Measure X: Rent Ordinance Amendment Measure

Measure X — Rent Stabilization Ordinance Amendments: SUPPORT

Updates Berkeley’s rent control law with a combination of tenant protections and administrative changes. Measure X amends Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization and Eviction for Just Cause Ordinance in several ways. It would make most rent-control and registration exemptions unavailable when a unit was not exempt at the start of the current tenancy; require notice to preserve the exemption for certain owner-occupied duplexes; permit fee reductions or waivers for subsidized units owned or leased by qualifying nonprofits; change the annual registration deadline; cap any periodic rent increase at 10% even when a landlord has accumulated (“banked”) prior annual adjustments; and extend tenant-association rights to some smaller properties.

The strongest basis for support is LWVBAE’s Berkeley rent-control position. It says Berkeley’s program should regulate rent increases and protect tenants from unwarranted increases while providing landlords a fair return; protect against arbitrary, discriminatory, and retaliatory evictions while preserving eviction for just cause; maintain Berkeley’s socioeconomic diversity; maintain the quality and quantity of housing; and make the system clear, predictable, efficient and fair. Measure X is largely consistent with those goals: several provisions are administrative clarifications, the exemption rule improves predictability for existing tenants, and the 10% cap protects tenants against unusually large, accumulated increases without reducing the ordinary Annual General Adjustment formula itself.

There are also favorable precedents. In 2004 LWVBAE supported Berkeley Measure O, which established the current CPI-based rent-adjustment formula because the League believed it better balanced tenant and landlord interests while increasing predictability. Vote Yes on X!

Source (https://www.lwvbae.org/league-news/vote-with-the-league-nov-2024-2)