The Sacramento Report
by Debra Carlton
TheCaliforniaApartmentAssociation’s Government Affairs Committee met in April and reviewed the many rental-housing related bills that have been introduced by lawmakers at the state capitol this year. These bills will impact the rental housing industry if signed into law. For your clarification, an overview of each of the bills follows, along with positions taken by the committee.
Landlord-Tenant Legislation
AB 1433 (Horton) Military Service – Support. This will extend lease and eviction protections to members of the National Guard, who are not currently protected by state and federal law, when the President of the United States calls them to duty. Under these provisions, rental property owners must release military personnel from their long-term leases. Families of military personnel also receive limited protections against eviction if they are unable to pay the rent in full.
AB 2330 (Migden) Landlord-Tenant Retaliation – Oppose. The intent of this bill is to protect tenants by allowing them to pay security deposits over time and by allowing them to apply part of their security deposit to the payment of rent if they become unemployed.
AB 2545 (Nation) Housing Inspections – CAA Sponsored. This bill requires local code enforcement officers to provide a prescribed notice to owners and tenants in the building at least seven days prior to entering the property for inspection.
SB 617 (Ortiz) Tenancy Termination – Neutral. This bill was introduced to address the 30-Day Notices provided by one owner in Sacramento and Santa Rosa to 500 tenants living in his single family homes. The bill provides that an owner must provide 90-Day Notices to tenants prior to terminating a tenancy that involves 50 or more dwelling units within a five-mile radius over a 30-day period.
SB 1403 (Kuehl) Landlord-Tenant Protections – Oppose. This bill authorizes any city or county, upon a finding that the residential rental vacancy rate is less than 10 percent, to require an owner to provide a tenant with a 60-Day Notice prior to terminating the tenancy. It also requires owners to provide tenants with a written notice prior to entering the unit. Also, the owner must attempt to serve the tenant with the notice at their place of business if they cannot find the tenant at home. The bill also changes the existing state Ellis Act provisions. Currently, the Ellis Act provides that any city or county that imposes a system of rent control cannot stop a rental property owner from removing those accommodations from the rental market. The local government, however, can require that an owner, who again offers those units for rent within a two-year period, to reintroduce the dwelling units at the rental rate in place prior to withdrawal. SB 1403 will extend that timeline to five years. Last, the bill permits a court to grant a tenant relief from forfeiture (eviction) upon the judge’s own motion or pursuant to a verbal request by a tenant who appears in court without an attorney. Current law on this matter requires a tenant to make a request for relief from forfeiture in writing within 30 days after a judge declares the forfeiture.
SB 1576 (Bowen) Disclosure of Demolitions – Neutral. This bill requires a rental property owner who has applied to any public agency for a permit to demolish the building to provide a written notice to the existing tenants and to prospective tenants prior to executing a lease.
Affordable Housing
AB 1866 (Wright) Housing Density Bonuses
– Support. This bill requires that a local ordinance allow
for administrative approval without discretionary review by elected
officials of a property owner’s application for a second unit
that meets the requirements of the local government’s ordinance.
AB 1891 (Diaz) Housing Trust Funds – Support. This bill
provides matching grants to local governments that have housing
trust funds.
AB 2292 (Dutra) Downzoning – CAA-sponsored. This bill requires local governments to make a finding that a density reduction or downzoning is consistent with its housing element. This bill allows a court to award attorneys’ fees and costs if the court finds that the downzoning was done illegally.
AB 2476 (Pacheco) Jobs/Housing Balance – Support. This bill calls for studies to focus on the development of strategies to promote jobs-to-housing balance objectives in our local communities.
SB 1227 (Burton) Housing Bond –
Support. This bill enacts the Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust
Fund Act of 2002, which authorizes $2.1 billion in general obligation
bonds for state housing programs upon approval of the voters in
the November, 2002, general election.
SB 1509 (Dunn) Affordable Housing – Support. This bill
compensates local governments for the “lost” property
tax revenue that results when affordable housing is built. It “back-fills”
local treasuries by the amount of the property tax they would have
received in the absence of the affordable housing exemption.
SB 1821 (Dunn) Assisted Housing – Support. This bill
provides technical cleanup and clarification language concerning
disclosure by a property owner to tenants when a housing-subsidy
contract on the building is due to expire or will be prepaid by
the owner.
CaliforniaEnvironmental Quality Act
AB 1086 (Calderon) Residential In-fill
–Support.Thisbillstreamlinesthe
CaliforniaEnvironmentalQualityAct (CEQA) process
by requiring local governments to automatically declare that specified
building projects, such as residential “in-fill,” will
not have a negative impact on the environment.
AB1882 (Canciamilla)CEQA– Support.
This bill exempts in-fill projects in unincorporated areas from
the CEQA process.
Lead Paint
AB 2796 (Shelley) Lead Paint – Oppose. This bill adds lead hazards to the list of conditions that constitute substandard housing; it further regulates Department of Health Services’ certified lead-related occupations and training providers; it grants inspection and enforcement authority to specified agencies; and it expands blood-lead-level test reporting requirements for laboratories and requires that the state report those test results to local code enforcement agencies.
Housing Discrimination
AB 1926 (Horton) Discrimination – Support. This bill authorizes any person with an ownership interest of record in property that contains a racially restrictive covenant to cause the recording of a modified document with the covenant stricken.
Proposition 65
SB 1572 (Sher) Reform – Support. This bill is intended to discourage the issuance of frivolous “notices of violation” issues by plaintiff firms for alleged violations of Proposition 65. SB 1572 will permit the Attorney General to review and comment on pre-litigation settlements that are frequently offered by private enforcement groups who issue hundreds of notices with no intent to pursue them in court.
Utilities
AB 2432 (Pacheco) Telecommunications
– Support. This bill prohibits public utilities from entering
real property without the written authorization of the property
owner.
AB 2663 (Wyman) Senior Baseline Rates – Support. This bill requires the Public Utilities Commission to designate a baseline quantity of gas and electricity for the average senior residential customer. The bill requires the utilities to take into consideration the account differentials in energy needs resulting from the disproportionate amount of time seniors spend in their residences and their increased heating and cooling needs.
AB 2121 (Kehoe) Weights and Measures – Support. This bill exempts water submeters used by an owner of a multifamily or commercial property from the requirement that they be sealed by a local sealer.
SB1368 (Kuehl)Water Submetering Devices – Support. This bill requires the Secretary of Food and Agriculture to adopt new regulations for water submetering devices. The intent of this legislation is to open the door for new products that do not currently meet existing testing standards.
Liability
AB 2041 (Vargas) Automatic External Defibrillators – Support. The intent of this legislation is to provide immunity from civil liability to any person who keeps an automatic external defibrillator (AED) for use by tenants at their property.
AB 2493 (Pacheco) Writs – Support. This bill permits a registered process server to levy more than once under a valid writ of execution; it thereby lowers the costs to a rental property owner who attempts to recover costs from a previous tenant.
SB 1628 (Sher) Attorneys’ Fees – Oppose. The bill requires a court to award costs and attorneys’ fees to the Attorney General, district attorney, or city attorney who prevails in a civil action to enforce an environmental law.
Employment Law
SB1528 (Burton)Arbitration Agreements – Oppose. This bill prohibits pre-disputearbitrationagreements between employers and employees.
Finance & Taxes
AB2487 (Bates)&SB1631 (Morrow)– Support.Boththesebills authorize a tax credit in an amount equal to the property tax paid or incurred during the taxable year that is attributable to any rental housing to accommodate members of the armed forces and their families.
Land Use & Regulation
AB 2247 (Salinas) Real Estate Signs
– Support. This bill authorizes an owner of real property or
his/her agent to display various signs on a public right-of-way.
At the same time, it allows a local agency to regulate the display
of those signs.
For more information on these bills and other bills reviewed by
the Committee, please go to CAA’s Web site at caanet.org. We
will continue to bring you updates as the year unfolds.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the SF Apartment Magazine. Debra L. Carlton is the Vice President of Policy and Research for the California Apartment Association and is CAA’s chief lobbyist. © Copyright 2002.