UC Berkeley Family Housing Tenants Fight Rent Hike, New Parking Fees

Hundreds of residents of a UC Berkeley family housing complex in Albany are refusing to pay new rent hikes and parking fees, saying the added expenses are putting new strain on already-tight family budgets.

At a press conference Thursday, the residents expressed their discontent after the university imposed a $64 monthly parking fee on July 1 at University Village, a nearly 974-unit residential community for graduate students, post-doc researchers and others. Residents also received a 4% rent increase on July 1 — the third year in a row of consecutive 4% increases. According to the university’s website, residents at the Village pay between $2,090 for one-bedroom units and $3,455 for three-bedroom apartments.

“The households are refusing to pay the fee … to show the university that this is in fact a serious issue, and they can’t simply change the terms of their tenancy and start charging these new fees without coming to a fair agreement first,” said Brad Hirn, unit chair for UC Berkeley Academic Researchers at UAW Local 4811, a union representing graduate students.

More than 450 households at the Village are members of the UAW 4811, according to Hirn. Hirn, who is not a resident of the Village, said that UAW 4811 is “overall concerned about reducing rent burden for students and workers due to these new fees,” and that he is “supporting the residents in their efforts” with his background in tenant and labor union organizing.

On Monday, residents of the Village delivered a poster signed by over 270 residents to the offices of Associate Vice Chancellor Jo Mackness, who oversees Residential & Student Service Programs, communicating their decision to not pay the fees.

The residents are demanding the university to drop the fees, waive monetary citations over the past several months from increasing monthly rents and to reach a fair agreement on parking fees, rent increases and housing services.

“We would also like to see better transparency on how money is spent. Our primary playground is in complete disarray and dangerous for kids to play on,” Robin López, a Village resident, wrote in an email to KQED. “Part of [a] memorial for a past resident who was killed due to domestic violence has been removed and not yet replaced. There should be funds to take care of the bare minimum for a community full of children. We would also like to have reclaimed access to our community spaces.”

In a statement, UC Berkeley spokesperson Adam Ratliff wrote that the planned increases in parking fees had been communicated to residents in February 2023. Mackness had announced in April 2021 the university’s plan to increase rents by 4% each year for three years.

“We wanted to give our residents plenty of time to plan accordingly, which is why we first offered virtual parking permits at no cost for the 2023–24 academic year with the notice that we would need to charge for the permits on July 1, 2024, for the 2024–25 academic year,” Ratliff wrote.

He added that resident vehicles are required to register and pay for a virtual permit to be allowed to park in an assigned parking space, and that the university’s goal is to ensure residents can have access to “adequate parking.”

“We recognize our University Village community includes a diverse array of families with unique needs, and we remain committed to providing an affordable education for students and continually strive to keep costs and living expenses as low as possible,” he wrote.

Ratliff noted that if residents cannot afford the rent increases or the new parking fee, they are encouraged to work with the university’s Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships, as well as with other resources and programs that can assist them.

At Thursday’s press conference, speakers urged the university to negotiate with the union and described the power the university held over them as their “employer, landlord, educator, insurer, child care provider, and more.”

Ninel Melkonyan, a UAW 4811 member, Village resident and graduate student in the Goldman School of Public Policy described the community as a “vibrant and diverse community representing a large number of marginalized people.”

As an immigrant student, she said, “For many of us, it is our first and only home here.”

She called the parking fees “extraordinary,” leading to a dilemma where she has to ask herself, “Do I buy food for my family, or do I pay these extra fees?” adding that she would not be able to pay the fees without going further into debt.

López told KQED that at a town hall meeting last summer at the Village, UC Berkeley officials initially said that the parking fee would be more than $100.

He described the reaction from residents as “livid” and “upset.” When he spoke to a reporter from The Daily Californian, the university’s undergraduate student newspaper, and the newspaper reported the story, university staff said that they did not know where that number came from.

“So I am assuming that the UC’s concession there was, ‘okay we’ll charge $64 instead,’” he said.

López, who is also the vice mayor of Albany, noted that the city has more red tape to go through when approving affordable housing opportunities but universities like UC Berkeley do not. He noted that Albany has “little to no control” over property owned by the university, even though it is within city limits.

“Instead of maintaining affordable options for some of the most vulnerable student demographics, they rather increase their rent far above what the affordable housing numbers are right here in the exact same city,” he said.

He noted that the new parking permit fee resulted in residents, including himself, having to “reevaluate what our budget is.”

“[A] $64 fee is not minuscule,” López said. “That could very well determine whether or not someone’s able to put food on the table or provide simple basic needs for their child.”