They wrote it down
Automatic increases every year. Tax returns to City Hall for the exemption. A lien if you miss the deadline. If the bank never opens, they keep the money.
Operative verbs highlighted. Full text: City of Berkeley ordinance PDF.
Annually in May, the City Council shall increase the previous year’s rate by up to the greater of the cost of living in the immediate San Francisco Bay Area or per capita personal income growth in the state…
The Council is directed to raise the rate every year. There is no cap in this section — only “up to the greater of” two inflation indexes.
Very-low-income owners must apply annually, submitting federal income tax returns and W-2 forms to the City Manager. Deadline June 30. Miss it → pay the full tax + penalties.
The exemption is not automatic. Miss the paperwork deadline and you owe the tax, with penalties, like everyone else.
The ordinance requires annual applications with federal returns and W-2s. The “Miss it →” line above is a campaign paraphrase of the penalty consequence, not a full verbatim dump of (B)–(C). Cite the PDF for the complete subsections.
The tax shall constitute a lien upon the parcel and a personal obligation of the owners.
Unpaid tax attaches to the house — and to the people who own it.
None has been chartered yet under AB 857. This site does not claim no public bank can ever be chartered in California. It claims this ordinance still collects the tax if the charter never comes.
If the Bank does not secure authorization by June 30, 2033, the special fund may be used to offer loans for housing / green / small business at Council discretion.
If the bank never opens, they keep the money. Council “may” lend it — a job the Housing Trust Fund already does.
Ellipses condensed for the card; the operative date, “may,” and Council discretion are the load-bearing words. Full text in the ordinance PDF.
All funds subject to the review, allocation, and approval by the City Council.
This is not an independent capitalization locked to a charter. Council still holds the purse.
Section 4 raises the City’s appropriations limit by the full amount of the tax. This permanently expands spending authority; the tax is six years, the precedent is not.
Raises the City’s appropriations limit by the full amount of the tax.
The tax is six years. The spending-authority expansion is a precedent that outlasts the rate.
Ambiguous overlap with other local tax measures funding similar uses.
The ordinance itself flags that other November taxes may fund similar purposes.
Paraphrase of the conflicting-measures clause pending counsel’s preferred verbatim excerpt.