BERKELEY, California - Berkeley is now the latest battleground in the fight over rent control in the Bay Area, with landlord and tenant groups working to bring competing measures before voters this November to either expand or roll back renter protections in the city.
Across the Bay Area, advocates on both sides of the contentious housing debate have started ballot-box campaigns in recent months, including a landlord-backed effort to repeal a newly approved rent control law in Concord. In Larkspur, in Marin County, a similar referendum on the March 5 ballot to overturn caps on rent hikes appears likely to fail by a narrow margin.
“The housing crisis is so bad that it’s touched everybody,” said Leah Simon-Weisberg, a tenant advocate, attorney and chair of the Berkeley Rent Board, which developed one of the two latest ballot measures. “We need all the tools in the toolbox to address the housing crisis.”