here are present hunt here shelton so to present tell me your webster stevens here we have a quorum so at this time the board will convene in closed session pursuant to california government codify four ninety five four b and this is an update on labor negotiations and for everybody waiting for us in the audience i think this will be fairly quick so we'll be right back in a few minutes i'll report out from the close session that we did take action in improving the contract with s e r u local ten twenty one community services and part time recreation leaders association the motion was made by by harun the vote was eight zero zero one ok approval of the agenda are there any changes or additions to the agenda of jesse can i ask that we take up item six a seven as an action discussion item next meeting it's a good report from second and you have three minutes thank you very much i want to say that i was born in berkeley as a free person and it is my desire to again move back to the status of a free person but i really do feel like i've been indentured servitude to the landlords i'm here to advocate for low income housing and habitability i'm a section eight tenant i didn't start out that way i started out i've been through two owner move victims and i'm facing a third one i've had a horrendous year where i've been exposed to raw sewage they didn't fix a sewage pipe for six months so there was a cesspool under the house which caused an incredible rat outbreak there's been rats because they haven't fixed the structure in the back which i paid last week twelve hundred dollars after i can't stand what's been going on there and i'm taking care of a husband who is a seriously ill has been in the mergence he room over four times in the last two months that i'm keeping him alive and i have my own disability so i think i'm very proud to live in berkeley and as i'm sitting here and you know it's like wow here's a people and i get to look at you and i voted for you and you're here and it's you know i feel a sense of democracy i also want to say i'm on the public policy and education committee for alameda county behavioral health care pool of consumer champions i'm an advocate for health care for myself i'm a disabled school teacher that was disabled out of berkeley unified school district with my first landlord move any victualling and that was after i had no running water for five days i can't i'm here to advocate for state housing for stability i think that's the intent of the law but i think there's big gaps and i think what's happening now is that landlords are  led to use your status in section eight as a run around the law so i was threatening with losing my voucher because i was asking the sewage be fixed that the mold be fixed that the roof be fixed that the rats be fixed and this is been going on for seven years i got a notice on my door now that it's been a month since morocco it passed but as soon as they left the rat thing i noticed big holes i had a new worker they said they're going to come back in three days and i called again in a month i got a notice in the door yesterday that says that there i need to open the house and they're going to sell it to somebody and i'm in agreement with these people they said they'd pay me twenty dollars an hour because they're hiring people that seventy and nobody wanted to do the trenching that would be quire the french drain so i did all that work under the and then they said well we're having a cash flow problem because they have no numerous properties so now it looks like they might make hundreds of thousand dollars off of my misery i've talked to numerous times because i've kept councilman chris worthington in the loop i've talked to lee talked about trying to go with housing i've got numerous papers on file with the rent board and i'm asking for help because really i don't know what to do i've contacted berkeley public health and i'm running out of time and i'm asking for any help and consideration the other thing you had to be employed for two years so i made my two years i was a teacher i went and got you know i when i moved back here i've taught a college i have a master's degree you know but i was on welfare for a while because i had young kids and i believe that mothers should be with their kids i spent two years teaching at richmond high and i spent a year here and i'm disabled out here and it's not your purview to hear what's happening there but it is your purview to hear that in twelve years i have stable housing that i can free myself up to go back into work i've been working with the state department of rehabilitation i believe in recovery i don't really believe in you know i've been working very hard and i don't think that i should be punished for the kind of traumas that i've been going through and i think that the city should be fining people if you say you're going to find people for rats and you have the ability to find ten thousand dollars a day do it because you put me out there trying to uphold the law all myself by self and i'm swinging in the wind and then the next rat inspector comes out and says oh no you don't deserve any health and safety they can come in and they can do whatever they want they can blow rat shit around they can you know any kind of health and safety things that you want to protect your health you have no way to in to ask for that that's outrageous i don't know if i need to say any more except for that i am very confused i want to recover i want to stay in the house i'm in i've established an organic garden there i've dug up shrapnel i think i deserve to be compensated for the work and i don't think i deserve to be relocated due to their wanton depravity i'm sure there were other clear things that i could have said but i'm sure you've heard enough and i really thank you what's your street address if you're going i'm at nine one seven channing way i had the city manager's office there march first i was told that i wouldn't be threatened with a vision the housing authority and you can look i was threatened with eviction up to august thirtieth and then thirty days later now i'm going to be that was constructive  because they knew what they were doing and they told me if i didn't like it i would have to leave i said it's not my responsibility i shouldn't have to live in these kind of conditions and the health of my family has been severely affected  an end run around the law and now it looks like they're going to come another way which is they're going to sell it to somebody and then i'm going to get evicted after i've paid and all this work and i've done nothing but work on this property for seven years because it was in such want disrepair and i've had to live with things the only reason that i finally had the city come out inspectors they had wrought sewage and rats in my bed i woke up with rats in my bed my cat died killing over thirty rats i don't have a cat anymore to kill the rats thanks for coming to us i don't have any other cards for a public forum is there are there any changes or additions to the august twenty sixth regular meeting minutes and will go on to recommendations concerning the proposed phase two of the substory ordinance and this was actually included in your agenda packet so there are no additional changes it says to be delivered on the agenda that was actually  this report responds to the extensive and i might say quite a discussion i watched part of a meeting and read the whole transcript of it the report looks like it covers the report looks like the report looks like it covers it quite well all of the issues that were brought up and and even handle some of the controversies that were brought up at the board the safe and stable housing committee met twice since that meeting and i'm hoping that if everybody had a chance to read this that the changes if there are that there will be minimal changes to it and if there's something obviously missing we should bring it up now we don't have to wordsmith it necessarily i can i can probably do that if i get the sense of what people want to do i had i had two that i wanted to make one was two two a which is on the second page and it's just changing the way the the recommendation sentence read and instead of what it says here it would say consider the need to allow the pass through of a portion of the cost of the retrofit as a rent increase to tenants for an owner that does not otherwise qualify under the current regulations it says exactly the same thing it just reorders the sentence so sure consider the need to allow the pass through of a portion of the cost of the retrofit as a rent increase to tenants for owner that does not otherwise qualify under the current regulation it might not be needed at all so we're going to we're not even look whether we're going to loud or not but whether it's even necessary and this is after we examine you know once we find out how many hardship cases there are there might not even be any ok so it's just to look at whether so what you said to judy was misleading because it's not it's not a question of whether we're going to examine the hardship of others no i didn't do it when he was in the employ is what you said now the implication of the paragraph is that we're going to consider the possibility the well i don't know whether what that sentence is doing in there because the first sentence says allow an owner that does not qualify now well ok for the news to be made clear that this is only about hardship and one that i guess is my complaint because hardship is mentioned but not in a way that that functions with the rest of the i will do it is only about hard to yes because at this point it was my sense from the last discussion at the board that that because of the vacancy decontrol that in most cases this wasn't even going to be an issue but there might be a small number of properties that have changed hands where even with vacancies decontrol there might be an issue and what we're asking is what we will look at that but we'll do it in the context of everything else that the city is willing to do which is later on talking about that so i guess one of the things i'd like to see online is that argument and this motion that's being proposed allows you to make changes later as you as you get more information so you're free to do that at a later date is to say somewhere i heard should say on a case by case basis should it not with saying that my understanding of what would be doing is that once data starts coming in again someone might not qualify might or might not qualify as a hardship under under the city's rules because it'll be probably several years before they come up with that but once data starts coming in what we could do is work with city staff look to see whether there are situations where it is merited to pass along additional additional increases or increases in addition to what our current regulations allow someone under the current regs might an owner might not qualify but there might be a situation where they have a significant number of and can i ask if one of those situations is the one that she suggests where someone has bought at a high point in the market and now has no equity in it and no source situations where they're impediments and then the board would decide what is merited and what isn't so though it's certainly part of the analysis my guess is a situation like that there probably wouldn't be a pass through but  again once we have a better understanding of of what the real dollars and cents are that maybe allow or prevent somebody from being able to either get the financing or move forward with with the work then you can make informed decisions that's really what we're saying is we're number one says that at a minimum you know our existing regs cover you know we're guarantee appropriateness is in question there so that's also something has to be worked out ok that will be determined by the board when you have the information so well i don't know what those words mean in this particular sentence that's my problem the need of the need in citywide the need of each individual i mean what who is needed we talk about everybody's need and it's just a vague sentence read a little bit better i wasn't actually trying to change the whole since i want your but that's ok when as i know i debated whether i should even bring it up and just change it later now you regret anything i do absolutely in any case the other minor things i'm not going to bring up a pretty thorough document jane the report staff worked very hard on this and then our committee worked hard on it and then jay and i sat down and did more so and then she's going to take it from there so i think any comments you guys have for tara stevens should take into full account i just want to say really quickly two things one i want to highlight first of all this is divided into two three three parts of the first part is the first couple of paragraphs the second part is what the report commits to do to to to to doing and so that's the first three numbers including the one we were just talking about and then on the third page you see the recommendations from the rent to the swap ordinance process but we would like to see changed or amended or replaced in the final ordinance as it gets to the city council forward will include when we provide a staff report to city council all of your comments and actually the bulk of your comments relate to implementation of the ordinance and not the language of the ordinance itself but where they do relate for example with the hardship exemption limiting the hardship exemption which were were interested in going ahead an input and making that change will reflect the changes made and what the comment was in the changes made there may be some other things in here that stuff may determine not to change and then will reflect the comment was made and what the decision was in the staff report thank you ok so just everybody's clear that only thing i wanted to highlight was that number one on the first page the that the board is assigning is going to assign a dedicated staff person interview proposed to work for property owners who are undertaking face to the ordinance point to page one two three bullet point section three on the bottom swath ordinance recommendations by the rent stabilization board the last sentence of three staff should be authorized to prove no more than two in your hardship extensions additional extensions approved by counsel can we get a bold it sure as my only request otherwise the six fantastic thank you  page two again this same paragraph consider the need to allow that those are those are changes that we are willing to make in the other ones are things we're asking the city to do so there's two kinds of suggest ok i'm sorry ok so not just all right thank you yes so the first part is internal changes i do you ok when you say commitment i just you know ready yet dave and kathy for things on page three recommendations by the board number one the first sentence removed parking an impediment to safety can't mean that parking can never be itself an impediment to safety certainly you mean something like a just parking requirements when they function as an impediment to safety isn't that what you  delay when they couldn't pay but i pointed out the people who couldn't pay were weren't worth giving an exemption to if they if there was no reason to believe that they wouldn't be able to pay a year we should just get moving on whatever enforcement we need or whatever other might mean something so that's why this financial plan came and i want to make sure that's spelled out carefully so at the end second the last line of number three words says financial plan is based upon financial need you know it must include a credible financial plan i want that to read or something like it must include a credible plan to fully finance the seismic approve minutes during their hardship period the delay period has to include a credible plan to fully finance the seismic improvements and lastly on page five i think it is number five improve the warning sign requirements yeah ok you guys are going to hate me for this but i'm going to do it jay and i've gone back and forth i wouldn't object if it was just doing what any objections to the other ones let's find out if you hear this i don't hear any ok the the word retro fitted structurally is identical to the word benefit which if you look up in any dictionary you'll find is now preferred to the stove with one t i wouldn't mind if it was just a document but we're actually making a damn sign it might be up for years this is the story i'll be very brief when it when a word like has a word in it like benefiting it's good and fitting but after a while the fitting disappears into the word benefit you don't see it anymore the question is when is that going to happen to retrofit when will readers just see that word and i think retro and the when that happens you'll spell it with one t and that's because the last syllable and  continue i on the other hand was really impressed that this document was it was very well written and you know i don't mean to say anything bad about the rest of the stuff that we write but this is better than most of what we see the writing in this was really awesome and obviously so much work has gone into this and it had you know every idea i've ever heard passed around you know the stuff that i heard at the hearings from the landlords and the tenants i mean this is very very comprehensive the fact that the rent board is going to have one staff person for people to deal with and things are going to be expedited that addresses a lot of red tape issues that i'm always hearing about from many departments and i like ours to be the best department with the least red tape obviously the whole parking thing you know it's not as important as safety i'm really glad that it was covered i was also really happy to see that we're going to look at all assets that an owner has you know they were going to ask the city to look at all assets and not building by building you can overpay for one building and still afford to retrofit it because you own four more whether they're here or there somewhere else so that's a great equally exciting to me was the idea that we could continue the transfer tax rebate i think that's really cool i wish that i had my house is bolted to the foundation but it's not bolted modernly and i didn't have time in my first year as an owner to get it updated and i wish i had because i'm going to be doing it now because i spent so much time thinking about this stuff obviously number seven on our recommendations the city about clearly spelled enforcement mechanisms is really near and dear to my heart and that's why i always think that it's a little bit frustrating you know which end just said about you know the ordinance isn't going to deal with the implementation because a lot of the time in berkeley we hear a lot of stuff about what the law is going to mean and then it's not spelled out in the law and that's not the way it happens i mean even with a substory phase one there are penalties and no one's ever been charged penalties for eight years of noncompliance so hopefully and mechanisms will be spelled out in the law that would be really neat we're not always going to have the same leaders we're not always going to have the same stuff we're not always going to have the same city council they're going to go back and they can say well what did they mean and they're not going to know because it's not spelled out in the law  and number number six on my list is number nine on this list that if somebody knows that their property is going to fall down during an earthquake and they don't retrofit it then they're not exempt from the relocation ordinance when it falls down because they knew it was going to fall down and they refused to retrofit it seems like a really great thing to me because it least the tenants don't totally lose if they could have a place to live when their building falls down so i really like that idea that being said i'm going to bring you the only thing that i don't like which i think is the one thing that the board really needs to consider i love the idea of a city loan program and i really like where the housing advisory commission went the other night when they were discussing the seismic which is that they were they were talking about at their next meeting they're going to actually make a recommendation but they were talking about urging the city to start developing this program somewhat concurrent with s story phase two i mean it doesn't have to go into the law it's true that we need data about who can't afford to retrofit before we can figure out how to best address the issue but i would really like to see raising rents on tenants be the absolute last resort and i would really like to see the city move ahead with their loan program before we move ahead with our rent raising program and we all have to consider here is the board as you know are we comfortable enough with this language here that says that when we have the data we will make the decision you know because part of me just want to say no i don't think the tenant should ever have to pay for safety safe housing is a human right and tenet should never have to pay more money just because they're building is going to stand up for one more minute during an earthquake but at the same time the most important thing to me is that we actually move this program forward and i you know there was a lady at the hack the other day who really put a human face to me on the non compliant landlords she clearly wants to retrofit she clearly is the hardship she doesn't have the money and she said she didn't want to raise the rent on our tenants and she spoke in favor of a city loan program and you know so i just wanted to say if we could consider tying some of our language about pastors being a last resort because i would like to see the city explored loan option first before we you know explore the the pastor option but i see how we can't refuse to explore the past through option because i'd still rather explore passthrough option the not have these buildings retrofit i don't think any there's any objection to that as well as encouraging as part of that that the develop the loan program take forever to do and the problem is if you don't at least threaten to do it forgive me for this analogy for people dated but it's a little bit like saying you're bomb syria if they don't get rid of their chemical weapons we need to have a hammer in place and that city actually said that that was one of the things they were seriously considering was making it a part of the process that someone who's totally noncompliant eventually we will say to them we're just taking over we're doing it and afterwards if you want to pay us back for what we spent you can buy it back that's a normal abatement process which the city has used before very painful receivership i'm sorry to be right because a lien will not be exercised until the property is sold in the building cannot be improved for decades that's the problem with a sole a i'm a lean a receivership actually gets it done i mean its last resort is down there but i think without that hammer there will be people who will not comply and there is language about receivership in number seven  you i read i read number seven twice ok maybe i missed it i wrote down what you said just a second it's the other thing i wanted to mention is something i think a hundred i were discussing after the meeting when i said all this business of showing all your assets is fine but that only works with individuals or partnerships exam people who will structure their ownership as i say various other corporate forms can say this is my only asset no matter how rich they are so one of the things we were talking about was that  one of things we're talking about is suggesting that the city only make the hardship available to individuals in partnerships and i don't think i discuss a little bit and see what staff thinks hold it further since i was outside the context of the meeting what do you think that i mean it just a part art simpson and live that limited consideration for hardship to partnerships and individuals and individuals and not allowing l l seized people who really have to show you their assets well i think of it as whether flies legally yeah one possibility is you can listen when your communication to counsel is you can add an additional thing that for people who situations with genuine hardship of course the board would support that and express what the concern is and leave it to tick to counsel how to put all of them i would say i would say this language in there that treating an application for hardship equally if the if the applicant whole god everybody i'm trying to do two things at once i'm trying to try to phrase the whole idea in one phrase to the council as a recommendation to make sure here's what i'd like to do is i'd like to talk about the problem of elysees and how they how it's possible to have many of them and not technically be failing to show these things so that there would have to be greater scrutiny or that the council should understand that and figure out what they're going to do about and i'll be happy to talk to you guys to make sure i get the sense of it what you want in there and i did hear what was said at the hack and i think i know that a couple of the members on the housing advisory commission are also going that direction so anybody else on this before i go to the list on this jesse in theory i agree with this provision that makes sense to me however instead it sounds like is getting the sense and will get the sense from the two of you since he too damon alondra talked about it at length shook up the sense directly from you guys after the meeting but from what you described it sounds fine to me and many of these elysees are structure in a way to be a tax write off to lose money so it's not just going to be a problem will be the main issue if this is if there isn't a distinction made so i think this is a very real them are held within analyse and although the data is not good enough to share with council because it's only from the internet i will send you some stuff for example there is one owner that owns eleven different seas with eleven different soft story buildings yes i was going to also point out just in general even that so regardless of what happens at the city council with this portion research like pushing hard just mentioned is open to everybody and pushy to the press and i think that's actually a really strong tool for unfortunate is publicity thanks jenny and i've had a few comments and questions and wanted to say thank you both to jay staff and to the members of the committee for this great write up one of the questions i had about your suggestions is relating to the transfer tax rebate and i would love if you could add clarification in that item four c do you mean that this would be offered retroactively to people who have already retrofitted or is this meant only as an incentive where buildings have changed hands since two thousand and five so if you could just clarify in that point is it is it offered to everyone retroactively or an absent other comment if you want to respond to that now you can  at the height of the real estate boom and so they are maxed out thank you ok another another suggestion i would where you've titled the swofford announce recommendations i would suggest that you change that to swap ordinance and implementation recommendations to cover but your comments it's on page three months not numbered but it's at the end of two thirds of the way up page three and then going to item that i'll go through and look at make sure that's really what we meant because a couple of these things i think people wanted them to happen concurrent with or as a part of the ordinance although if you also want this ordinance to pass and go you know get quickly implemented and you will be delaying the the passage of the ordinance because some of these things are going to take some time so it's up to you in terms of you know where you see the priority and then i have a number five improve the warning sign requirements by requiring a sign or plaque to be posted after a building has been retrofitted i think it should be a requirement that the city provide a plaque to the owners this is a retrofitted building i think it should be optional and completely up to the owner if they would like to post that plaque or not at that point they will have met what we've asked of them and if they want to draw attention to it and be proud they can and if they'd rather not post it we required a lot of them so i don't think that should be forced upon them it should be a benefit but a really up to them  also like to share with you i had a chance to talk to eric anx dad today that the planning director and his comment on your your item relating to parking number one it's it is actually currently covered by the berkeley municipal code it's in section twenty three zero four zero seven five and it does say where parking cannot be retained that the elimination of parking places can be approved if parking in that parking spaces can be converted to compact spaces they can be relocated and that they can be removed if the traffic engineer determines that reducing the size or relocating parking space cannot be achieved so  it's all there but eric's eric's comment i thought it was quite interesting he said that what you might suggest is that the city council do a policy statement saying something to the effect of public safety takes precedence over parking and council encourages the traffic engineer to provide maximum flexibility to enable seismic retrofits so just read that again public safety takes precedence over parking council encourages the traffic engineer to provide maximum flexibility to enable seismic retrofits it's not an issue that it's not it's already there in the code it's really where the issue comes up is that you know where we can empower the traffic engineer to feel it's ok safety it's there what you've said a number one that's been done but if there was some sort of it on for this very purpose yeah yeah so it's and you can you can read it's if you want to look it up again  also just commented that for your second item about the creation of additional infill units that would have to be a referral from council to consider that and as well that there was another item  relocation ordinance i will this is your number nine i will share your comments with with folks in housing and ask them how they would like to respond to that because that's not within the purview of building and safety but i will pass those comments and have to have the relocation ordinance amended so that might also be something for council just to direct to have exactly exactly  sees which may structure their purchases as tax write offs intended to lose money thus any incentives provided for hardship cases should be crafted for individuals and partnership applicants except a friendly  know this is a recommendation when i counsel but i do want to say one thing while i'm on that ok it's your turn and then all i want to find out what you actually meant you know this is substory phase two and we got to continue this work after we recommend this is counselor saw story phase three which would include commercial buildings tails and any other structure may be financially feasible for unit substories and below four hundred and then maybe we'll have to do a loan program of let's get this one done and then we can i'm ready rock ok judy what were you actually asked i think in situations as our staff outline if they're already ordinances in place we need to respect the rules and not try to override them as she clearly outlined having to do with parking and others and public safety the statement that you read in the with regard to the  problems with within the department about what which one do you approve and you know you turn down the side retrofit because you get rid of a parking space that clearly already says that you don't have to do that and if we make try and push to say ok this this takes priority within our existing laws that's the way we want it it helps planning force be able to do the retrofit and have it because the thing about parking the reason this is even an issue is the were a lot of these buildings are on the south side just taking away any one parking spot people go nuts so yeah i mean there's a real reason why people don't want parking a race we were accepting that recommendation for america's correct so we want to say yes in these particular cases even where the traffic engineer would be fully within their purview of saying no no no you can't eliminate parking at all here that this is a safety issue and so it takes precedence so we can make that recommendation and on the other one with the relocation ordinance it's a separate pathway that if we would have to ask council to amend the relocation ordinance so it would be separate from what we're telling planning to do but i will clarify those things in the report so that it's clear that's where it will go what would need to happen to have that right  last page section ten create a clear process to allow berkeley residents to apply for a review of a building with five or more units they believe has a swath conditions that may be reviewed for  people who work next to a soft story are within a software building that are not berkeley residents and i think they should be allowed to start their process ok i accept that jesse would let me he would just say i built the last sentence states that the great ok will continue then the next item on the agenda is a change to the regulations i believe are we there yet we're going to recommend to amend regulation seven o two which is the payment of interest on security deposits due to the lack of published data by the federal reserve board and this will be the first reading of a regulation change this was we did go to the ira ga committee and we did approve the changes and committee when it was passed on unanimously by that committee to the board the organisers change in two thousand and four to track the federal reserve board rate teach one five rate that is  published by the federal reserve board every month unfortunately for the last three months we've had no rate published their explanation is they're not sufficient data to publish that rate so we have three vacant months prada resolution to you last board meeting which you all approved to continue the june average for which is the last rate that was published the june average for the next few months what we need however is a more durable solution given that we have at least three and perhaps for next month and next month we will also be publishing the yearly rate so what this proposal does is to give the board the authority to publish the twelve month average from the last rather let me just read you what it says because it's that what i change the  regulation at seven o two to read is now in the event the federal reserve board fails to publish the h point one five sits just as tickle release for a particular month the board still use the board's most recent publish twelve month average as the monthly rate for each month or no h point one five rate is published for the purpose of calculating the top month average now the last twelve month average was june of two thousand and thirteen and that was zero point three percent in other words three tenths of one percent so in the event the board accepts this proposal the monthly amount for the purposes of calculating the twelve month average is for july august and september the monthly amount would be point three percent and that would be calculated against the whole for the preceding eleven months each time it seems to us that this would be the the in the absence of any data the best solution rather than just carrying forward the last published month which is basically a snapshot if you can see on your chart on page three of the staff report while the numbers aren't significate and real dollar terms in percentage terms they're rather significant from what's happened from twelve months ago in july of two thousand and twelve to the most recently published  rate in june of two thousand and thirteen the rate went down in july in two thousand and twelve from point four six two point two six in two thousand and thirteen which is a day of seventy seven percent now in real dollar terms that's not much because we're talking about less than a half a percent however in times when there's a real change we think it would be fair to use the twelve month average of those rates rather than a snapshot when the rates of either come down or gone up significantly from the from the last published month i guess hopefully that's new not too confusing and i can take any questions go ahead so i mean this seems to be too obvious choices when you're faced with this to either just use the last month the data were available or you do what you're proposing with the committee as proposed which is to take a running average of so if if you're missing data for september you take from september through august of the previous year and see with that averages and claim that as a one month average  it's seems like a small amount now and i don't know why the fed is claiming that they have got enough data to work with it seems odd to me maybe as a function of the low interest rates that there just is that's that's what we've sort of hypothesize is that that the average that that's tallied for purposes of this rate is from from basically big money going in for you know six months or a year or whatever and i think a lot of that big money is being held on the sidelines because who wants to deposit a million dollars or you're getting a quarter percent interest it makes it i think what they're doing is they're they're either holding it on the sidelines or they're depositing in another more conservative investments that might have a higher you know less is causing a problem for us but it i don't quite see why you would prefer this way when the most recent information is likely that i mean it's much more likely that september will be like august than it's like the the average of the previous years so why go this way what do you why you think it's more fair or accurate that you just to avoid any and he spikes or i mean you could have a big jump in any in  any one month trends don't necessarily especially if it goes on for more than three months at the minimal impact if it's for three months but if it continues it generally will go up and down up and down so an average over twelve month period we pointed out you're talking probably at most a dollar or two regardless of which standard you but if we're talking the difference between seven percent and and three percent producing numbers we're just guessing i stories and if that's right i think you are waiting to find out who got appointed to that but you're spike theory aside i really think that the just use in the last month that is available is likely to be a true reflection of what's actually happening in the economy whether it's going up or down someone you're i think you're worried that people will complain i mean that's ridiculous that's just a spike blah blah blah but if you do it if you just said use the last month and didn't say didn't base it on any trends going on i'm so anyone could complain that it was skewed in one direction or the other it just might be unusual but likely to be more accurate i'm not i'm going to stick with this the committee talked about i know more than i do i'll let you know we can review it again later but i would like to say that it seems to me that just as in the last month that is available is likely to be much more accurate ok just a telling church after a very in concern is if this goes on for more than three months for say six months nine months a year you're talking about twelve months with data at this point point two six when in the right now the average is point three and so if we just continue that no matter where it goes over it yep it will be the same like if we feel what happened there you know w yeah i mean let me finish my so the idea is that point three is it's kind of like it kind of holds it where it's at and in this case and so it's and as soon as we get you know more rates then that will change and but it's just a matter of we don't know when we will get new rates so that's why we don't want to lock in the what do you guys think about the question of what happens if there's no data for twelve months well actually what that i can if we will continue to try and find out why they're not publishing the data that's the first thing we're going to do but ultimately if they just decide not to publish again we may have to go back to the it's in our our ordinance would stop people arguing about which one to use and clarify things and we figured of course the feds are going to publish a rate right so this would be the best one to use now i personally think this is a temporary thing i don't know what's an article as well related to this for those of you who don't know what's going on richmond is in serious situation with foreclosures and they are looking to use the vehicle of eminent domain to basically seize those mortgages for the public good and be in a position to negotiate lower payments and keep people in their homes that's a very simple way of putting it  they're working with an organ it where they're trying to work with an organization called mortgage resolution partners and i printed out just from the website of this fact sheet about why you could possibly do this you know most people think of eminent domain as a physical property that the government needs for a real purpose to serve the public interest like taking private land that somebody wants to sell for a public building like a post office or a park or other things at high speed rail high speed rail and yet these these things are clearly defined as this one is fits in this whole other category of public benefit i'm not really i just want to open it up for discussion and there's a couple of things here  richmond has had hotly debated this it's been really debated they had three hundred people show up at their meeting which doesn't happen very often it was a close vote deutsche bank and wells fargo took them to court on friday to try and stop them from even doing this to preempt them from even considering it and the banks lost now that doesn't mean that ultimately it will be legal but more that the courts will find that it's ok as it moves up but there's  is certainly an interesting tool in the public arsenal when you want to try and protect your community so there's two things that i would like i mean anybody can we can start discussing this now i would like to ask this to go to the eviction section eight for closure committee for further deeper discussion to two second to see what the staff would like to do and then also to find out possibly to recommend to our city council that we look at this is a mechanism here in our community this is without my part of the charge to the committee would be what kind of a problem do we have overall we know something's about for closure with multifamily buildings i honestly know just a very little bit about what's going on with other single family homes or for owner occupied buildings that are our multi so with that since jesse also jesse you can go first and then i'll make a list i dislike to say the committee would be thrilled to take that on powers authority to minister the program with richmond mortgage resolution resolution partners and other cities so that is one thing that i hope that we consider as a city because this is a groundbreaking important and useful program and one of the for me one of the indications that that is such a thing is the list of entities that are against it it's pretty impressive so it may be something it's very worthwhile for us especially berkeley to be a part of thank you a lodging in town oh i'm sorry dave sorry you know i'm trying here though i'm trying to i'm trying to leave but i just wanted to say a couple of informational things first of all i also support looking into this and i like sending it to the committee but i just want to say for your information that the court ruled against them is not quite fair to say the court found that it wasn't right that until now are not yet yeah until the council is really done something they don't have stayed haven't yet standing so basically she tabled it secondly the actual crucial last a vote was at the richmond council was backed out of by jim rogers a personal friend of mine and his reason was he wanted to be assured that the city of richmond would face no possible financial questions that's a killer of requests so i don't know what the hell is brawl the vote was forty three and i'm i remember his comment about zero percent chance the problem is that they need a super majority to proceed right and and his vote this is this court about they were actually worried that the courts would decide they're a single how a homeowner or tenant stability in communities is important and i think it's a lofty suggestion that we recommend and encourage the city council to join become a joint part of the joint power so power of powers authority and they of course will i'm sure have lots of questions to ask in terms of what is you know the risk and it's easier for us to sit here not be you know threatened by banks but i mean given the i think the community berkeley and even nationally is so much has been done for the banking industry to help them come out of back in two thousand and eight it's time for the little guy to get some help so i think this would be a very good move part of berkeley to join and support richmond in their efforts to fight like this for closures and help thank you a lodger for the second time partners present to us formally i think it's appropriate to have the richmond legal department provide any documentation to us that they are willing to give to us if it's not confidential information also i think it's important to have the banks present and give a get a clear picture from their point of view and i think in the discussion that we had about this today lisa we talked about looking at the foreclosure berkeley specifically single family homes and also multi unit and is there in fact a need for the city of berkeley to get involved with this trust me i would love to but i don't know if there's a need a home there are being sold astronomical compared to richmond and just to make a point on what's actually happening in richmond this is a tool to encourage the bank or the banks to lower the mortgage value of the home take public property from you know the the city would allow a corporation they would take the property from private people and give it to another private person i think this is totally justifiable constitutionally and there is one city that is willing to entertain this joint powers of authority at this point in its elmont there the city of elm with the who also did the so to feed with them in you i was actually just going to make a similar put into our hundreds and saying that the supreme court did rule that you could take people's homes and give it to a shopping mall developer under eminent domain because it was in the public good to create jobs and i also wan honor alluded to which is that which man is actually asking to buy these houses at their current value and because the banks will not sell them for that even though that's what they'll be selling them for after they foreclose on these poor people that is why they're going to take it by eminent domain it's not as crazy as it might sound on the surface and i think everyone here read your pocket but not everybody at home had access to this so i thought i w mention that that and that you know in many cities in richmond is included among them banks are also once they foreclose they're holding properties off the market and keeping them empty which is terrible for neighborhoods and for other mortgage holders as well if you don't see as much of that in berkeley but i know of a couple places in my neighborhood there are bank owned an empty and happen for quite some time although it looks like they're gearing up to sell it now not support something that support that is good for the community and they hold true to who they really are which is always supporting big business you're not wrong all right comments are there on the record as to what i think you have a pretty good idea i do and i enjoy using our tapes because i got to get a screen cap of that earlier remark and put it on someone's facebook page all right so it unless there's an eighty three twenty one eleven byron is holding it over yeah and something very funny about this document james shelton it is not ok to commissioner shelton housing executive director sir we have not seen a copy of the river vision city proposed ordinance i've been informed that it's scheduled to go to council on october  committee meeting to discuss this and america's request we postponed that meeting since that and many other items had not gone to all of the commissions for input so we may or may not have a four by four meeting in october i'll just say that the the demolition ordinance did go to the housing advisory committee last thursday no no no no and it will be going to the planning commission at some point in october we don't there's it's not a date set and the date to go back to council is not and i will let a one hundred talk about what the housing advisory committee did thank you very brief on housing advisory commission last thursday voted unanimously to support the june version with two small mints which i don't have in front of me but they're very minor and they don't drastically alter the june version so we're very very happy about that town hall this summer and their number one recommendation in the housing category is that the demolition ordinance allow for one for one replacement of any one controlled housing with permanently affordable housing so that's in  report that we're going to be getting to later anyone else jay did you want to say anything about that ok all right good number three is update on measure know about this report one thing is that there have been twelve evictions under measure why so far this year there have been less than ten each year since two thousand and nine so of course we have no way of knowing if this is a statistical anomaly but if it's not we would have eighteen this year which would be one hundred eighty percent of what we have had lately so they may be on the increase there was some discussion at at the eviction section eight for closure committee and i will be looking at this report a little more soon and one of the things that we were talking about was why that could be and one reason might be because so many properties are changing hands right now and so many new owners are buying properties that they want to move into as you'll see when we get to the article from the east bay rental housing association that i put in the packet fifty percent of people that are moving into berkeley in oakland right now are either coming from san francisco or out of town and so one could also infer that a lot of people from san francisco are buying in berkeley to own or occupy a duplex try plextor fourplex and that might be why they're on the increase and i think it's something that we want to monitor because to make these evictions unattractive and as we were talking about the relocation funds that are offered to tenants at the last ford meeting we also noticed that you know we give less money than any other rent controlled jurisdiction where the only one that has means testing for relocation money for tenants who are owner movement of pictet so that's something else the committee will be discussing soon the other important thing to notice about this report is if you take a look at the chart where the twenty one units from the last eighteen months there's a lot of details the chart that was cut off that everybody got a new copy of again the individual reasons are  interesting but the overall total is that of the twenty one nine of them the owners did not actually move in some of the notices rescinded so they didn't move in in the prescribe time limit under measure y and some seem like there was some funny business there for that seem to be actually bad situations so i would encourage everybody to take a closer look at the third one on the list eight hundred fifteen fairview  the current rent is at market even though regulation ten sixteen talks about any time that there's an owner move in eviction even if it's rescinded it's it's considered that the tenant probably moved out because of that is under review right now by the rent board you guys can read the descriptions for yourself sixteen fifteen harm in the twelfth one on the list is under substantial renovation but the owner did not move in during the first prime time limit and  fifteen twenty five tither the notice was rescinded but the old tenants are gone and this one doesn't say what the rent is set at so the committee will be looking at this report again in a little more detail the stuff it took up most of our meeting last time  and we're still not really done with it because we want to make sure that we're doing our charge under the ordinance in making sure that these elections are legitimate thank you anybody else want to comment on reports thank you yeah i'm glad i'm glad we're looking at this i was just i did adding up of the what i found interesting and i think i understand why is that for the first few years there were huge numbers of honor moving addictions and then it dropped down to basically nine or ten per year and i think that's in part because there is greater i mean greater incentive in that point to to do that also maybe just fewer measure why tenants to you and people are getting older so the  also very interested if we see an increase and i found the descriptions really interesting but i i would also ask the community really carefully look at there at the procedures we have now for contacting the unit con you know trying to keep track of the tenets of if there's some way we could be doing and this is without knowing exactly how we're doing it but to look at it see if we're being rigorous enough and you know this is without judgment i just i i just don't know so if you could look at that yeah and in our initial discussions i'm not sure if we are not because sometimes it's really easy to get attracted by some odd situation you know as not not see the the big picture so we're still working with staff to get a better impression of the big picture because i mean there have been several cases where we've even seen this where the owner fully intended to move in and then something happened and they couldn't and and then the tenant the old tenets could be found but they're still obligated to rent at the lower at the lower rent right ok anyone else all right we'll move on to the articles article in the rental housing magazine study volume climbing prices i love statistics in this article is full of exciting statistics here are the highlights for you two thousand eight hundred eighty units are either under construction or were built last year in these pay notice of defaults in alameda county are down sixty seven percent over a one year and the bank owned inventory is down forty percent compared to one year ago those are both from the first page on the second page in the column one it says a number of berkeley and oakland owners mentioned that nearly half of the tenants they are screening for apartments are either priced out of san francisco or relocating from an area out of state as i mentioned earlier this also shows that sale prices for two to four unit buildings are up twenty two percent from a year ago whereas interesting leigh sales prices whether you do average sale price or price per unit for five units or more are down i think part of this is because some some two to four units are aware distressed properties and we're seeing less foreclosures and less foreclosures sales and less short sales the prices are climbing back up also again if people are moving over from san francisco because they can't afford something and they're you know people who are going to owner occupier much more likely to buy a two to four unit building and so it relates to what we were just talking about and there are some other interesting statistics in this article and i found it to be really useful in fact that these pay rental housing association magazine in general is  article you know there's talk about a registration fee and in the past gave some an article about noncompliance in the early years with the registration fee so this is a recent article boston city council adopted an ordinance trying to after several extremely bad situations trying to improve fund inspectors to habitability the fees twenty five dollars and there's the article talked about massive resistance to the payment of the fee so they're not here because not thirty five years behind us i put that in there little bit for context a little history and then you know one of the things that we have discussed also was possible encouraging the city council to also require increased proactive inspections as opposed  action next time if anybody had any comments now that's also fine yeah i'd like to also say that the housing advisory commission has put this in our work plan to look at their r yes some of them you know i'll just say about it that their comments on on housing that people the people who came in for dissipated i found them to be sound and by extension i would assume that the comments on the other parts of our community are too and i found that to be appalling so you know on the health and other outcomes i just much of it is not within our purview but we can have have a full discussion that one thing that i would like to ask people to do and i'm not sure quite how to do this is one of their comments was to see if they could have more low income people on the report i don't personally want to know how much all of you make but i actually an average you will figure out a way to do that i won't know it either and you're perfectly welcome to opt out also but we could pass that information along to them so that they actually have some idea of who their representatives are income wise please look at these recommendations i'm going to be drafting several policy recommendations based on this on these priorities and other recommendations to the housing advisory commission and now as well as to the ram board so if you have ideas please term so don't expect all the recommendations no no just so that we have one thing to go forward that would be great can drink during the public comment we heard from a section eight tenet i've also been helping attend it with some issues  because of rats so i found that her comments about habitability and code enforcement were kind of interesting and resonated with some my experiences but in addition here it talks about the lack of assistance and support that residents receive from the berkeley housing authority and i know it's a little bit out of our provia and it kind of falls into the fiction section for closure committee and we have talked about this to some degree but after the board talks about it we might take some of that up at the committee level because of what we heard today was so moving ok great anything  else september eighth article the daily mail berkeley city council to reassess fordable housing field i don't think there's any what happened at the last thirty council meeting to the  happened on the sweep program which is solid waste energy efficiency program green your apartments there's a september tenth sept gate article by henry lee us a media professor dies in a berkeley fire high and i know with the demolition ordinance that's that's been an issue previously with condo conversions and other things and this is a perfect example of the type of people that work the individual the parish s that are that are extremely low income but overwhelmingly it's individuals like this that the ordinance that we're trying to continue with the protections of the ordinance that are without work control would be pushed out so that was part of what i when i put it in here the other was in case you wanted more information on the fire and we are working with the tenants have any more information so a little bit we've been in two or three tenants have come in how many units the total is seven units one with the understanding is one where the individual passed away one we believe was vacant at the time so there were five other units that were occupied we've been we try to track down to to the tenants have come in and through the tennessee came in were able to contact another and we're going to try finding the other two candidates basically just to make sure that the owner of the the the building so they're not exempt under the relocation ordinance the only only only under the relocation and the only individual that would be not subject is if it was caused by the by the tenant so i don't know if i haven't heard if they've determined but i think my understanding was at least initial reports was that the fire started in you know the individual passed away to any other questions i just think that we need to actually start addressing the issue of what happens to you know people the overall issue of relocation what happens if it fires and quakes and what not but it shouldn't be the blanket exemption that it is right now in many cases pickle but we'll take that up at a later time not tonight next  is the workshop that happened on september tenth owning real property in brooklyn that your house and credited a great job we had forty four owners property owners that attended the workshop and we got well attended i asked the staff i kept in a savage as for a copy of that review the only comment i do have however is i think with the workshops there should be ample time for more questions that owners have if it even if it means a follow up session where owners just have an opportunity to ask a lot of questions because we did have a number of questions for owners but for the sake of time the library was that we talked about that because in the past what when we start prior to six the library kicks us out at seven thirty so it's a pretty tight schedule when we started prior to six  we have a smaller attendance so we we moved it to six figuring more people would be able to attend but at the same time you're right it was rushed and one of the things that we were kicking around was maybe started allow people to get there either at five or five thirty when the first part we were asking were answering questions doing almost every time we have done this there's one or two people there's many questions of general applic ability but one or two of the questions that will go on for you know four five ten minutes really involves what should be a counseling session so if we can get those really really detailed kinds of questions and sometimes group those but i do think it would be helpful just to have another session so if you have a workshop on tuesday then a follow up on thursday or friday with that same group if possible because i noticed that there were a number of new property owners and then there were folks who had a lot of questions around owner move in so sometimes people learn from each other i agree that one needed a lot of i would say that but then there were a number of other people who could have benefited from hearing some of the discussion so i still think that it's fine to give a lot of information but there are people do need an opportunity to ask those questions ok just quickly another suggestion is maybe moving the venue that's what i was going to say at the senior centers stay open past that part of the outreach committee the the workshops what we've been hearing from the staffing is that the senior centers the attendance is not is the libraries tend to be the most popular terms  highest intends and so that's why they've been continuing to do those i mean it's not say we shouldn't happen at the other locations but this seems to be the place where people think the most one of the problems that we've had i'm sorry one of the problems we had when we had them at the long afterwards is it harder to have the greater quality control that you have in a counseling session as i understand one of the things that jake like you know that will do when he came on with the record is make sure we had clear notes in all counseling sessions so we could have player accountability as what was happening and what a perfect but then i thought it was excellent i was it was good to see the tendencies and people really interested and it's a lot of information to take in your it's a lot of information right next thing we have is the upcoming berkely rent board presents a tent right seminar on wednesday september eighteenth that will be at the rent board office from five fifteen to six fifteen so anyone who would like to come out there is this radio and television yes it's this wednesday from five fifteen to six fifteen at the rent board office and if you have questions please call nine eight one rent easy  last is our agreement or the resolution that we all we all you all passed last time i authorize in the executive director to enter into an exec and execute a five year lease extension with two thousand one center group for reports budget and personnel committee we did meet and the primary topic of discussion was the executive directors contract i'm hoping that we will have people to come back in october in close session and  the commission as a whole asked that we forward a couple requests in that regard one being that we develop a booklet too similar to  discuss a possible mailing to berkeley landlords and tenants about subject of carbon monoxide detectors and a requirement of those and so did those two i think it was at the july meeting meeting and because we didn't have quorum it didn't get captured in the minutes but it is going forward those requests and anybody else from the committee have anything else that you remember highlights you want to add i think jesse and hundreds attention to i don't seven on your two minutes commissioner jobsworth suggestion that we collect some data about demographics of renters in berkeley i think it's speaks to their project about the n that we have to clean up yes yes ok well then it's much too late to get into now i will leave it to our strong committee system that will all go get that when next time to i didn't even want to say eight for closure committee we as you know i think you know we work to measure wire report we have been looking at the protections another little reg one of those little technical legal red states clean up things that will be coming from us next month as well we need every month it's usually the first friday of the month but our next meeting will actually be the second multifamily buildings you are on the agenda ok that's great thank you i will ask you later about the family recycling it doesn't look the mexican war of independence today is the honoring day and second of all my u d c law professor william g mclean the third was class of eighty three u t c previously known as any other school of law he was law professor and his famous quote and i love it so much and i keep it with me all the time don't tell me what you think i don't care how you feel tell me what you know and in law that's very important so mclean your