We are a group of harmed taxpayers who are taking steps to shed light on the dubious square footage records database used by the City of Berkeley to calculate our tax assessments. We are engaging in dialog with public officials, completing illuminating data analysis, and reaching out to the taxpaying public with targeted informational materials. We are asking Berkeley taxpayers to look closely at their property tax bill’s “Fixed charges and/or Special Assessments”. If you are ready to challenge the City’s calculation for your home, then click here for the steps we recommend. If you have not received our materials on your doorstep, and you have just heard of us…please still check your numbers. We either haven’t gotten to you yet, or you are not 25% or more overcharged. We estimate that about 20% of the Berkeley taxpayers are overcharged in this way! Others have either correct assessments (around 50% of taxpayers) or are enjoying escaped assessments (around 25% of taxpayers).

After you have your property card and an old appraisal or your own measurements, send them to the City’s Finance Department with a request for recalculation.

If you would like more information, read on…We have discovered that 9 of these charges, including the most expensive ones like the schools, library and parks taxes are calculated based on “Floor Area” not “Building Area” of the taxed parcel. Many taxpayers do not know this. In fact, many City of Berkeley councilmembers and employees did not know this, until we informed them! The City’s Finance Department has a non-public database to maintain these Floor Area (square footage) values, which they claim is from the City’s Building Department, but the City’s Building Department has the correct County Assessor’s values in their records. The ballot measures’ campaign materials state that the size of the Dwelling Unit (see 2009 example GG here) will be taxed, but the City creatively adds in non-conforming spaces to their figures.

So, we are stuck asking the question of the City’s Finance Department, who calculates your special assessments, “Why do your figures deviate so greatly from the County Assessor’s Figures?” The only answer we are receiving is that the city has their own unique method of measuring and they do not need the expertise of the County officials, even though City of Berkeley Ordinance says that “The following duties are hereby transferred to the appropriate officers and employees of the County of Alameda: (a) The assessment of City of Berkeley property for City of Berkeley taxes. (b) The equalization and correction of the assessment. (BMC 7.24.010) the City’s Finance Department has no appraisers to arrive at this square footage value, in fact they used a few college students to put together this database of building area values from a stack of 1950s building cards! See 1980 article which reported on this.

As one might suspect, the City’s measurements recorded by those college students do not align with the County Assessor’s public figures. State standards indicate that these appraisals or assessments should be similar within a small variance, since Ca Revenue and Tax Code 670 states “No person shall perform the duties or exercise the authority of an appraiser for property tax purposes as an employee of the state, any county or city and county, unless he or she is the holder of a valid appraiser’s or advanced appraiser’s certificate issued by the State Board of Equalization” . Appraisers have protocols and standards which lend to uniformity in the industry. Without standards or oversight, the City of Berkeley gets creative with their building area calculations.

How are these taxes calculated? Some of the Berkeley tax ordinances state that the dwelling unit square feet shall be the value used, others say the Assessor’s Roll value shall be used. For more on this, please see the Tax Ordinances link. The City has administered their tax ordinances with an expansive interpretation of dwelling unit square footage. Some portions of porches used for access are taxed and usable basements and cellars are taxed also. However, some of these non-conforming spaces are of a reduced height (less than 6ft to the rafters) and by Uniform Building Code, which the city has adopted, is not of adequate height to be a basement (See Section R305 of California Residential Code). Such a space cannot be used for dwelling without substantially rebuilding the foundation. Believe us, we have tried! One property owner currently is spending $150,000 and thousands in permit fees to rebuild the foundation to create usable basement, even though the space has been taxed as usable basement for many years.

These taxes fund valuable people services, like the city’s wonderful libraries, the parks, the schools, etc. It does not make sense to tax non-dwelling areas of buildings for services that require a human to benefit from them. In fact, it may be against the law. See our link to Prop 218 which was written to limit such expansive taxation, including the requirement to tax only for services that can actually be used, not the potential to use services.

In addition to the economic hardship to property owners of taxing spaces that can’t be dwelled in by humans, there are many taxpayers with these understories in the city which are not taxed. Hundreds of properties escape these assessments for their ‘basements’ each year, while others pay hundreds more on top of their already pricey assessments. This is a predicament rife with inequity. Compounding this situation is that Berkeley property owners who build onto their property are often not reassessed in square footage by the City of Berkeley or in ad valorem value by Alameda County, as California law says they should be (Ca Revenue and Tax Code, Sec. 71). Essentially, those who pay taxes on their ‘crawlspaces’ subsidize those who don’t pay for what should be their new additions’ fair tax increase.

Interestingly, taxpayers we have interviewed who voted on these ordinances did not think they were voting to tax the city’s unfinished understory areas. The ballot measure campaign materials fail to disclose the City’s unscrupulous aim with these taxes. This deception has been replayed through subsequent tax measure campaigns. However, if you are a taxpayer taxed for non-conforming space and you think this is just and right, please write to us and let us know your rationale.

We believe that Berkeleyans and Californians want fair and transparent taxation. (See recently passed AB102 for evidence of voters’ demand for transparency and equity). Berkeley’s renters should also want the City to have fair and transparent taxation because equitable taxation lends itself to stable rents. See a recent letter the Berkeley Neighborhood Council sent to Berkeley City Council on December 2 to request a Public Hearing on this Matter. We challenge the City of Berkeley to schedule this important hearing or just start doing the right thing. Start using the County Assessor’s public building area values to calculate our property tax assessments now!