Public Comment

Here’s the new normal. It is called hype. Right now, it takes the form of words about an alleged housing crisis. We hear it from "experts" or politicians or corporate lawyers. They speak about “housing needs,” up-zoning single family neighborhoods, and “build build build.”

In the midst of a glut of market rate housing, and hundreds of old housing unit shuttered and empty, to what do these rhetorical expression refer? When these experts use the word "housing," it no longer means "lodging," or "commodity" (as in a rental market). Now, a housing unit exists as an "asset" for distant uncaring real estate financial corporations. Those corporations trade in securities on securities markets, and make their money on an increase in securities prices. When the corporation’s asset value rises, their securities gain in price.

Rented or not, maintained or not, housing now functions as corporate asset. The intermediary form of ownership, between real people and those distant corporations, are the LLC ownerships. They are the purveyor of housing assets to the financial economy. So when a government agency speaks of “9000 units to be built,” forget about that referring to lodging or homes. Think about the capital gains involved.

Today, many housing units are arbitrarily shuttered and vacant. And there are shills crying “housing shortage” in City Council chambers. Today, these shills advocate building more and more market rate housing, to beef up the market rate glut that empty apartments represent (huge apartment buildings stand partially empty because not even the technocrat class can afford the rent). Today, the up-zoning campaigns aim at allowing construction in single family areas. Their hype is that neighborhood racial exclusionism was a result of zoning, and not of bank policy and economic discrimination. They will say anything to enhance building housing. If only it was for the people. 

To top this off, ABAG [Association of Bay Area Governments] wants Bay Area cities to agree to build thousands of market rate housing units over the next 8 years to meet an invented need. In a recent Berkeley neighborhood meeting that was discussing ADUs (add-on units) and the up-zoning racket, a former Berkeley official put it this way: 

“The real driver in all of this is the 9000 units that ABAG says the city must complete in the next 8 years. That decision is appealable. But it can only be appealed by the city, another state organization, or another city. … It can’t be appealed by the people in this city. So we have to convince the City Council that this 9000 units is based on bad data.” 

This former official thinks that will be difficult because today’s city council just wants to build and build. But she falls prey to the same hype. 

1- “ABAG says the city must …” – ABAG does not have the statutory power to tell anyone what they must do. It cannot "decree" for a city. It can only propose and recommend. When it "allocates" to Berkeley a "necessity" (to build 9000 units), it traffics in hype, as part of a proposed need for housing (that’s right; a “proposed need”!!!). 

2- It allocates this housing increase because of a projected population increase, based on “bad data.” Well, the data has to be bad, since there is no such thing as good "data" about the future. Whatever numbers you will come up with will be invented. 

3- “This decision is appealable.” No, it is not a decision. It’s a proposal, a recommendation, an invention. You don’t appeal proposals, you modify them. To call it "appeal" is to use hype. It is to pretend that the proposal already has statutory (legal) status. 

This person, and the city’s Mayor, and the City Council are all intent on convincing the people that this invented number (9000 units) is mandatory. Don’t buy the hype. 

Where does it come from? From the RHNA [Regional Housing Needs Assessment]. The RHNA invents housing needs for the future, and ABAG decides on allocations for each Bay Area city. Berkeley’s share is 9000. The RHNA webpage contains this information, and cites California Code 65584.05, which explains the "appeal" procedure. The tenor of the entire description is that each city must not fail to agree to ABAG’s allocation. 

RHNA’s and ABAG’s estimate of future housing needs are based on computer projections. The term “computer” implies validity of calculation and purity of logic. But the computer isn’t responsible for the result. That responsibility lies with the programmer. 

10 years ago, RHNA said there would be a 30% increase in Berkeley’s population by 2020, based on a computer projection. Berkeley’s population today is roughly what it was 30 years ago (look at the census figures). But based on that "projection," Berkeley has given permits for over 1000 market rate units, and only 72 affordable housing units over the last 10 years. There’s the source of the glut, and of the on-going affordability crisis. 

The result of a market rate glut is misery, and exile from one’s own community. No massive development occurs without people being displaced, and having to leave town to find affordable housing somewhere else. It is a form of hidden oppression, and racism. Why racism? Because people of color have been redlined by banks, and restricted by low wages to areas of low property values. Those are the areas in which developers can buy property cheap, and realize high capital gains when they build on that property. Without special protections, people of color catch it in the neck. 

Can you imagine the corporate securities wealth contained in 9000 housing assets, rented or not? Do you remember the movie, “Ocean’s Eleven.” The movie we are in is called “ABAG’s 9000.” And it’s another murder mystery. People die from exile and exposure to the elements when homeless. 

To drum up support for Berkeley meeting its ABAG "requirement," the Mayor explains that building these units will resolve the housing crisis and get the homeless off the street. He counts on us not putting two and two together. The glut of market rate housing has made the alleged housing crisis worse, and the homeless population has grown. He is spreading the hype that there is a “housing crisis,” in order not to recognize it is an affordability crisis. 

And he won’t even mention (as an elected official) that the Costa-Hawkins Act makes democracy impossible for a city government because the city government can’t represent the majority of its residents, who are renters. The Costa-Hawkins Act guarantees that building owners can raise rents to whatever level they want. It is one source of the affordability crisis. 

In effect, for Berkeley, there is a proposal pretending to be a mandate. It is a proposal for development for which there is no space. There is a state government that makes democracy impossible with respect to housing, and demands that city governments agree to the proposal. And there is a political process to hold a city accountable if it doesn’t fulfill its allocation. It is all false, rhetoric pretending to be about people while providing assets for distant corporations. 

But hype has criminal ramifications. When the Mayor promotes ABAG’s 9000, he is covering up the fact that Berkeley is a charter city. That means it has the autonomy to say no. The state cannot legally tell it what it must do with respect to internal urban mattters, like zoning, or development, or local taxes. What the state can do, if Berkeley chooses not to fulfill its "allocation," is cut off funds granted for social services and purposes. The name for that is "blackmail." In other words, the state’s primary response to the city’s insistence on autonomy (aka electoral representation) would be abject criminality. 

Fight fight fight.

As the news about ABAG’s 9000 spreads, people all over Berkeley respond, “we have to fight this.” Unfortunately, you don’t fight a proposal. You can refuse it; you can expose its flaws and lies and scams. But fighting a proposal is like standing on a street corner shouting “Down with Mark Twain’s novels.” A proposal is just a text, like a novel. Some are more fictional than others. To "fight" ABAG’s 9000, one would end up licking the City Council’s hand and begging “please, do the right thing and represent us.” 

Here’s what “fighting” ABAG’s 9000 would look like. 

If the people chose to fight the state and its “proposed needs,” they would need allies. The main ally would be the city. When the people call on it for solidarity against the state’s proposal, the city would demand support for its own deal with the state. After all, the city doesn’t need ABAG to authorize development. ABAG’s 9000 just gives the city a rationale for up-zoning, further development, displacement of residents, and on-going glut. In other words, the city will get what it wants from the deal, and the people will lose. 

If the people fight the city, and demand that it reject and refuse agreement with ABAG’s 9000, it will be playing into the Mayor’s game. To modify or refuse the allocation, the Mayor would need a fighting opposition with which to negotiate a compromise. The reason for that is that, according to the rules of modification, the city must prove that its modifications will still be in furtherance of the state’s goals. Thus, to fight the city on the allocations will end up in collusion with the city’s desire to modify the allocation’s terms. 

In short, to fight the state, the city will win against the people. To fight the city, the state will win against the city. For the people of Berkeley, it is a lose-lose situation. That is what happens when you fight something that is not real. 

Let’s go over that again. ABAG’s 9000 is presented as a mandate that has no statutory authorization. Rather than honor the city’s autonomy, the state gets autocratic against it, promoting further housing glut. Both the state and the city know there is no space for 9000 units, unless a whole bunch of rent-controlled units are demolished (which would be against the law). So the proposal fails legal credibility. In effect, the only way to make an unreal proposal real, that is, to give it reality, would be by fighting it. It has no other possible source of credence than from opposition. And that is the purpose of its absurdity, to entice people to give it reality on the political battlefield. Ultimately, the city’s purpose will be to increase the housing asset value of the city through development, and thus enrich the real estate financial corporations. The purpose of ABAG’s 9000 is to gain popular support for that through popular opposition. The other effect will be to impoverish those who are displaced by the process. 

So, what should the state do instead of impose absurd ideas that will only benefit the financial economy? It should repeal the Costa-Hawkins Act, and provide subsidies that will transform unrented market rate units into affordable housing units for the benefit of those who need them. 

You want to fight for a better housing deal? Let’s get down to brass tacks. 

1- Get City Council to refuse ABAG’s 9000 outright, totally, in all its forms and modifications, as absurd. 

2- Put the glut to work. If there are thousands of empty apartments in Berkeley, as some people assert (both shuttered old apartments and unrentable new units), open them up for housing the homeless, and for providing affordable housing for those displaced by economic eviction (arbitrary rent increases). Maybe a squatter’s movement will be necessary. 

3- Set "affordability" in rent at 30% of the tenant’s income, maximum. 

4- Build a referendum system – Hold a referendum on each and every proposed development by the neighborhood that will be affected by the project. A referendum is not an election. It can be done locally without official auspices and without statutory power. It would simply be a direct expression, the voice and sentiment of the people. 

5- Initiate a movement to declare the Costa-Hawkins Act unconstitutional, both to allow city regulation of rent levels, and to allow city government to fully represent the majority of its people. 

6- Get rid of the for-profit developers. They have only given us glut. For-profit developers will not build affordable units if they can help it, and the city gives them all the help they need by keeping the mitigation fees low that allow them to buy their way out of including affordable units. We should as a city adopt zoning regulations that will chase them away -- e.g. all developments with more than 4 units must contain 75% affordable units, with a mitigation fee of $200,000 or more. The for-profit developers will run like hell, and the non-profits can be brought in to build affordable housing in conjunction with land trust financing. 

Each of these proposals for demands on the city will act to enhance the principle of democracy. That principle, which we as a society have yet to win, is that those who will be affected by a policy must be the ones who make the policy that will affect them. 

Clearly, for that reason, fighting for any of these demands or social changes would stand in the way of ABAG’s 9000, obstruct it, and render it void. So they should satisfy those obsessed with the idea of fighting against ABAG’s 9000. 

Why is the Costa-Hawkins Act unconstitutional? It permits wanton violation of human rights as provided by the Constitution, which says that “No person shall be deprived of like, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Here are two ways Costa-Hawkins violates that clause. (1) To arbitrarily raise the rent is to deprive a tenant of part of his earnings (property) without due process. (2) To evict a family without their being able to find other housing that they can afford is to threaten their lives through destitution and exposure to the elements. Any lease that grants an owner the right to raise the rent at will, as a contract, becomes a contract under duress during a housing affordability crisis. Hence, it becomes invalid. 

ABAG’s 9000 is not real. It’s a proposal. When it is finally included in a proposed state ordinance, it should already have been exposed as a sham and a scam, a source of asset increment for Blackstone or some other real estate financial corporation. If the only way Berkeley can refuse the proposal is to exit ABAG, than that possibility should be considered.