The Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board hopes to amend the existing rent stabilization ordinance in November to enshrine rights to form tenant unions and once again attempt to eliminate a carve-out for golden duplexes.
The “Berkeley Tenant Protection and Right to Organize Act” will appear on November ballots if the Rent Board gathers enough signatures for the initiative.
Apartments qualify as golden duplexes if an owner occupied at least half the unit in December 1979, prior to the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Ordinance, with an adjoining unit for a tenant. When voters approved the ordinance in 1980, they decided these units would be exempt from rent regulation laws.
The rent board has unsuccessfully campaigned to remove this exemption in recent years. In 2022, the City Council also shot down an attempt to place accessory dwelling units under rent control.
This year’s ballot language proposal retains an exemption for ADUs, but strikes out an exemption for the golden duplexes.
The current rent board ordinance covers most rental units built before June 1980. Units built in Berkeley after 1980 do not have rent control protections due to the passage of the statewide Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act.
If the proposal makes it to the ballot and voters agree to it, golden duplexes would fall under “fully covered” protection, meaning they are rent-regulated and have just-cause protections.
The act also enshrines the right to form tenant associations, meaning tenants can demand that a landlord meet with their tenant union and negotiate over grievances. Tenants would have to present a petition signed by at least 50% plus one of the occupied units in a complex to gain these rights.
If the tenant union requests, landlords would have to attend at least one of their monthly meetings, and retaliation against tenants for organizing activity would be prohibited.
San Francisco became the first in the country to approve a similar tenant-right-to-organize law in 2022.
Correction: The ballot measure will go to voters if it gathers enough signatures, not with City Council approval.
