Rental Housing Committee - Regular Meeting

Two, one. We are live. Thank you.

Good evening. Welcome to the 12/18/2025 rental housing committee regular meeting. This meeting will be called to order at 06:02PM. I see everyone is present except for the member, so we'll move on to the consent calendar. Consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the committee wishes to remove an item. The purpose is for the committee to efficiently and quickly consider routine or administrative business items with one motion. Public comment will occur after discussion. Would any member of the committee like to pull an item? Seeing none, I now invite public comment on the consent calendar.

Any member of the public wishing to provide a virtual comment on this item, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Seeing none, I'll bring this item back to the committee for discussion. A motion has been a motion has been made by member Cox, seconded by alternate Bolch. Member Cox, would you like to state the motion?

Yes. I yes. I'm making a motion to accept.

Hang on.

Uh-oh. What's wrong?

Oh, the Zoom meeting's gone.

Oh, okay.

See Alright. Robert, would you like to state the motion?

Yes.

Hang on. There's no audio going into Zoom.

Well, I still would like to state it. Okay, now you're ready. Okay, yes I want to move the consent calendar including item 3.1 for the 11/20/2025 RHC meeting.

Alright, that has been seconded by alternate member Bolch. Move on to the vote. Motion passes unanimously. Now we are moving to item four, oral communications. We will now open a meeting for oral communications from the public. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the committee on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on anything that is not on the agenda for three minutes. Said law prohibits the committee from acting on anything said during nonagenda items. Would any member of the public like to provide comments? If so, online, please click raise hand or sign on your phone.

And if you're in person, please provide a speaker card. Seeing none, we will move to item five, appeal hearing. 5.1 is The appeal for hearing officer's decision regarding petition numbers 242542 and 242543. The rental housing committee in hearing the appeal is acting in a quasi judicial fashion and will conduct the hearing in accordance with those standards. Staff will detail the appeal hearing process in their presentation.

Before we get started, RHC members are required to disclose any communications that they have had with any of the parties to the petition or the party's representatives and the substance of those communications since the date that the petition was filed, the decision of the RHC is to be based on the record presented to the hearing officer. Information disclosed to an RHC member that is not part of the record is not to be considered in the hearing. Do any members have ex parte communications that need to be disclosed? Seeing none. We will now proceed with public comment for agenda item 5.1. Other members of the public who are not parties to the petition who would like to speak? Seeing none, we will move on to the hearing.

And please be aware that we do have translations this evening, so please speak slowly. Thank you.

All right, are we ready to go with the translation?

Yes, thank you. Okay, thanks.

All right, so this item is to consider the tentative appeal decision and either accept the tentative appeal decision or modify the tentative appeal decision with instructions to staff citing appropriate evidence in the record to support any modifications.

Hong Yen?

Doesn't go anywhere. Oh.

From Citi staff, hear me?

It's kicking me out, and I keep interrupting. One moment, please. Okay, I apologize for the technical difficulties. We are good to go.

Okay, great, thanks. Okay, so we are going to move swiftly through the RHC role and the process, you guys have heard this on a number of occasions now, but the options to hear and decide an appeal include a closed record, which is based only on the facts in the decision that was provided by the hearing officer. Second would be an open record or de novo, wherein you would follow a formal hearing process to potentially accept new facts before deciding. And finally, if needed, you could do a remand whereby you would follow the closed record procedures, but the RHC could identify specific issues that would be sent back to the hearing officer for reexamination. Next slide.

So for questions of law, the rental housing committee must exercise its independent judgment, whereas for questions of fact, the rental housing committee should determine whether each appealed element of the hearing officer's decision is supported by substantial evidence. This does not mean that you should reweigh evidence or relitigate issues. Rather, you should look at the record submitted to the hearing officer, but you do not need to come to the same conclusions as the hearing officer. So at this time, we're not recommending a de novo hearing. Their existing evidence is sufficient, and the existing record demonstrates adequate review and ample opportunities for the parties to present relevant evidence.

So for that reason, the decision on appeal is based on the hearing record and you all should ensure that you neither hear nor find facts in addition to those presented to the hearing officer. So as a reminder, the petition that is filed by the tenant in this case defines the scope of the hearing officer's decision and then the issues that are raised on appeal, in this case by the landlord, limit the scope of the rental housing committee's review on appeal. So the schedule for the appeal hearing, we will provide ten minutes to the appellant landlord, to make their argument and then up to twenty minutes, for the respondent tenant in this case because, translations are required, followed by a five minute rebuttal for the landlord and up to ten minute rebuttal for the I think that should say respondent tenant. And then the RHC will have opportunity ask questions of staff, of the appellant and of the respondents.

So

before I get to the appealed elements, the petition here raised two issues. The first was an unlawful rent issue where the tenant alleged that the landlord had charged them 175 fee for the petitioner's alleged refusal to allow pest control to enter the affected unit to complete an inspection as well as a habitability issue related to secondhand smoke entering the affected unit from a neighboring unit on the property. The hearing officer's decision concluded that the petitioner tenants had met their burden of proof on both of these issues and ordered a 20% rent reduction for the one month period from 11/06/2024 through 12/06/2044, and then a 100% rent reduction for the period from 12/07/2024 through 12/08/2025. And also during that same period that the landlord was out of substantial compliance with the CSFRA because of the secondhand smoke issue, there was a rent increase that went into effect. So the hearing officer's decision ordered that that rent increase that went into effect was invalid because the landlord was out of substantial compliance and therefore rolled back the rent to $2,195 per month, which is the lawful rent for the affected unit at this time.

So the hearing- so the landlord's appeal raises one issue, which is specifically summarized in their appeal as systemic favoritism and bias for the tenant and against the landlord, specifically that the hearing officer accepted numerous statements from the tenant as fact and used them as the basis for their decision, while at the same time not accepting statements made by the landlord and therefore the hearing officer erred in their decision on the two petitions. The tentative appeal decision recommends upholding or affirming the hearing officer's decision in its entirety. The appellant fails to satisfy the burden necessary to demonstrate actual bias or partiality on the face on the part of the hearing officer. The appellant puts forth no facts or specific statements that were made by the hearing officer that would demonstrate bias or favoritism toward the tenant. In addition, in reviewing the recording of the hearing, the hearing officer did not make any sort of inappropriate bias or partial comments or statements toward either of the parties, and she generally followed the requirements of the CSFRA and the regulations in her conduct of the hearing.

Moreover, the hearing officer has discretion discretion to admit or omit evidence, and in fact it is a central part of the hearing officer's responsibilities and duties to determine whether evidence is credible or relevant and whether to admit it or omit it from the basis for her decision. And so there's nothing improper about her weighing of the evidence and determining determining which parts of that evidence were or were not credible and are relevant to the petition issues. And then finally, the hearing decision itself is reasoned and fair, and each of the hearing officers conclusions is supported by findings of facts and substantial evidence in the record. So fiscal impact, any decision by the rental housing committee on appeal could potentially lead to litigation which would have fiscal impacts for the program. However, one purpose of appealing having an appeal process to the rental housing committee is to ensure that hearing decisions are legally defensible and so the appeal process to the rental housing committee in general reduces overall risk of legal liability and legal expenses.

The staff's recommendation is to consider the tentative appeal decision and either accept the tentative appeal decision or modify the tentative appeal decision with instructions citing to appropriate evidence in the record to support any modifications. Thank you.

Thank you. All right We will now move on to the appellant landlord. The appellant landlord, please raise hand on Zoom if you would like to speak, and staff will promote you to be a panelist. Steve you will have ten minutes to speak. Your timer will be on screen.

Alright. Thank you.

Sorry. One moment while the timer resets.

I'm sorry?

I'm just resetting the timer.

Let me know.

I will. Thank you. Control room, are you able to change the view? Okay. Whenever you're ready.

All right. Thank you. I'm not here to persuade, argue my case. I'm here to point out what I believe is systemic bias and favoritism towards tenants, not just in this case, but in all cases since 2016, and I will use this case to point out just a few. And I'm going to reference the original hearing decision, not the appeal decision.

So I'm just going to start by picking up things that I'd like you all to consider as is, you know, is it biased towards a tenant, or or is the landlord getting a fair share, you know, equal opportunity for the same same conversation, same same evidence, if you will, because apparently speaking is evidence. So so on page nine of the original hearing number three, mister Wang submitted a representative authorization form dated 08/12/2025, designating Mrs. Wang as his representative for the proposed purpose of this case. So, 08/12/2025 is when the representative document was presented. The petition was filed March 25, so five months earlier.

Within a week or two of re of me receiving this information, I contacted the city and said, hey. CSFRA allows a tenant to file a petition. This petition was not filed by a tenant. I ask that you send it back and get it done properly. That was ignored for five months. And then in the prehearing meeting, it came up, and I either had to jump through hoops and motions and another hearing and this and that. And I said, no. It's a waste of time. I I don't care. And at that point, I think it went back to the city, and the city said, oh, we really should get this documented correctly.

And that's when that got cleared up. I I can't I don't personally have any experience or examples of of me filling out forms wrong and it being ignored, but but I can pretty much say with a lot of certainty that I doubt that that would have flown from a landlord point of view. Page 14, item B in the discussion. Down at the bottom, it talks about missus Wang as the petitioner, mister Wang as roommate as let me start at the beginning of that sentence. It's it's actually talking about this this issue.

And at the end of it, the hearing officer says, that they are going to consider it harmless given missus Wang's lack of expertise in legal matters, her use of English as a second language, and the clarity of her intent. Well, I've penned in a few of these and listened to a few, and I've never seen a landlord being offered any any grace because of their lack of expertise in legal matters. And I'm quoting exactly what the hearing officer said. And later on in the hearing officer's opinions and assumptions, she mentions that a letter that we submitted to the tenant who was smoking was filled with typographical errors and grammar errors, but never was it asked, hey, did a person who English was their second language write this? No.

They just ripped on on the letter. Further down on that same page, the petitioner bears the burden of proving claims raised in the case by the preponderance of evidence. There was very little, if any, evidence provided by the petitioner other than speaking, other than words. And those words were considered evidence, and my words and and my words were discorded and discounted. And an example of that is the date December 7 was used in calculating the refund here, and mister Wang vacated the effective unit.

This is page 19. December 7 through January 8 due to nuisance of smoking, blah blah blah. This this was just words provided by missus Wang, and there was no evidence provided that was not asked. Mister Wang never showed up, never presented any he never wrote I vacated the unit to present as evidence. That would have been some evidence.

The the landlord was never told that the that mister Wang was vacating the unit. But but the hearing officer decided that that that apparently is is evidence, and and they were gonna believe it. Page 20, there is, the the second or third paragraph down holds just a variety of of opinions and assumptions. The property management waited to do anything significant until missus Wang contacted mister Olson from the city. I I told during the hearing that what we did, and that was discounted.

Words my words discounted, tenant's words not discounted. Page 21, the hearing officer says, the city council's position on secondhand smoke is detrimental to the public health and welfare. It would have been reasonable for the respondent to commence taking effective steps to resolve this issue within one week of that time, which would have been November 6. Well, I I don't know what gives if if the city council she references the city council a few times. If the city council felt that there should be a number of days, they would have mentioned it where where it needed to be addressed.

Yeah. On page 24 under the conclusion, the petitioner has met the burden of proof by a preponderance of evidence. Again, I saw no evidence. All I did was hear hear words, the same as I heard my own words, but but apparently, the the tenant's words are worth more than than the landlord's words. And this is my point, the systemic favoritism to tenants in this petition process that has taken place since the the onset of the CSFRA.

And this should not be news to you guys. You guys got a a staff report on September 25 on the annual update of rent stabilization petition programs. So since the inception, 95% of the petitions have been decided in favor of the tenants. That is a statistical anomaly, and and you should all understand that. There if there should be a fifty fifty opportunity at the beginning of every petition that party a or party b should should be believed or or proven one way or the other.

But since the inception of these petitions, 95% have been determined in favor of of the the tenant. It's systemic favoritism. And in a previous petition, I had a quarter inch screw missing from a stove, and this same hearing officer felt that that was grounds for lack of use and inhabitability. Some of you were involved with that and questioned it, but at that point, it had taken almost a year to to get to that point, and and I was just done. Thank thinking I was done at at at the the position that have that that the the original hearing decision was made was an error because you guys took it upon yourself to correct the math errors.

So that, of course, ended up increasing increasing the refund to the same tenant, by the way. So so there's just consistent favoritism and bias to to the tenant, to to the point that it that that same staff report talked about that there the number of increased petitions. Well, why wouldn't a tenant petition when they have essentially a 100% chance of winning? To that end, I doubt that I'm ever even gonna respond to a petition anymore because it's a waste of my time. It it's statistically a waste of my time to spend time and effort and energy to present a response to a petition when there's a 100% chance almost that that the tenant will receive the proper or will receive their the the decision and their benefit.

That's all I have.

Thank you. Respondent tenant, please come to the podium if you like to speak. Right here. And staff would give the timer. You'll be given twenty minutes, ten minutes being translation, ten minutes for original response.

Okay. First of all, I saw the he's saying the tenant and then also has the stove. Okay. For the previous case, I until today. And and how many year? I don't have a stove to use because the oven is when I move in as a step dirty and even though I can't heard that I can't solder the the the electronic line, so I'm afraid to use. So most of the time, I use the microwave and not cooking at home. Only uses top stove stove, some some found out part of a function. So that's the heat sets the stove. And the analysis about the current case.

If the anything I have joined before is not the only force run-in this area. But we never have any problem because if something wrong and the people just handle the issue or and tenant had paid money, then no take the service. That's very simple. We don't need to go to the court. We don't need to, like, go to the judgment for the government.

I never have this experience, but I'm happy to have this kind of a judgment because, like, people can look at what's happening. If it between me and Nano and the tenant, I will they were negative kicking me out. For the beginning, I have a I have few days no partial use. I just asked the temporary to use. I didn't got the people rejected to me. As for this this 2023, It's twentieth century. Then no no bathroom use. I go to a library to use the bathroom. A shower and nothing available. It's a if the human being or they if they look at the standard, they want me to do something like this for me.

At this time, I believe the hiring office, she's really accurate people, the person. Even though my that I provided the evidence is from nano that even the year is wrong. He she found a very accurate everything. And and and about the evidence, I provided evidence from all of a procedure. It's not that I made a problem.

If he don't have any of them or less of them, I believe because they didn't do the job properly. They don't care about. That's why we're coming to the city. We're coming to the the the house to protect the the tenant. I believe that's why he complained to the government, to the community since why he got a loss.

If for the beginning, recognized that he's wrong and he keep update on his service. I don't think we'll have a second time to argument here. But I really appreciate that I have this kind of service from the government. Another thing is because like, smoking issue, I have a report from the beginning from the house. Because today, I'm just flying coming to this place.

I don't have any document in front of me, so I cannot, you know, time by time, day by day. But definitely the situation is I provided to the judge or to the city. It is for the housing department. It is true. I believe that the situation is very clearly. Then I think I need to go to this step which is for for further potential. Yeah. I appreciate. Thank you so much. Do you want to pass it? Do you okay.

Alright. Steve, you have five minutes to rebut any statements. Please limit your comments to rebuttal.

I have no comments.

Okay. Moving back to the tenant, you have five minutes to rebut anything that the landlord said. Please limit any comments to rebuttal.

Yeah. He says that he has waste time, but definitely way waste the time. Like for the beginning year, when I rented this apartment, I almost stay one year to follow the procedure and wanted to get a result, got a service from them. I spent one one year. And the following and the following year, they tried to kick me out a few times.

All of the document. And even though I send a lawyer's letter to them, I explained the situation, definitely, I provided any document from from the nano. And they gave them note they definitely identify why I'm I'm the resident or legal resident, whatever. That's if he Okay.

Clarify, again, limit your responses to rebuttal.

Okay. Okay. Basically, on the nanosense, I don't have any enough evidence, but I believe for the beginning, the mediation and call them, send the data to them, They just try ignore. And also, we have any position is to provide the information to the housing, let them do their judgment. So I don't think the housing will be like like he's saying is my aging.

I'm glad if I have aging, but I don't have. That's why really where it's really reliable the city have this kind of service. I really appreciate. I don't think I can make a story and that I can make anything else. There is not nothing happening. I don't then I think the commitment and the city should be closed. But situation don't don't like he's saying is, oh, yeah. Everybody is a protect the then then then then because for the beginning, the then manager want to kick me out. They told me, oh, yeah. We don't like you leaving here.

We like somebody else. We like to leave even this apartment which is 507 Central Avenue, Apartment M. That's a lot happening for for for for my life. And then they're coming to my door, never have noticed. They just walk in and open my door. I I call the policeman 9911. Until now, I'm still scared with for people just sometimes they wanted to open my door because they didn't follow the law. They don't follow any business procedure or standard. That's the whole situation. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Alright. We'll bring it back to the committee. Does any committee member want to question staff? Vice Chair Cox.

Yeah, I wanna go back to what the landlord had said about when Mr. Wang had vacated the unit. I mean, seems like so I wanna make sure that, you know, I I've got the facts right about the case. So it sounds like he was saying that that missus Wang, okay, had said that he vacated the unit on December 7, but that he contested the fact that Mr. Wang actually vacated the unit on December 7. What's your understanding about what is in the hearing officer's record on that and what was actually said?

So I can I can answer this question? At the hearing, there was no contesting by the landlord of the statement that Mr. Wang had vacated the unit during during that time period. And after the hearing, I believe I believe it was after the hearing, it might have been before the hearing evidence was provided that Mr. Wang was not in the unit during that one month period, specifically a copy of his confirmation from for his the time period that he was gone, airline ticket.

So that was corroborating evidence that the hearing officer took into consideration to determine whether what weight to give to the statement that was made, the testimony that was made by Ms. Wang that Mr. Wang had vacated during that time.

Okay. Thank you.

Anyone else have any questions for staff? Seeing none, does any member of the committee have any questions for landlord or tenant side? Seeing none, we will now move on to deliberation. A motion has been made by vice chair Cox. Would you like to say what your motion is?

Sure. My motion is to accept the tentative decision to the appeal in its entirety.

Second.

Alternate Balch.

Yeah. So I wanted to comment on the landlord's concerns. We've at at each hearing, we we discuss what the provisions of the CFRA are. We review the fact that the voters of the city heavily constrained the board this committee as well as the city council without any discretion to change the operating model of the CSFRA. And in terms of how facts are determined and how we are to agree or disagree of whether the hearing officer made a plausible reasonable conclusion based on the facts that that they determined.

Whether anyone in the community or anyone in this board agrees or disagrees with that setup, that is in fact the setup. And if if a party believes that they've been systemically or systematically neglected or there is bias, there is a judicial recourse. And we talk about that as well at each of these hearings. So that is the situation in the city of Mountain View at this time. And everyone has to basically figure out what is gonna be the right the right response for them and for their situation. And I also do support the motion in this case.

Vice chair Cox?

Yeah. I just wanted to go through a few of the considerations I had in making this motion and to respond also to what the landlord had to say about, you know, the process that we have been going through in doing these appeal hearings. I mean, first thing I want to say is we're here tonight to decide the instant case, not to talk about some systemic thing that has happened on all cases since 2016 up to this time. And so that's really in my mind and I think by our proceedings the only thing that's directly relevant here. So I mean we're just here to talk about this case.

I mean anybody can raise issues about what happened in this case, but the appropriate thing for us to be commenting on is just about this case. The second thing is something that I've repeated and Mr. Balch and others here have repeated, is that the hearing officers have wide discretion in terms of how they weigh their evidence and make their decisions. I mean that's a part of the process. They have to weigh the evidence on each side and then come up with what they think is reasonable.

Mean that's their job. And so, particular, so with regards to whether or not he actually had vacated the unit or not, staff has provided the background for everybody here about how the hearing officer came to that decision and it was based on the fact that they had not only verbal testimony which if there were only that, she still has the right to decide who's more credible. That's her job. And the second thing is, but there was actually additional evidence that was brought up about the airline tickets. So, I mean, the key thing is, again, that's her job.

You know, about the idea of what's a reasonable time, again, that's her discretion. You know, we can weigh whether we agree with her on whether it's reasonable or not, but it doesn't have to be written in the law exactly what is the amount of time. It just needs to be something that's reasonable and we can look at it and we can judge and I think a week is a reasonable amount of time. The third and last comment I'll make on this is that this idea that somehow statistical evidence shows that the work of this committee or the hearing officers is biased because it isn't close to a fiftyfifty win rate. No, I mean these decisions are based on the facts and the weighing of the facts for each individual case.

It is not a statistical probability experiment, okay? It's weighing the facts and deciding each case on its merits. And so I just really don't see, yeah I don't see that as a reasonable way of determining whether or not what we do here is biased. But again, we're here only to talk about the instant case. So anyway, those are my comments and that's my rationale. Rationale.

Member Brown.

Having reviewed the hearing officer's decision and also the hearing itself, I did not see evidence of bias or partiality and so I support upholding the hearing officer's decision.

Member Keating?

Thank you. I would just wanted to speak to the 95% mentioned that were successful petitions, and I think it just to be more precise or clear about this than some of my colleagues have already alluded to is that many tenants do not file petitions because they don't think they have any issue that would win. The petitions the the tenants who file a petition have a situation where they feel they have had a reduction in their standard of living or their habitability, or something that they would prevail in a hearing. And hence, you know, it's a natural selection of the tenants who believe they will win who do go on to file petitions. And I second my comments from other colleagues.

Thank you.

Any other discussion on the motion? I echo the thoughts of my colleagues. I believe that the hearing officer has made reasonable choices that, you know, people are generally unwilling to go through a year long process for adjudication if it was for something really frivolous. So I feel like there is a reason why perhaps a lot of cases may end up one way, but then again let's say like they're not in favor of what the tenant originally presented the original petition. There's always gonna be edits, there's limitations given what we've seen.

Right? A lot of things are thrown up because there is not enough evidence or proof of service. I will be voting on the yes on the motion. With that said, let's go to the vote. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, everybody. Now we move on to item 6.1, hearing officer and settlement conference facilitator remuneration. Other common worker after the presentation item and common committee questions.

Thank you, chair and rental housing committee members. The purpose of tonight's issue is to adopt a fixed hourly rate of $300 for hearing officers, $1.75 for paralegals, and 125 for settlement conference facilitators to be effective per 01/01/2026, and establish an annual cost of living adjustment to be applied at the start of fiscal year thereafter, unless otherwise adjusted by the Rental Housing Committee. As for background, at the beginning of this program in 2017, the rental housing committee adopted a structure for appointing and compensating hearing officers and settlement conference facilitators for petition hearings or settlement conferences. And in 2023, the Rail Housing Committee adopted a revised remuneration scale, which increased the rates and added an annual cost of living adjustment, which schedule can be seen in attachment one of the memo. Due to the growth in the number and complexity of the petitions and some retirement of hearing officers, we need to recruit more hearing officers.

And, we did receive feedback that attracting qualified hearing officers needs consistent and competitive hourly rates regardless of the type of services performed. In the current schedule, we have different rates for different types of work. For instance, time spent at a hearing is rated at $2.87 per hour, whereas the rate for preparation and writing is set at $2.30 per hour. So, in general, these contracted hearing officers are typically paid a flat hourly fee, just like other attorneys, irrespective of the services that they provide. So, based on that research, staff recommends maintaining a standard hourly rate regardless of the type of services provided with the $300 per hour for hearing officers, 175 for paralegals, And so this is a new category requested by some hearing officers to help with the preparation of the hearings, and 125 for conference settlement facilitators, and keeping the current maximum hour cap, which you can see in this overview.

This table compares the current hourly rate increased with the CPI over the last year, the hour caps for each type of service and the recommended rate, proposed. This is also in attachment two of your memo. The fiscal impact of this proposal, the budget allocated for petition hearings is $170,000 and based on the petition volume and types from 2,004, 2005 and assuming similar levels of petitions in 2526, the projected total costs will not surpass that budget using the recommended rate for the second half of this fiscal year. And we will continue to track expenditures throughout the year and update the rental housing committee if any additional appropriations become necessary. So, the recommendation is to adopt these fixed hourly rates of $300 for hearing officers, 175 for paralegals, and 125 for settlement conference facilitators, and continue the annual cost of living adjustment at the start of each fiscal year unless otherwise adjusted by the rental housing committee.

This concludes the presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

Alright. Does any member of the committee have any questions? Alternate Baltz. Yeah. Just out

of curiosity, are the are the qualifications and duties of the hearing officers, are they comparable to to arbitrators that the city works with for alternate dispute resolution? Yes.

So we have regulations that are required to be an attorney. They're required to have experience and training in mediation and adjudication of disputes.

Yeah. And so are the rates that we're talking about for the Rental Housing committee, the hearings, are they comparable to the arbitration program? I'm just curious, do we know higher or lower how we stack up? Oh, you have data here?

Oh, what's happening? Oh, okay. Yeah, they are comparable to other jurisdictions that we have seen using arbitrators and hearing officers. Yes.

And the compensation is of the same order of magnitude? Thank you.

Commissioner Cox.

Yeah. I just, looking over the sheet that you just had up a while ago, it looked like the biggest change would be in cases where a decision comes back on remand. And can you confirm to me, I mean at least on my sitting in this chair here, that's been a pretty rare thing for us.

That's correct.

Okay, so it's likely that that kind of change isn't gonna have a big impact on the whole. And I guess the second thing I wanna confirm is that as you said that we have money already allocated for this, we don't believe that we're gonna run over it by this change and therefore we're not going to have to go back to the landlords and ask for an increase based on this, right?

That's correct. Also, I think we first would discuss whether if there's any over budget, we can use the reserves first before we go back to the landlords.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions from committee committee members? Seeing none, we move on to public comments. I can see we have no public, but, so I would just bring it back to the committee at this this point. Does anyone want to make a motion? Member Brown, what is your motion?

I move to adopt fixed hourly rates of $300 for hearing officers, $175 for paralegals, and $125 for settlement conference facilitators effective 01/01/2026, and establish an annual cost of living adjustment to be applied at the start of each fiscal year thereafter unless otherwise adjusted by the rental housing committee.

That has been seconded by vice chair Cox. Does anyone have any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we'll go on to the vote. Motion passes unanimously. We will now move on to item 6.2 amendments to CSFRA regulations chapter 13 utility charges, public comment worker after presentation item. Committee questions? We'll start with the presentation.

Thank you again. The purpose of this agenda item is to adopt an amendment to the CSFRA chapter 13 utility charges. As you can see, we're in the middle of the process. And the further we come in the process, the more clarifications we need on each step of the process. And as a result of extending the deadline in June 2025 for the submittal of this OTUA one time utility adjustment petitions.

We now need to make an amendment to the calculation of the one time utility adjustment. So, in particular, step eight of the process must be modified to incorporate the latest changes in the CPI. And as you can see on this slide, we're adding one line that says from June 23 to June 25, the CPI increase is 4.7%. And that will be added to step eight of the process. So, the recommendation is to adopt the amendment to modify step eight of the eight step process to incorporate the change in the CPI from 2023 to 2025 at 4.7%.

That concludes the presentation.

All right. Any member have any questions? Alternate Bulch.

Yeah. Thank you. The the CPI being added, does that relate to the how do say this? To the cost of the utilities that are being calculated to add into the base rent? Okay.

Yes. And and so I'm just curious. CPI is a is is an option. Would would there be a more applicable rate, which is the actual rate of increase of the utilities themselves? Because often, gas, electric, and water are are increasing at rates that are not the same as the CPI. The CPI is a blended basket of many different types of commodities and and and costs. So I'm wondering if it would be if it'd be more fair and more just for all parties involved to look at the actual underlying utility costs.

That is an option, but in 2,003, the rental housing committee decided to give the landlord a one time transition period because the utilities are supposed to be part of rent. So, at that period of time, you decided to say utilities can no longer be separate from rent anymore.

Right.

And, we are adopting this eight step process to allow the landlords to transition to that point. So with that, as you can see, we already added one CPI because we're no longer allowed to fully implement any changes in the utilities at any time. So that is the reasoning behind it. And maybe you can give some more.

Yeah. I mean, I understand your question. The issue here is we're in the midst of this onetime utility adjustment process. And in '23, we elected to use CPI. So to change it now would have an impact on petitions that have already been

No. Decided. Thank you. Makes sense.

Any other questions from the committee? Emma Rakiding?

So there are you know, we have the phased by size of the how many units at the property of some the largest landlords have already completed their petition process. And I presume that all of them have, you know, informed their tenants of this either is or will be your one time utility adjustment rent increase. Some of those have not been implemented yet because if they had already taken their rent increase, their annual rent increase, and then they finalize their the utility increase. And so, you know, it's a future time when they'll implement use the the one time utility increase into the rent, and there's still I presume billing rubs and so we've noticed those tenants months back about this is your utility rent increase. Are those gonna get an additional increase?

Are those eligible to get the CPI additional increase on the utility?

No. This is just for pending petitions. So for pending for the petition of a petition that have not been concluded yet and that are still pending. So although all the large properties have submitted their petitions, they have not all been processed. It's a long process for us, and it's a lot of back and forth between staff and landlord to get all the numbers correct, and so not all the properties have been completed yet in that first category.

Okay. Yeah. I was not aware. Thank you. And so for ones that have not been completed yet, this additional CPI will be incorporated into the Final calculations.

Yes. Because they all gave their water and utility bills from 02/2024.

But for petitions for properties where all the it's fully processed and the tenants have been gotten have received notice, that notice remains the final amount. Correct. Thank you.

Any other questions? Seeing none, we move on to public comment. Would any member of the public like to, give a comment on this item? Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the committee for deliberations and feedback. Does anyone else have anything they would like to say, or does anyone would like to make a motion?

Member Brown, would you like to say your motion?

I would move to that we adopt amendments to the community stabilization and fair rent act regulations chapter 13 utility charges as described.

And that has been seconded by vice chair Cox. Is there any discussion on the motion? Member Brown?

I'd just like to say that I'm excited for the day when all of this is concluded.

Seeing that now I'll give my minor comment, which is that, you know, one of the reasons we chose CPI for this is because it's back to the original reason we're doing any of this. Right? We're doing we're treating utilities as lawful rent. And if lawful rent as we do under the AGA is done by CPI U, then so does the utility as our regulation state. So with that said and seeing no more discussion on the motion on the floor, we will go to a vote.

Vote passes unanimously. Thank you everyone. Now we will move on to item seven, committee staff announcements and updates. We'll give it back to staff.

Thank you. Alright. So we'll go over our upcoming workshops. We do continue to have our virtual office hours weekly. For anybody who is listening, the next Tuesday we will have office hours, but the Tuesday after that our office is closed for the holidays.

So we will not be having Tuesday office hours on that day. However, our workshop schedule picks up again in January. So we have a workshop January 13 at 2PM for our property owners and we will be going over registration and our annual fee. And then on the twenty seventh, we will have a tenant focused virtual workshop at 06:30 about evictions and eviction notices and what to expect. Also it's not listed here but on the twenty seventh as well there will be another property registration and annual fee workshop sort of to get anybody who needs to get in before the due date.

And we continue to have our housing help centers we are still doing these every Thursday and we imagine that we will be doing that as long as the utility petition is is still with us and that is virtual and in person from one to three p. M. And we do have our tenant housing help center every first and third Thursdays that is happening now. It's virtual and in person and we have our partners from CSA and CLUSPA and the Mountain View Mediation Program as well as our city staff available. And that concludes the outreach and workshops. Any questions?

Seeing no questions from the committee. Yes. That comes back to me. Item 7.2, expected future agenda items for our meetings. Future agenda item for our next meeting in January is an update on legislation and case law. Or is it legislation legislation or litigation or both? We'll say we'll say both. Legislation and litigation. We'll call it just case law then. Any other comments or announcements any member of the committee would like to make?

Happy holidays.

That was not in order.

Member Brown? Thank you, chair. Happy holidays.

And with that, this meeting is adjourned at 07:09PM. The next rental housing committee meeting is scheduled to be heard on Thursday, twenty second twenty twenty six at 6PM. Bye.