Rental Housing Committee - Regular Meeting

What? We are live.

Good evening. Welcome to the 01/22/2026 rental housing committee regular meeting. This meeting would now be called to order at 06:01PM. I'll proceed with roll call. Do I read it? Okay.

I'm just gonna promote committee member Balch to a panelist.

Mark, we can hear your background. So if you wanted to stay muted until then, Thanks. Committee member Baltz will be participating in this meeting by teleconference pursuant to government code section five four nine five three b from the Hampton Inn hotel one zero eight one ten West twenty fourth Street, New York, New York one zero zero one one in the public lounge. The teleconference location will be accessible to the public and the agenda for the meeting will be posted at that location pursuant to government code section five four nine five three b three. Members of the public have the opportunity to address the legislative body at this location. And all committee members are present. Moving on

Chair Ma under the Brown Act of committee member Balch could let us know if there's anybody older than 18 in the room with him and if so what their relationship to him is.

There are two people who are guests of the hotel unrelated to the proceedings who are finishing their dinner and having a conversation about 10 feet away from me.

Thank you.

Alright. We will now move on to section three, consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the committee wishes to remove an item for discussion. The purpose of the consent calendar is for the committee to efficiently and quickly consider routine or administrative business items with one motion. Public comment will occur after the discussion. We invite you to submit a speaker card now or raise hands on Zoom or press 9 on your phone if you'd like to speak on this item during public comment. Would any member of the committee like to pull an item? Seeing none, I now invite public comments. Seeing none, I'll bring this back to the count committee for action. A motion to approve the consent calendar should include reading the title of the agenda items. Vice Chair Cox.

Alright. I make a motion to approve the consent calendar items. Three point one minutes for the 12/18/2025 RHC meeting and three point two minuteor clarifications in the CSFRA regulations, chapter 13 utility charges. Second.

That is motion made by Vice Chair Cox, seconded by Member Brown. Does anyone have any discussion on the motion? And I believe this has to be done by roll call today.

Yes. All votes need to be done by roll call.

Okay. In that case, we will go to roll call vote. I'll just do from left to right. Member Keating? Yes. Vice Chair Cox? Yes. Member Status Sislip?

Yes. Member

Brown? Yes. And I vote aye. Motion is unanimous. Five zero. Alright. We will now move on to item four, oral communications. We will now open this meeting for oral communications of the public. This portion of the meeting is for persons wishing to address the committee on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to three minutes during the section. State of law prohibits the committee from acting on non agenda items. Would any member of the public like to provide comments on non agenda items? Seeing none, we'll now move on to section five, item 5.1, a new update of outreach and education program. Public comment will occur after the presentation item committee questions. We invite you to submit a speaker card now if you'd like to speak on this item during public comment.

We will start with presentation from staff.

Good evening committee members. My name is Alexel Camacho and I'm an analyst one with the rent stabilization division. Tonight I'll be presenting on agenda item 5.1, an annual update of outreach and education program. The purpose of this presentation is to provide an annual informational update on the outreach and education program of the rent stabilization division, including a summary of activities conducted fiscal year twenty four twenty five and activities planned for fiscal year twenty five twenty six. The rental housing committee requested this annual update to stay informed of the rent stabilization division education and outreach efforts.

This presentation will provide an overview of tasks completed in fiscal year twenty four-twenty five and offers a roadmap of activities to be implemented in fiscal year twenty five-twenty six. A similar presentation was presented to the RHC in the January 2025 meeting. Effective communication, education, and outreach play a crucial role in ensuring that tenants, landlords, mobile home residents, and mobile home park owners are well informed about their rights and responsibilities under tenant protection laws and a clear understanding of these regulations. Our materials were translated into Spanish, Mandarin, and Russian. Our goal is to increase community awareness and understanding of tenant protections in Mountain View.

We do this by following our three objectives supported by strategies. You can read more about this in the memo. In the graph here you could see a summary of outreach and education activities performed in fiscal year twenty four twenty five compared with previous fiscal years. I will go more in-depth in the next slides. Public inquiries remain at the same level as previous year.

Although tenant petition related inquiries leveled off in fiscal year twenty four twenty five, but still 50% higher than fiscal year twenty two twenty three. Registration increase are decreasing because landlords are now more familiar with the system. The division responded to 3,369 increase from the public. Targeted mailing slowed down as we wrapped up our outreach to help landlords and tenants understand the one time utility adjustment petition process. The rent stabilization newsletter was sent to fully and partially covered units reaching both landlords and tenants, mobile home residents, and mobile home park owners.

We decreased the number we increased the number of workshops mostly for a one time utility adjustment petitions for both landlords and tenants. The Housing Help Center and our office hours remain popular among tenants and landlords. Tenants assistance focuses on rent assistance, support with registering for low income housing, and legal help. To assist the one time utility adjustment petition, registration, fee payment, and landlord related issues, weekly housing help center were added. This helped increase compliance.

We expanded our attendance at outreach events to include our vulnerable and hard to reach community members including cafecito, second harvest brown bag food distribution, CSA events, and school events to include families with children. This included back to school nights, open houses, and Dia del Nino. Staff organized our fourth annual summer community kickoff event. It is a family friendly housing focused resource fair in collaboration with community partner organizations. Four sixty six attendees attended our summer kickoff event in 2025.

We continue to implement our customer service feedback. 95% of our clients felt that they received the support they needed 94% of our clients agreed that the information provided to them was helpful 98% of our clients agreed that staff were helpful and courteous Here you can see some of the feedback we received in fiscal year twenty four twenty five. One was from a housing help center attendee, another from a tenant petitioner, and another one from a workshop attendee. These can also be found on our memo. The goals, objectives, and strategies outlined will continue in fiscal year twenty five twenty six including but not limited to the following.

We will continue our outreach campaign on the one time utility adjustment petition and targeted mailings to landlords and tenants. We are in the process of redesigning the rent stabilization divisions web pages as part of the housing department's overall redesign. We will also continue to conduct an annual targeted outreach campaign to landlords about registration requirements, program updates, noticing in compliance requirements. You can see that this has been very helpful as our compliance numbers have increased tremendously over the years. We will continue to conduct an annual we will continue to engage our vulnerable and hard to reach community members throughout workshops, office hours, and community events.

We will continue to evaluate outreach and education program, analyze of our quarterly active status reports, housing help center data, and customer satisfaction surveys. We will also continue to update our rental housing committee on an annual basis. This concludes the presentation. I'm happy to take any questions.

Do any members have any questions? You can just raise your hand if you have any. Vice Chair Cox.

Yes, first of all thank you for giving the testimonials. Think that those are wonderful. They put some flesh and bones on the bare facts and let us see the good work that is coming out of this group. I just had one question and that was about, you know, I noticed that for the hard to reach groups, There was an initial effort last year and then this year there was the same amount of outreach events but fewer participants. And I'm just wondering, I mean, when you guys decide on how to do your outreach, maybe you're doing this already, but I would wonder maybe it's good to reach out to like some community leaders and see if there's places that you could go that you haven't gone like the previous year that would, you know, give you a broader outreach.

Any thoughts on that?

Sure. Yes, we did start that. We do go to the schools. We do go to the cafecito. We do go at open house events at the schools. We are in contact with community organizations such as CAT and other Spanish speaking communities. If we hear of new opportunities, we always embrace that fully and add them to our outreach events.

Okay. I mean, let me ask you this. Did you talk to any people from faith based groups?

Yes. So we are in contact with certain churches to see how we can integrate our outreach with their programs.

Okay. Thank you.

Does anyone else any questions? Mark if you have any questions you can raise your hand. Not a

question just great work with the compliance on the rent registry and fees and all of it. The numbers keep going up and up. Good work. Member Keating?

Were the testimonials all from tenants, or were there a mix of tenant and landlord?

It's a mix. The third one, the bigger one, that was from a landlord who attended an OTUA petition workshop.

Alright. We will now move on to public comments. Anyone who would like to give public comment, please raise hand or submit a speaker card. Seeing none, we'll move back to the committee for deliberations and feedback. Does any member want to give any discussion, feedback, changes by member Brown?

Also, good job, and I'm excited for the summer kickoff again. Does anyone else have any comments, any more direction they would like to give staff? Seeing none we will move on to item 5.2 and again, thanks staff for the presentation. We move on to 5.2, annual update on relevant legislation and case law in California. A public comment will occur after the presentation item and committee questions. We'll begin with the staff presentation.

Yes. Good evening. So Nas and I will be trading off on this. So next slide, please. So the purpose of this is to provide you with an update on relevant, legal changes that have occurred this year and also case law.

So the first thing we wanted to talk about is the Brown Act because you, as the rental housing committee, are subject to the Brown Act in terms of how you conduct your meetings. SB seven zero seven was passed this year, and it was probably the most substantive change to the Brown Act maybe ever, but it's certainly in a long time. There are a lot of provisions in seven zero seven that do not apply to you. They will apply to your city council, but not to you, so we're not gonna go over those. But one of the things we wanted to go over is that the there have been changes about remote attendance by committee members at meetings.

So as the Brown Act now reads after s p seven zero seven was passed, there are two different processes for remote attendance. One, which has been in the Brown Act for quite a while, which is under government code five four nine five three, And that's the procedure that we're using tonight so that committee member Balch can participate. We listed his location on the agenda. The agenda is posted where he is located. People are allowed to attend the meeting from the location where he is, and it's been noticed appropriately.

So that's been in the Brown Act for quite a while. After the pandemic, there were amendments to the Brown Act to allow other options for remote attendance. They were a little complicated. There was a just cause reason, and there was an emergency reason. And it was very unclear as to which was which, and there were different procedures. So seven zero seven has collapsed those. There is only one reason. It's just cause. So members can participate remotely if they have a just cause. There's a whole list of just causes there.

It has to be one of those causes. So, it cannot be any other reason to attend remotely. Next slide. If you're using the Just Cause for attendance, you are supposed to notify the chair, and we would ask you to notify staff as soon as possible. But that may be at the beginning of the meeting, and that is fine.

The minutes of the meeting have to identify the just cause. And you have to give some description of the just cause if you are using that provision. You do not have to reveal medical information. You are also limited in the number of times you can use just cause. So because the rental housing committee meets once a month, you are limited to using just cause for two times in a twelve month period.

So if you exceed that, then you would not be able to attend the meetings. And there is an exception to that if you are attending remotely as a reasonable accommodation because of a disability. And that's a whole different process. Next slide. Regardless of which provision that you are relying on for remote attendance, you are required to use both audio and visual participate.

There is an exception once again for reasonable accommodation. All the votes do need to be right by roll call if anybody is attending remotely. And always we have to have a quorum of the committee attending here. So we can't have a meeting without that. Next slide.

So a couple other provisions of seven zero seven that are relevant. There are some changes about teleconferencing, which is what seven zero seven calls the way we're all conducting meetings now by Zoom, some of which you have been doing for since the pandemic, but they now are more specific. So the agenda does have to include whether the members of the public can participate remotely and how. There is a new provision that if the technology is disrupted during the meeting, you must take a break. And you cannot conduct business until the technology is restored.

So fortunately, you are not what is called a, I think, a qualified legislative body because there, if the technology is disrupted, you must take a one hour break. But you don't have to do that. There are also provisions about allowing sufficient time for people to participate remotely. The statute talks about a reasonable period of time. It doesn't define what that is.

I think the real point here is to allow people who are participating remotely to have sufficient time if they have to register on whatever your platform is, if they have to find the unmute button, whatever it is, you have to allow a little time before you move on to the next item. And then finally, the changes make it clear that the provisions of the Brown Act that currently exist about removing a member of the public who is disruptive, which you can only do in very rare instances, but that also applies to members of the public participating remotely. So it is putting into statute the fact that if your meeting is Zoom bombed, you can cut those people off. Next slide. Okay.

So now into more landlord tenant law, there were several bills this year that made changes regarding mobile homes. AB four fifty six made some changes that essentially require park management to be responsive when somebody wants to sell their mobile home or they want a a new occupant wants to be recognized. If park management doesn't respond to a notice about whether repairs are going to be required within fifteen days, then they cannot require repairs. Also, if they don't approve the purchaser within fifteen business days, then the purchaser is deemed approved. The one thing for mobile homeowners is they now are supposed to provide the disclosures they provide to prospective purchasers, to park management as well.

Next slide. AB eight zero six requires that park management has to allow mobile homeowners to install cooling systems, and there's a bunch of language about what management cannot do. So they can't charge you extra money if you want to add a cooling system. Next slide. SB six ten impacts of disasters is really a response to the LA fires of last January.

There are a variety of provisions. The main ones are that if a tenancy is terminated due to a disaster, the tenant is entitled to a refund of any prepaid rent. So if the disaster occurs on the sixth day of the month and the tenant's already paid rent for that month, they're entitled to get the rest of it back. And the other one that, has been really important for people in the LA fires is that the apartment owners are required to remove the debris from the disaster. That includes ash and smoke and water damage.

That was the big issue in LA. And until the debris is determined not to be a toxic substance, the apartment is considered uninhabitable. So and then there's also a provision of it that will change closure impact reports. If a mobile home park is closed after a disaster because of destruction. There's additional information that has to be provided.

These provisions only apply if it's a disaster that's been declared a disaster by either the president or the governor. Next slide. A few other changes. AB three ninety one, just for our mobile home owners, that there is a change in how you can elect to receive notices from your park management, and you can opt in to email. And then SB five twenty five makes manufactured homes, including mobile homes, subject to the California Fair Plan for property insurance. Next slide. And I think this is Nas.

Yes. Thank you. All right. So next one is AB two forty six. This is, the Social Security Tenant Protection Act.

This is arising out of the government shutdown or shutdowns that we've experienced at the federal level. But basically, this authorizes tenants in California to assert a Social Security hardship as an affirmative defense to an unlawful detainer. A Social Security hardship means any loss of income due to the interruption of Social Security benefits, due to or inaction of the federal government. In order to qualify for this affirmative defense, the tenant must provide evidence that their benefits were terminated, delayed, or reduced through new fault of their own, and that the hardship prevented the tenant from paying the rent that is the subject of an unlawful detainer. So it's worth noting that this is only an affirmative defense to a non payment of rent case.

If the tenant provides the evidence that is required of both of the conditions I just mentioned, then the court has to delay the case until the earlier of fourteen days after the tenant's benefits are restored or six months after the stay is issued by the court. So the affirmative defense, if proven, does not relieve the tenant of their obligation to pay the rent that is owed. So the tenant must either pay the past due rent within fourteen days of restoration of their benefits or enter into a payment plan with their landlord detailing how they will pay back the rent that is owed. And if that requirement is satisfied, the tenant either pays the rent that's owed or enters into a payment plan, then the court must dismiss the case or set aside any judgment against all of the tenants in the case. AB fourteen fourteen, this makes additional changes to security deposit law.

We've seen a number of changes relates to how the balance of the tenant's security deposit is returned. So the statute, the provisions that are added make the default either personal delivery or a check made payable to the tenant and mailed by first class mail postage prepaid. Or if the tenant paid their rent or security deposit electronically, then their security deposit must be returned electronically to their bank account that they use to pay their rent or security deposit or any other virtual payment method agreed upon by the tenant. So, you know, in informal settings like Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, things like that. The landlord and the tenant can mutually agree that the landlord will send the itemized statement that is required for any deductions that are made from the tenant security deposit to the tenant's email rather than mailing it to the tenant.

Landlord must return any balance of the security deposit by check made payable to all adult tenants who are on the lease unless they enter into an alternative disbursement plan or agreement with all of the adult tenants that specifies the percentages of the balance of the security deposit that will be returned to each tenant. 8,628, This might come as a surprise. This seems to be a bigger issue in the LA area, but apparently there are landlords, many landlords in the LA area who do not provide stoves and refrigerators. And so this amends existing law related to habitability to establish an affirmative duty of landlords to provide both a stove and a refrigerator that are maintained in good working order. The landlord and the tenant at the commencement of the tenancy can agree that the tenant will provide and maintain their own refrigerator.

However, that does not exclude the tenant from later notifying their landlord that they want the landlord to provide and maintain a refrigerator. In that case, the tenant has to provide thirty days notice to the landlord that they want them to provide a refrigerator and the landlord has to install the refrigerator at the end of the thirty day notice period and then becomes responsible for maintaining it. AB two ninety nine. So this one also arises out of the Southern California wildfires from last year. But governor had adopted an executive order that basically suspended the rule related to the establishment of a tenancy after thirty days in a hotel, motel or other short term lodging.

So this basically codifies that executive order that the governor had issued and provides that an individual who occupies a room in a hotel, motel or other short term lodgings for thirty or more days or does not become a tenant until they have occupied the room for two seventy days or more. So it extends it from thirty to two seventy days. And there are certain requirements that must be met in order to qualify for this exception or extension. AB fourteen fourteen relates to subscription services. So landlords must now allow tenants to opt out of any subscription from a third party Internet service provider.

If the landlord fails to provide this option, the tenant can deduct the cost of the subscription from their rent and landlord cannot retaliate against their tenant for exercising their right to opt out of this subscription. AB eight sixty three, this is really just super it's informative, but won't impact people directly until 01/01/2027. But basically, this directs the judicial council to create a mandatory use single form summons in English, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Korean for unlawful detainer cases. So that summons will now be quite long because it will be in all of the languages, but that is great because then people will be able to access it in their primary language. And I think back to Karen on

this. Yep. Okay. So that was the legislative highlights. And then there were also some reported cases this year that impacts landlord tenant relations or rent stabilization.

The first one is the California Apartment and Owner Association versus the City of Pasadena. So the CAA challenged Pasadena's charter amendment adopting rent stabilization and just cause for eviction that was passed in 2022. At the trial court, the court upheld the charter amendment, made two minor changes of reformation of items that were preempted, and the CAA appealed. So the California Court of Appeal issued a decision in December, so this is all very fresh. The highlights are that the court found that the charter initiative was appropriately a charter initiative as opposed to a charter revision because charter revisions can only be put to the voters by the legislative body, not by an initiative.

So that was important. Pasadena's rental housing board has a requirement that seven out of 11 of the members have to be tenants, And the CAA challenged that on two grounds. One, that that constituted a violation of the constitution because it required property ownership, as a condition of holding office, and the court did not find that to be a persuasive argument and, basically found, like, no. Actually, it's not property ownership. It's requiring you don't own property.

Fascinating discussion. If you'd like to go back to the California Constitutional Convention of, like, '18 whatever when that item was added to the constitution. And then the court also found that the unbalanced board did not violate landlords' equal protection rights. There were two items that the court did find problematic. One was the provision of the Pasadena Charter Amendment that says that if a landlord imposes a rent increase that is greater than 5% plus the annual general adjustment and the tenant vacates the apartment because of that, the tenant is entitled to relocation assistance.

The, California Court of Appeals found that that was preempted by Costa Hawkins because it restricted the property owners who own, units that have to be exempt from rent stabilization from freely raising their rent. And then they also found a requirement in the charter amendment that landlords give a written notice to cease before commencing eviction proceedings to be preempted by California law that regulates eviction protections. The city of Pasadena is filing a request for review with the, California Supreme Court, but solely on the item regarding the, rent increase and relocation. Next slide. And then we have c p six Admirals Cove LLC versus the city of Alameda.

This is a case that involved former Navy housing that the, a developer bought and rehabbed and then put on the market and claimed that, the housing was exempt from the city's rent stabilization on the basis that Costa Hawkins exempts any units that receive a certificate of occupancy after 02/01/1995. The property owner made a variety of arguments, including that they got a new certificate of occupancy because of the rehab and that also that the housing was never part of the rental housing stock because it was limited to members of the Navy. The California Court of Appeal did not buy either of those arguments and followed some presidential case law with regard to this provision in Costa Hawkins and found that the housing is subject to the city's rent stabilization. Next slide. I think it's Nas.

Yeah. Okay. So Anaheim mobile states versus the state of California, so this relates to a new law that the state legislature passed in 2021 that placed a cap on rent increases for tendencies in mobile home parks that are located within and governed by two or more incorporated cities. So it applies to, I think, maybe two or three mobile home parks in the state. Nonetheless, mobile home park owner to whom this does apply filed suit against the state alleging statute is facially unconstitutional because it lacks a fair return rent adjustment mechanism.

And really, we're just flagging this because there's a really good discussion by the appellate court which upheld this new law placing the rent caps, explaining that the existing case law, Birkenfeld, Kavanaugh, cases that you have likely heard of, do not stand for the proposition that a rent control law must have a fair return adjustment mechanism to be constitutional. Rather, the fair return rent adjustment mechanism is exactly that, a mechanism by which a law that is otherwise facially confiscatory can be made constitutional. So there's no requirement that this be included in the law. And then the last eviction cases. So this arose out of an appeal a tenant's appeal of a trial court's decision that entered judgment for a landlord in an unlawful detainer case based on the tenant's nonpayment of rent.

And the appellate court agreed with the tenant basically that the landlord's three day notice to pay rent or quit did not strictly comply with state law requirements. It didn't state that the tenant would lose possession of the rental unit if they did not pay the rent that was owed before the three day notice period expired. It did not state when the notice commenced or ended or that the notice period did not include weekends and judicial holidays, and it also did not provide a clear address where and the days and times when the tenant could pay the rent owed. And so again, this is just really reinforcing that, you know, eviction notices must strictly comply with the requirements of state law in order to be actionable in a lawsuit. I think that's our last one.

Thank you. We will now move on to questions from committee members. If you have any questions, vice chair Cox.

Yeah. Just on on, two things. One is and I wanna thank you for by sending questions before, so thank you for the answers that you provided me. That's why this is a much shorter list because there's only one there that I didn't quite get in the answer. That had to do with AB six twenty eight with the this is the refrigerator stove thing.

And what it says there in the last thing in the staff report under that item, these provisions apply only to leases that are entered, amended, or extended on or after 01/01/2026. And so I mean, I understand that you quoted this back in terms of the limitation of its applicability, but here's the case I'm thinking of and let me give you the for instance and you can tell me what the answer would be in this case Because I'm not sure I understand completely what the three terms legally mean. I'm thinking about a case where you have somebody who has, is in a rent control department and they are getting a year to year lease and sometime after January their lease is coming up for renewal. So one question is I would have taken that as an extension of the lease at that point. You can correct me if that's not what that means but at that point what I'm wondering is if it's rent controlled under the CFRA, I mean who pays for the refrigerator or the stove if it's not there?

The answer we got back from staff was that it might require a joint agreement, but how can that be if it's a requirement under California law?

Yeah, and I think that the language of the statute is not super clear what happens in the case of like a month to month tenancy that continues. You know, I think that in comparison, there's another law that we talked about, new statute that we talked about that specifically talks about tenancies that are continued on a month to month or other periodic basis. And it says the provisions do apply to those whereas this one doesn't. And so I would read that to mean that in a scenario where a rent control tenancy is continuing on a month to month basis, this new affirmative duty does not apply unless the parties go through the joint petition process and agree that the landlord is going to provide a refrigerator and a stove. Now in the case of

a

renewal that you're talking about where maybe there's a longer term lease, I mean, I guess the statute is really just not clear. Renewal is not necessarily an extension, and there's not it's not defined in the statute. So I mean, I would say that to be safe, they should go through the joint petition process. But, you know, I think I'll I don't know if Karen has other thoughts on how to interpret that provision. It's really not clear.

Well, okay, I'll just take that, that it's not clear. It's not the first time I read a piece of legislation where everything wasn't Right. Okay, I mean, so thanks for your efforts in trying to understand that. I'm gonna take it to be that if somebody push comes to shove, it'll probably get decided in the court somehow. The other thing I wanted to ask about was this Anaheim Mobile Estates lawsuit, and in particular, I mean, the comment that where it says since the park owner had not demonstrated that section seven ninety eight thirty five was confiscous story in all cases or in a majority of cases, then they had not demonstrated the need for fair return rent adjustment mechanism and that struck me just as strange and I want know if you have any comments back on it.

Why it seems strange to me is that to require it to be problematic unless you can show all or majority of cases have a problem with it, I mean, I know that when you're in business, I mean some people have access, some business owners have access to services from people at a cheaper rate, maybe just because they've held it for a long time or they have some other agreement. And so the cost basis isn't always the same for all landlords. So, I wouldn't have thought that that would have been a justification. You know, I would have agreed I guess with the first judgment and not with this one. But what do you guys think?

Yeah, so because this was a facial challenge, so in the law there's facial challenges which just talk about the law as it's written not applied to any specific case, and then there are as applied challenges which relate to a specific in this case a specific landlord's case of whether or not they are being denied a fair return. And so on its face, it's possible that a law could be confiscatory and the standard that the courts have set in order to demonstrate that something is facially unconstitutional because it denies landlords a fair return is that it denies landlords in all or a majority of the cases a fair return just based on what it says on its face. And so I'll give you the example of where this came from, which is the Birkenfeld case, where basically their process was in order to get they didn't have any in the first version the Berkeley rent control law, they did not have any annual adjustment. So in order to get a rent increase, you had to apply for it. And you could not they didn't have any rules around consolidating petitions.

So if you had 100 units, you had to do 100 petitions, 100 hearings before the Berkeley Rent Board. And so in that case, in looking at how the law was written, the court said this is going to deny landlords in all or a majority of the cases in Berkeley a fair return because it's going to take so long and it's so burdensome to get any sort of rent increase. And so basically that's sort of the framework that courts now use to assess it. And so because this law, the one that was in question in the Anaheim mobile estates case provides for an annual adjustment of a certain it's more difficult to demonstrate that it's going to be confiscatory, it's going to deny landlords a fair return in all or a majority of cases. And so that's the idea.

That does not mean that this landlord in this case can't come back and do a facial challenge, I mean, as applied challenge and say, Well, here, I'm showing you why I'm being denied a fair return by this law. And in that case, it might be unconstitutional as applied to that landlord, which is different than it being unconstitutional as applied in general on its face. Does that make

sense? That does make sense. Thanks for clarifying it. Mean the main thing I was trying to get at is, and I think you confirmed, is there is some legal mechanism by which a particular landlord, if he felt he was in a disadvantaged situation relative to the majority, that, you know, he could make a case and, you know, you would get a judgment.

Yeah. And I just I mean, part of this is to overturn a statute on a facial challenge is a high threshold. Okay. The court set a high bar for that. Whereas on an applied challenge, it's only gonna impact that person.

Mhmm.

In this instance, I do think there's only a single mobile home park that's affected by Yeah.

It could be because it has to be

between two cities and more than one.

No. No. I think it's the only one.

Okay. Okay. Thank you for that.

We'll move to alderman member Bolch. I see your hand is raised.

Yes, thank you.

I had

a question about the Brown Act. Yes, can you hear me?

Yes. Yes,

yes. I have a question about the Brown Act changes specifically around Just Cause. I'm wondering if I have Just Cause today because I am traveling but not on official business for the city of Mountain View. I'm traveling for my you know, career or my my employer. So what is the what is the appropriateness of my remote participation in situations like I have tonight?

So for a just cause, if it's travel, it has to be travel on business for the city of Mountain View or if you're actually traveling for official business of the state or some other public agency. So if you were employed by the state and you had to travel, theoretically, that would work even though it's not Mountain View business. But traveling for your job for a private employer is not a just cause.

Right. So in other words, am I in violation at this moment?

No. Because we posted on the agenda where you would be located, and you are posting the agenda where you're at. You are in a public place where members of the public could actually attend if they wanted to. So that's been the provision in the Brown Act for quite a while that you can post the agenda. To use the provision you used, the main issue, and I'm just saying this again so everybody knows, if you're gonna rely on this, you have to tell us in time so that we can put it on the agenda.

So your situation does not fall under the just cause?

Right. It falls under the other remote attendance provision. So but if you're traveling for business and you wanna attend a meeting remotely, give us a lot of advance notice because we do have to put it on the agenda, which has to get posted seventy two hours in advance of the meeting. And you do have to post that agenda where you're located, and you have to be someplace where you would be willing to allow member of the public come and speak at the meeting. So

Yes. Yes. Definitely confirmed there. And so, am I also subject to the, two meetings per year limit?

No. That only applies to Just Cause.

Okay. Okay.

Thank you very much.

They just like to make it confusing.

Thank you.

No problem. Okay. Member Keating.

So just to follow-up on the Brown Act and attending remotely. So really it's discretionary to be a long standing option. So it can be for any reason. You you can be on vacation or

Yes. But remember, you have to be willing to allow members of the public to attend where you're attending. So if you just wanna stay home, you theoretically could do that as long as we posted the agenda, but you have to let members of the public come into your home. Noted. Thank you.

So then my other question is on the SB six ten and I just wasn't having trouble imagining the benefit of this. I mean, I just like more detail if it's available on the section that says apartment owners are required to remove debris caused by disaster including ash, smoke, mold, odor, and water damage in a timely manner. So I noticed it doesn't go all the way to make the place inhabitable again, but it just says get rid of the debris.

So this does come out of the LA fires. So there were a lot of issues after the LA fires and that tenants did not wanna return to their units. Their units were not burned, but their units had ash or smoke. And landlords were denying responsibility to clean that up and telling the tenants you have to keep paying your rent. So that's the purpose of s b six ten is to say no.

It's actually is the landlord's responsibility to take care of those items. You know? So theoretically, the unit is habitable except for the fact that there's a bunch of debris from the fire. That's the thinking behind it, and that was the case for a lot of rental units in Southern California.

Helpful. Yeah, Thank

I will note that the statute does have one provision that says that until a determination has been made by a local public health agency or official that the debris from the disaster has like doesn't contain toxic substances, then the presence of the debris at the the rental unit is presumed to make the tenant of the rental unit untenable subject to Civil Code section 1941.1. So until a determination, so there might be ash and debris, but if a public health official has made a determination that it doesn't contain any toxic substances, then that presumption doesn't apply. But if such determination has not been made, then it is presumed to be not tenable.

Right. And just to note, so even though it's untenable until the debris is removed, the tenant has a right to return once it's removed. So that's another provision because, once again, that was another issue in LA where landlords were saying, okay. Well, then you're out, and I'm gonna re rent this to somebody else.

Member Sotzyslip?

In the Pasadena case, the the holding around the notice to cease, does that impact the CSFRA?

We are looking into that.

Does anyone else have any other questions? Seeing none, we move on to public comment. If you like to if you're a member of the public and you would like wish to provide comment on this item, please raise hand on Zoom or press 9 on your phone. Seeing neither, we will go back to the committee for deliberations and feedback. Does any member of the committee have any feedback or deliberation or just direction to staff? Member Haslip?

It's not direction or anything. I just looked up. I was curious about the Anaheim Park, and it's not subject to any local rent stabilization so I think it has vacancy decontrol. Am I correct? So just wanna point out that if there's vacancy decontrol, the fair return is likely not an issue just to lessen the concern about the holding.

Right. I think the other reason why the Anaheim case is interesting is because the Tenant Protection Act does not have a fair return process.

Yeah.

So that has always been curious to me. So now we have some clarity that it's not needed.

Seeing no other discussion, deliberation, or feedback, we will bring we'll move on to item six, committee staff announcements and updates. We'll provide it back to staff. Thank

you. So we will start off with our upcoming office hours and workshops. We continue to hold our Tuesday virtual office hours. And underneath that, you'll see our workshop schedule for the remainder of January into February. So we're sort of rounding out our property owner registration and annual fee workshops right before the due date of January 31.

So we'll be holding that virtually at two 02:00 on January 28. And finally, we have there on January 30, a tenant focused understanding the utility adjustment petition workshop at 06:30, and that's sort of focused on tenants who may be receiving their rent adjustments in the mail so they can understand how that affects them moving forward.

And then we are going to

have another landlord focused workshop February 6 for submitting utility adjustment petitions. And we continue to hold our housing help center for landlords every Thursday. They have been very busy lately because of the due dates for registration and fee payment and those are from one to three. People can join virtually or come to our office. And our housing help center for tenants continues to be the first and third Thursday of each month from six to eight p.

M. Again that is hybrid And during the tenant help center, have our staff available and our partners with community legal services, CSA, and Project Sentinel. Any questions about upcoming events?

Seeing none online or in person. When we all move on to item 6.2, expected future agenda items for RC meetings, the expected future agenda item for the next meeting, 02/26/2026, is an annual update on the registration fee payment compliance as well as an appeal. One? One appeal? K. Just checking. Will that require translation? Okay. Translation will require for that meeting. Look forward to it.

Are there any other comments or announcements from members or staff? Seeing none, this meeting is adjourned at 06:59PM. The next Randell House and committee meeting is scheduled to be held on Thursday, February 26 at 6PM.