Content Library

Rents decreased, but affordability concerns remain Nick Taborek Santa Monica Daily Press April 10, 2010 CITYWIDE — The cost for a new tenant to lease a rent-controlled apartment decreased last year for the first time in 11 years, City Hall said in a report released this week, but the number... Continue Reading

[The Freeman, 1958] "We must have better housing for those Americans who are now forced to live in slums and substandard dwellings." So said a presidential candidate. And so believe a great number of the rank-and-file citizens of the United States. There really seems to be no question as to the... Continue Reading

By John O. Norquist Mayor of Milwaukee and a Democrat Adapted from his book The Wealth of Cities: Revitalizing the Centers of American Life A big-city politician deplores government intrusion into housing and urges cooperation with private owners By focusing on below-market public housing, the... Continue Reading

Richard A. Epstein 11.03.09 WHY NOT SCRAP IT, ROOT AND BRANCH? One central libertarian tenet is that governments should not use subsidies or price controls to distort the operation of competitive markets. The soundness of that position was brought home once again in the recent decision of the New... Continue Reading

Earthquake Warning: This is a soft story building with a soft, weak, or open front ground floor. You may not be safe inside or near such buildings during an earthquake. Continue Reading

Notice to Tenants re: Soft Story Building This is to notify you that the building at ____________________________________, Berkeley, California is on the City of Berkeley’s Inventory of Potentially Hazardous Soft Story Buildings and may constitute a severe threat to life safety in the event... Continue Reading

Berkeley Court Apartments consists of two 12-unit buildings facing each other and are perpendicular to Dwight Way . Each apartment has its own entrance off the court between the buildings. There is a mail slot near each front door. From the sidewalk to the farthest unit back is almost 300 feet.... Continue Reading

Californians for Property Rights Protection (CPRP) is a coalition of homeowners, family farmers, small business owners, and other property owners (small and large) led by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, California Farm Bureau Federation, and The California Alliance to Protect Private... Continue Reading

Editor: Albert Sukoff Because I am so inclined, I was perusing the census data for Berkeley on a website posted by the MTC-ABAG library. (That's the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Are Governments.) Therein presented was data showed comparisons between the 2000... Continue Reading

Howard Jarvis and apartment associations around the state are asking you to support a statewide ballot initiative concerning eminent domain and rent control. If this initiative passes, rent control in Berkeley would be wiped out in few years as units become permanently decontrolled. I cannot... Continue Reading

Editors, Daily Planet:Let me get this straight: Back in 2002, HUD said the Berkeley Housing Authority was “troubled” and needed fixing. For five years, the Mayor and Council got reports from Housing Director Steve Barton, describing how he had tried, and failed, to fix the problems.... Continue Reading

By David M. Wilson (05-25-07) In separate reports, City Manager Phil Kamlarz and City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque have found gross incompetence, if not fraud, in the Berkeley Housing Authority. BHA manages a budget of $25,000,000 per year. This is supposed to provide subsidized housing for nearly... Continue Reading