Berkeley Property Owners Association

The struggle for affordable housing in Berkeley affects students and families alike, and this year, all six candidates running for the four open seats on the Rent Stabilization Board aim to make living in Berkeley a little easier.

With the general election less than two weeks away, Measure DD’s campaign has now acquired more than $577,000 in total monetary contributions for the calendar year, while the opposing Measure U1’s campaign has raised about $71,000.

Berkeley residents will be voting on ballot measures ranging from lowering the voting age for certain elections to funding public infrastructure repairs.

The UC Berkeley Progressive Student Association, or PSA, filed a complaint Monday against the Committee for Real Affordable Housing for alleged violations by the “Yes on Measure DD, No on Measure U1” campaign, according to a statement from the ASUC Housing Commission.

If passed, Measures U1 and DD, one of which voters will choose on the Nov. 8 ballot, would each raise the business license tax on Berkeley landlords, but the proponents of each measure — and their spending — differ greatly.

A few dozen Berkeley citizens and property owners attended a candidates’ forum Saturday at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in South Berkeley to hear a group of largely pro-landlord candidates for mayor, City Council and rent board address development, rent control and housing affordability.

Amid the housing crisis affecting the Bay Area, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law Tuesday which seeks to protect tenants from being placed on unlawful detainer registries.

The Berkeley Rental Housing Coalition, or BRHC, and the city settled a lawsuit Tuesday, agreeing to modify misleading ballot language from a city-sponsored measure that would increase the business license taxes for certain landlords.

The Berkeley Rental Housing Coalition — the political action committee of the Berkeley Property Owners Association — filed a lawsuit against the city Wednesday over a city-sponsored measure’s deceptive ballot language that allegedly overstates the projected city revenue for the tax increase.

Stretching across the wall in Monica Ferguson’s entryway is an eight-foot hole. The hole has been a problem in Ferguson’s house since she first moved there in 2002, and her landlord had repaired it several times. At the first signs of rain last fall, Ferguson said the paint peeled back, reopening the hole and revealing 10 years of wood rot. This time, her landlord didn’t repair it.