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Comment by rhaps0dy | Hacker News Reader

Down in the article is what Berkeley residents should do to get this passed:

> No council meeting has been scheduled yet but Berkeley residents should email the city council at council@cityofberkeley.info with the title “Support Missing Middle Housing.” Request that the city council should pass the Planning Commission’s proposal “as is.” Feel free to discuss your own housing woes as reasons for why it should be passed. These letters will be filed by staff into the future item and can make or break Missing Middle housing in Berkeley.

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Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Not until a majority of Berkeley residents are politically active renters.

And remember, international students can't vote. That includes a lot of the grad students.

Are you sure about that? Only federal offices have a baked in requirement that voters be citizens. On the municipal level many west coast cities have opened up local elections to all residents regardless of citizenship. I don't know about Berkeley specifically (its been close to 20 years since I went to school there) but its neighbors Oakland[1] and SF[2] both have opened at least some local elections to non-citizen residents.

Like I said, I don't know the answer and while I made a token effort to check, Berkeley city code actually seems somewhat difficult to find from a first party source. Just want to make sure this wasn't an off the cuff remark.

[1]: https://ballotpedia.org/Oakland,_California,_Measure_S,_Nonc...

[2]: https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco,_California,_Non-Citiz...

Almost all of those electoral expansions to non-citizens that I am aware of are limited just to school board elections.

Also, grad student housing is in Albany, right on the border with Berkeley. So anyone living there doesn't actually live in Berkeley.

Most grad students live in apartments rented from private landlords, not university housing.

They can still email the city council though.

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