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The City Council held a public hearing Tuesday in the latest of a long list of skirmishes that go back 20 years with a landlord who is notorious for substandard housing. 

Reza Valiyee, who owns at least 10 properties in Berkeley, appealed a Nov. 9 Zoning Adjustments Board decision to declare his building at 2412 Piedmont Ave. a public nuisance largely because of five units Valiyee built without permits. The City Council will take action on the appeal at its Feb. 13 meeting. 

Valiyee applied for a permit to add four units in 1981, which was denied by the planning department because of a lack of sufficient open space and parking. Undaunted, Valiyee built the four units in a basement area of the two-story house. He also added another allegedly illegal unit to the second floor. 

The building is a former fraternity house. There are currently 30 to 40 rooms in the building that are mostly rented to students. Tenants share common cooking areas and bathrooms. 

If the council supports the ZAB’s resolution, Valiyee will have to remove the five units.  

Councilmember Polly Armstrong said Valiyee recently spent two days in jail for refusing to comply with city requirements on his property at 2455 Prospect St. The city has spent well over $100,000 in staff hours trying to get Valiyee to comply with building regulations, according to Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

“It seems (Valiyee) doesn’t understand the importance of working with authorities,” Armstrong said. “He’s threatened and angered by having to deal with rules and regulations.” 

Armstrong added that Valiyee has become adept at delaying tactics. According to a staff report written by Wendy Cosin, the acting director of planning, the city has been trying to get Valiyee to bring the illegal units into compliance for 18 years. 

Valiyee’s lawyer, San Francisco attorney Malcolm Smith, said the city has been looking for reasons to give his client a hard time.  

“There’s a lot of evidence that Berkeley has decided to make Reza a poster boy for building violations,” Smith said. “The city has known about these units for 20 years and now they want to take five affordable units off the market during the biggest housing crunch the city has ever seen.” 

Worthington said allowing illegal units to be built would cause the quality of life to decline all over Berkeley. “It’s true there’s an urgent need for housing but we can’t say because of the need we will accept substandard housing.” 

Lynne Craven, who lived in the Piedmont Street property in 1981-84 while she attended UC Berkeley, recalled the squalid conditions of the building. “There was a leak in the roof and when it would rain a section of the wall in my room would become soaked,” Craven said. “There were sections of carpet in the common areas that had mushrooms growing on them from the dampness and dirt. It was depressing.” 

Craven sued Valiyee when she fractured her ankle after tripping on a torn piece of carpet on a stairway. She said that even after he was forced to pay her medical bills, he never fixed the hazardous section of carpet. 

“We used to call that place ‘Reza Land’ because of his nutty ideas about how his tenants should live,” she said.