Sacramento Report
by Debra Carlton
Several months ago, we featured an overview on the housing legislation that was introduced by lawmakers in Sacramento this year. This month, an update on those proposed laws follows, accompanied by CAA’s position on each bill and its location in the legislative process.
Landlord-Tenant Legislation
AB 1433 (Horton): Military Service—Support—Signed by the Governor. This bill extends 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 when called to duty. Families of military personnel also receive limited protections against eviction if they are unable to pay the rent in full. The bill will take effect on January 2003.
AB 2330 (Migden): Security Deposits—Oppose—Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill requires owners to pay interest on security deposits at the rate of 1 percent less than the Federal Reserve Discount Rate upon termination of the tenancy or upon the first month of every fifth calendar year, whichever comes first. It also prohibits owners from keeping any portion of the security deposit to cover ordinary wear and tear, defined in the bill as “deterioration that occurs through every day usage, based upon a reasonable tenant standard, rather than damage caused by tenant abuse or carelessness and includes, but is not limited to, deterioration that is rectified by routine painting, routine carpet replacement, or other routine repairs.” AB 2330 also requires a six-step inspection process by the property owner prior to the tenant permanently vacating the unit.
AB2545 (Nation): Housing Inspections—Support—CAA Sponsored—Senate Housing Committee. This bill requires code enforcement officers to give property owners and tenants a specific notice prior to inspecting the property.
SB 617 (Ortiz): Tenancy Termination—Neutral—Senate Floor. Senator Ortiz introduced this bill in response to the 30-Day Notices that one owner provided to 500 tenants living in his single-family homes in Sacramento and Santa Rosa. It requires rental property owners to give tenants 90-Day Notices prior to terminating a tenancy that involves 50 or more dwelling units within a five-mile radius.
SB 1403 (Kuehl): Landlord-Tenant Protections—Oppose—Assembly Judiciary Committee. This bill, among other things, requires rental property owners to provide tenants with a 60-Day Notice prior to terminating the tenancy. (As initially introduced, it allowed local governments to adopt local laws that required a 60-day notice.) It also requires owners to provide tenants with a written notice prior to entering the unit. (Current law does not require a written notice.) SB 1403 also changes the provisions of the state’s Ellis Act law. Reports from some rent control districts indicate that property owners sometimes file spurious notices with the local government concerning their intent to withdraw their buildings from the market (and thereafter clear their buildings of all existing tenants). In response, SB 1403 imposes local rent control provisions on any property owner who decides to later re-rent those units to new tenants within five years after the notice of intent to withdraw is rescinded.
SB 1576 (Bowen): Disclosure of Demolitions—Neutral—Assembly Judiciary Committee. This bill requires a rental property owner who has applied to any public agency for a building demolition permit 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—Senate Housing Committee. This bill requires that a local ordinance allow for administrative approval (without discretionary review by elected officials) of a property owners’ application for a second unit on the property that meets the requirements of the local government’s ordinance.
AB 1891 (Diaz): Housing Trust Funds—Support—Senate Housing Committee. This bill provides matching grants to local governments that have housing trust funds.
AB 2292 (Dutra): Downzoning—CAA
Sponsored—Senate Local Government Committee. This bill requires
local governments to make a finding that a density reduction or
property 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—Senate
Housing Committee. 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—Signed
by the Governor. 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 5, 2002, general election.
SB 1509 (Dunn): Affordable Housing —Support—Assembly Local Government Committee. 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 property tax they would have received in the absence of the affordable housing exemption.
SB 1821 (Dunn): Assisted Housing—Support—Assembly Housing Committee. 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—Senate Environmental Quality Committee. This bill streamlines the California Environmental Quality Act (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.
AB 1882 (Canciamilla): CEQA—Support—Senate Environmental Quality Committee. This bill exempts in-fill projects in unincorporated areas from the CEQA process in Contra Costa County.
Lead Paint
AB 2261(Cardenas): Lead Paint—Oppose—Senate Environmental Quality Committee. This bill provides the Department of Health Services and city and county health agencies with authority to inspect buildings for lead hazards, order abatement of lead hazards in public buildings and residences and impose fines when violations of lead abatement requirements are found. It also gives enforcement authority to the Department of Health Services and local agencies in terms of existing training, certification and work practices standards.
AB 2796 (Shelley): Lead Paint—Oppose—Assembly Housing Committee—Died in Committee. This bill would have added lead hazards to the list of conditions that constitute substandard housing; further regulated Department of Health Services’ certified lead-related occupations and training providers; granted inspection and enforcement authority to specified agencies; expanded blood lead-level test-reporting requirements for laboratories; and required that the state report those test results to local code enforcement agencies.
Housing Discrimination
AB 1926 (Horton): Discrimination—Support—Senate Judiciary Committee. 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—Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee. 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, which issue hundreds of notices with no intent to pursue them in court.
Utilities
AB2121 (Kehoe): Weights
and Measures—Support—Assembly Rules Committee. This bill
exempts water submeters used by an owner of a multifamily or commercial
property from the requirement that a local sealer seal them.
AB 2432 (Pacheco): Telecommunications—Support—Assembly
Utilities and Commerce Committee—Failed Passage. This bill
would have prohibited public utilities from entering real property
without the written authorization of the property owner.
AB 2663 (Wyman): Senior Baseline
Rates—Support—Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee—Failed
Passage. This bill would have required the Public Utilities Commission
to designate a baseline quantity of gas and electricity for the
average senior residential customer, taking into consideration the
account differentials in energy needs resulting from seniors spending
a disproportionate amount of time in their residences and their
increased heating and cooling needs.
SB 1368 (Kuehl): Water Submetering Devices—Support—Assembly
Committee on Business and Professions. 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, which do not currently meet existing testing standards.
Liability
AB2041 (Vargas): Automatic External Defibrillators—Support—Senate Judiciary Committee. 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 his/her property.
AB 2493 (Pacheco): Writs—Support —Senate Judiciary Committee. 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 previous tenants, guests and employees.
SB 1628 (Sher): Attorneys’ Fees: Attorney General—Oppose—Assembly Judiciary Committee. 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—Senate Floor. This bill prohibits pre-dispute arbitration agreements between employers and employees.
Finance & Taxes
AB 2487 (Bates) & SB 1631 (Morrow): Support—Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee—Failed Passage. Both of these bills would have authorized 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
AB2247 (Salinas): Real Estate Signs—Support—Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill authorizes an owner of real property or his or her agent to display various signs on a public right-of-way, while at the same time, allowing a local agency to regulate the display of those signs. Also provides that placement of a compliant sign does not constitute a dangerous condition for which a public entity may be held liable.
For more information on these bills and other bills followed by the California Apartment Association, please go to CAA’s web site.
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.