say they developed “a winning messaging strategy”. The messaging on the mailer this group sent out in Berkeley seems to consist of trying to associate this year’s landlord slate with affordable housing. They are called the “pro-affordability slate”. An effort is made to associate this slate with the words “affordable” and “sustainable”. Of course, if groups that don’t like rent control like the California Rental Housing Association had their way, rents would be even higher in Berkeley than they already are. 

Together these two outside groups have so far spent $136,297.13 to support this slate. This is a record amount of spending in a rent board election. By contrast the five members of the slate nominated by the 2020 Berkeley Tenants Convention have so far (as of Oct 22) collectively reported raising a bit less than $25,000. 

To provide a more accurate description, the NARF-backed slate should really be named the Homeowners and Rental Property Owners slate. All five live in the city’s more affluent single family home zoned neighborhoods in or near the Berkeley hills, four in District 6 and one in District 5. At least three own rental property. None of them are tenants and none live in majority tenant or mixed homeowner/tenant neighborhoods of Central, South or West Berkeley . 

African-Americans make up a significant part of Berkeley’s tenant population but they have no representation on this slate. If this slate sweeps the election, there will be no African American representation on the Rent Board. That would be a strange outcome in a city where Black Lives Matter signs are ubiquitous. 

A smattering of landlords have put up signs supporting the slate in front of their apartment buildings, often paired with signs opposing Proposition 21. Prop 21, supported by the California Democratic Party and tenant and progressive groups, would allow cities to establish rent control on apartments that are more than 15 years old. Where new rent control is implemented, landlords would be allowed to increase rents up to 15% during the first three years after a new renter moves in. 

In Berkeley, if Prop 21 passes, it would be possible to implement rent control on newer buildings built after 1980 that are at least 15 years old. Rents in buildings built between 1998 and 2005, when a substantial amount of new housing was added in Berkeley, have rents today that are much higher than when they first opened and tenants have no protection against large annual increases. Once under rent control, rents could only go up annually by the amount of the annual general adjustment which is based on a formula tied to increases in landlord costs. This creates a more stable situation for tenants. Rents could still be adjusted to market at vacancy under existing law.