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Berkeley SafeRenting, a new web application launched Friday by CalSERVE Senator Klein Lieu, provides residents with a visual tool that can find Berkeley’s seismically unsound buildings, with easy access through both computers and phones.

The application, which will identify the buildings through the city’s Soft Story Program, will also help the program in its recent attempts to make residents and landlords more aware of the risks associated with structures that have weak first stories, known as soft-story buildings.

“It’s an app not just for Berkeley students but for all Berkeley residents,” Lieu said. “You get on, type your address and see if (your home) has been deemed a soft-story building.”

Lieu came up with the idea for the application after having difficulty understanding the PDF listing on the city website that indicated which city buildings were officially categorized as “soft story.”

“(The city listing) is just a huge table of five or six tables of addresses,” Lieu said. “It is not accessible in a very easy, quick way.”

According to Lieu, Berkeley SafeRenting will use colored markers featured on a Google map of Berkeley to show which buildings the city identifies as seismically unsound.

On the application, red markers are used as a warning color for buildings out of compliance, orange markers indicate buildings still in review, green markers indicate soft-story buildings that have been approved and blue markers indicate already retrofitted buildings.

Lieu said the application is part of his bigger objective to open up government data to better serve the city.

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board Commissioner Igor Tregub said the application worked well with the Berkeley Cribs website, a rating site launched by the ASUC, CALPIRG and ASUC Renter’s Legal Assistance last spring that allows students living in the residence halls, apartments and Berkeley Student Cooperative housing units to rate and review their living experience.

“Undergoing a modernization allows us to have more complete information (for tenants),” Tregub said. “Putting this information on this (application) is a wonderful opportunity for the collaborated effort.”

Leiu has also started working with Tregub to expand the application and open up more information to Berkeley tenants by mapping out crime-ridden areas, bus routes, areas without street lights and buildings in close proximity to the city’s police stations.

Incoming ASUC External Affairs Vice President Shahryar Abbasi also said he hoped the application could be incorporated into the Berkeley Cribs website as part of the ASUC’s larger goal to provide UC Berkeley students with a one-stop shop when searching for a place to live.

“We have big plans to provide various forms to disseminate information to students,” Abbasi said. “The goal is to have various outlets, social media platforms … so students know what their rights are.”

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In April, the council asked city staff to create a ballot measure that would amend the city’s redistricting charter, which could be renewed every 10 years. The measure, which the council will have to vote on to put on the November election ballot, is estimated to cost $26,000.

The proposed charter amendment would eliminate the 1986 boundary lines and use major traffic arteries and natural geography as boundaries, keep communities of interest that might include minority voters intact and not place two incumbents in the same district, according to the recommendation.

According to city spokesperson Mary Kay Clunies-Ross, the city’s districts are adjusted every 10 years depending on variations in census data, and the current charter requires equal representation of populations while still following the original 1986 boundary lines. However, if the council wants to change the charter, it would have to put a measure on the November ballot.

The council originally voted in January to defer the general redistricting decision until after the November election, but the proposed charter amendment to the redistricting process could eventually result in a student supermajority district.

“The ballot measure provides needed reform for the redistricting process,” said Councilmember Jesse Arreguin. “We are changing the rules permanently with the charter amendment, so it provides a guarantee that students will be considered as community of interest going forward.”

Currently, city voters are divided into eight council districts that comply with the 1986 district lines, which could prevent the possibility of a student supermajority district.

If the council does not take the city’s minority voters, including students, into account, the city charter may be in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 — which provides protection for voters who require assistance in voting due to race, color or membership in a language minority group.

“There is a lack of effective representation and the root of the cause is the 1986 charter that gerrymanders students out of districts,” said incoming ASUC External Affairs Vice President Shahyar Abassi in an email. “Students are a vital part of the city. For too long has the city ignored us. We want students to finally have a voice in city politics.”

According to Councilmember Kriss Worthington, the redistricting process will likely begin after the November election based on what voters decide, and he said the process could take months depending on how many redistricting proposals are submitted.

Worthington also said in an email that it was important to adjust the 1986 boundaries in order “to give greater flexibility, to get straighter lines, and update the populations,” of the city.

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