Affordable Housing

By Eleanor E. Pepples

Housing in Berkeley should be both more affordable and more available.

Affordable housing is an issue that many of the voters in District 6 have raised. The housing element in the City's General Plan must promote the development, rehabilitation and maintenance of affordable housing in Berkeley. Yet, as we develop housing and other building projects, we must maintain the livable scale of our city as well as seek to protect open space whenever possible. The City must allocate funds towards building attractive, architecturally relevant affordable and low-income housing. Furthermore, the Section VIII housing that we have should be brought into compliance with federal regulations.

With respect to the crises in student housing for the University of California, we need a collective solution. Our City needs to work with developers and the University while listening to citizen concerns in order to come up with solutions that work for everyone. The University of California can afford to and will allocate funds to help address this issue: to increase housing units available to both students and faculty. However, any plans will require the City and the public's support. Eleanor sees this challenge not as a strictly UC issue, but as a community issue. District 6 needs a representative who will work effectively with all involved parties to resolve the affordable housing crisis.

POSITIONS ON BALLOT MEASURES: Eleanor Pepples supports all of the local ballot measures, except Measure Y which will likely reduce the number of available rental and housing units in Berkeley as landlords will likely choose not to rent to the groups the measure seeks to protect. I believe Measure Y will have the opposite effect of it's intent.

Eleanor Pepples is against measure Y. She believes that tenants should not be falsely evicted from any property and that it is valuable to adopt laws prohibiting sham evictions. Ballot Measure Y offers laudable restrictions in this respect, such as raising the occupancy period from 24 to 36 months, requiring landlords to offer other available vacant units, and requiring some compensation for evicted tenants. However, Measure Y is over-reaching and would disadvantage the very group it should be protecting: the ordinance would actually result in many landlords not renting to the elderly and disabled. The measure is so draconian it prohibits even good faith owner-occupancy evictions with respect to all tenants over 60 or those who qualify as disabled. It is excessive in prohibiting good faith owner-occupancy evictions of any five-year plus renter just because the landlord has interests in other rental properties. Also, the flat amount of re-location expenses offered to low-income residents ($4500) may be excessive in some circumstances, for example where there is a single tenant.

POSITIONS ON OTHER BERKELEY BALLOT MEASURES: Eleanor supports the disaster fire protection tax, the school tax, the library bond for renovation of branch libraries, the Gann limit over-rides for both the parks maintenance tax and the Library Relief Act, the business license tax, the tax to fund maintenance and installation of streetlights, and the ordinance increasing the rate of special tax to fund park maintenance, city trees and landscaping. She also supports the warm water pool bond as a means not only of offering the community a new pool at the Berkeley High School, but also as a way to enhance much needed public restrooms at the school.