Taxing the rich to give to the poor is talk one might expect from the People's Republic of Berkeley.
But soon the Robin Hood principle could be enshrined in law: Two competing measures likely on the city's November ballot would tax landlords to fund affordable housing.
A measure sponsored by the Committee for Safe and Affordable Homes would increase the business license taxes of rental property owners to between 1.8 percent and 2.8 percent, bringing in $4.5 million to $7 million annually for affordable housing.
CSAH is a broad coalition that includes progressive and moderate members of the City Council and diverse community allies. Mayoral candidates and council members Jesse Arreguin and Laurie Capitelli, often at loggerheads over housing and development matters, will ask the council May 31 to place the measure on the ballot.
If it agrees, the council will fine-tune the measure, determining the tax increase rate and exemptions.
The competing measure was authored by the Berkeley Rental Housing Coalition, the legal and policy arm of the Berkeley Property Owners Association. It would increase the business license tax on all rental property units by about .42 percent, raising about $1.3 million per year.
BRHC submitted the measure to the city clerk as an initiative petition in mid-May with some 3,300 signatures; just 1,932 valid signatures are required to place the measure on the ballot.
Proponents of both measures say they want to assist renters priced out of the overheated housing market, but CSAH contends the landlords' initiative is a red herring, cynically designed to kill both measures.
The BRHC's "basic dream and hope is probably that with two competing measures, there would be a whole bunch of people that would vote 'no' on anything and both measures would lose because they would split the (pro) vote," said CSAH Co-chair Stephen Barton, a former Berkeley housing director.
Not so, countered BRHC Executive Director Krista Gulbransen. "We're putting it on the ballot because we feel our measure is equitable, it's simple, and it's fair," she said.
BRHC wants to address Berkeley's "affordability challenges," she said, adding, "We know most importantly that a lot of the nonprofit developers are not getting the matching funds that they need in order to move forward with their projects, so we drafted our initiative ordinance because we wanted (to address) those challenges."
Defending the CSAH measure, Barton said, "Given that permanently affordable housing is very expensive, what could be fairer than having the landlords who are enjoying enormous windfall profits share a modest percent of that to help mitigate the effects of what they're doing."
Depending on the business license tax rate increase, the CSAH measure would fund 40 to 70 units annually, while BRHC's would pay for just 12, Barton added.
The measures also differ on exemptions. The apartment owners' measure raises taxes on every rental housing unit currently taxed. Gulbransen says the lack of exemptions makes their measure more equitable.
The CSAH measure exempts tax increases on low-rent units housing tenants living under rent control since 1998, units rented under federally subsidized programs and permanently affordable inclusionary units in newer buildings.
Both measures would be general taxes that can win approval with 50 percent plus one vote. General tax revenue is placed in the general fund. To assure voters the funds would be spent on affordable housing, both measures include oversight bodies. If both receive more than 50 percent, the one with the most votes will win.
No other city has enacted a similar law, Barton said, noting, "This will be another Berkeley first."