23.326.060 Elimination of Residential Hotel Rooms.
A. General Requirements. Before removal, the following requirements must be met for the ZAB to approve a Use Permit for the elimination of residential hotel rooms:
1. The residential hotel owner shall provide or cause to be provided standard housing of at least comparable size and quality, at comparable rents and total monthly or weekly charges to each affected tenant.
2. One of the following three requirements shall be met:
(a) The residential hotel rooms being removed are replaced by a common use facility, including, but not limited to, a shared kitchen, lounge, or recreation room, that will be available to and primarily of benefit to the existing residents of the residential hotel and that a majority of existing residents give their consent to the removal of the rooms.
(b) Before the date on which the residential hotel rooms are removed, one-for-one replacement of each room to be removed is made, with a comparable room, in one of the methods set forth in this section.
(c) Residential hotel rooms are removed because of building alterations related to seismic upgrade to the building or to improve access to meet the requirements of the American Disabilities Act (ADA).
B. Criteria for Replacement Rooms. For purposes of this section, replacement rooms must be:
1. Substantially comparable in size, location, quality, and amenities;
2. Subject to rent and eviction controls substantially equivalent to those provided by the Rent Stabilization Ordinance or those that applied to the original rooms which are being replaced; and
3. Available at comparable rents and total monthly or weekly charges to those being removed. Comparable rooms may be provided by:
(a) Offering the existing tenants of the affected rooms the right of first refusal to occupy the replacement rooms;
(b) Making available comparable rooms, which are not already classified as residential hotel rooms to replace each of the rooms to be removed; or
(c) Paying to the City of Berkeley’s Housing Trust Fund an amount sufficient to provide replacement rooms.
i. The amount to be paid to the City of Berkeley shall be the difference between the replacement cost, including land cost, for the rooms and the amount which the City of Berkeley can obtain by getting a mortgage on the anticipated rents from the newly constructed rooms.
ii. The calculations shall assume that rents in the newly constructed rooms shall not exceed the greater of either a level comparable to the weekly or monthly charges for the replaced rooms or the level which would be charged if no current tenant paid more than 30 percent of such tenant’s gross income for rent.
C. Exception for Non-Profit Ownership. In a residential hotel owned and operated by a non-profit organization, recognized as tax-exempt by either the Franchise Tax Board and/or the Internal Revenue Service, residential hotel rooms may be changed to non-residential hotel room uses if the average number of residential hotel rooms per day in each calendar year is at least 95 percent of residential hotel rooms established for that particular residential hotel. (Ord. 7787-NS § 2 (Exh. A), 2021)