Planning Commission - workshop

Hey, thank you for joining for the one time utility adjustment petition process for utilities to be included in rent tenant focused workshop and we are going to be skipping the Spanish interpretation, just for the recording. And thank you for joining. So, We are in the midst of the one-time utility adjustment petition process. This was initiated because under the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act, the definition of rent includes utilities, and there are certain stipulations around what is allowed, what types of rent increases are allowed, the cadence of those rent increases. And the way that utilities fluctuate month to month is not allowed under that law. So many tenants pay utilities separately from their rent and directly to the landlord or a third party billing system such as conservice. So that monthly fluctuation wouldn't be allowed under the law. And this process, the one-time utility adjustment petition process, is to phase out those non-submetered utilities that are being paid to a landlord and incorporate that amount into a tenant's rent. This is just to note for only fully covered units under the CSFRA. You're able to find out if your unit is covered under the CSFRA on our website. There's a map where you can type in the address. So it's only for covered units. So what type of utilities are included in this definition of rent? Any utilities charges that are paid by the tenant directly to the landlord or through a third party billing service. So generally what that looks like is water, sewer and trash. But sometimes electricity and gas is also included in this if there's common space utilities that are electric and gas that the tenants are paying for, such as like a pool or something like that. Or in some rare cases, the units are not sub metered for gas and electricity. So something like PG&E, if you're paying directly to them, that would be exempt from this process. So the Rental Housing Committee updated the regulations and stated that starting March 1, 2024, the use of RUBS is no longer allowed. So the total rent must include all utilities. So for any tenancies that started on March 1 or onward, they would have to include utilities in rent. If that is not the case, if it was a tenancy that started prior to March 1, 2024, that's when this one-time utility adjustment petition process would begin. So what is the one-time utility adjustment petition? Basically, it's a process we're going through to assign an amount of money that a landlord can add to the total tenant's rent, so a fixed amount. This will prevent fluctuation. That generally happens with utilities, kind of seasonally oftentimes. So the outcome of the one-time utility adjustment petition process would be that your current rent plus the separate utility adjustment would be added, and that would be your total rent amount. And landlords have to file a petition with our office by deadlines that have already passed. to be allowed to qualify for this process. And it's the only time that this is allowed. So if they did not submit it, they would not be allowed to add any amount and going forward, it would be assumed that utilities are included. So to calculate this utility adjustment, our office is going through a lot of information for all of the different units or properties. So we've taken in utility bills, common area facility information, and general unit information, such as room count, if units have kitchens, living rooms, et cetera. And we're compiling all of this information, and we have a calculation that the Rental Housing Committee has approved to lead to what the amount is for each unit. So it's a pretty lengthy process. We're quite in the middle of it right now. So I'm going to walk through the different steps that we are taking and what the landlord steps are so you can get a sense of what has been happening and how tenants are involved and can engage in the process. So a landlord submits the property by petition form, which is something that we created and they input all of the information into. Next, we are reviewing those petitions in order of receiving them. So generally we're going through the larger properties first. We review the petition for completeness, make sure all of the utility bills and the information provided in this big workbook are adding up, make sure everything looks accurate. And then if complete, we let them know that it's finished and that we approve that step. And then the landlord will serve the tenants the petition. At the same time, city staff will send a notice of filing to tenants that includes a tenant response form. So if there's anything that's inaccurate in the petition, they can let us know. And that initiates a 30 day tenant response period. Oh, go ahead. Alexander.

I saw an application that you want me to speak and. I guess I do have one thought. So first of all, I love this whole concept. I think utilities should be rolled up on rent and takes a win out of sales on PG&E. My question is, what about All the other utilities, like when it comes to, because you said we cover water, gas, electric, which is great. What about garbage that's managed by the city? I'm guessing. What other utilities that would not be covered on this adjustment?

Yeah. So garbage would be included in this process as well. So, um, generally water, sewer, trash, gas, and electricity are the, the utilities that this process covers something like, you know, wifi, um, maybe like cable, those types of utilities are outside of the purview of what the, um, the regulations say. So like at this time, that's not something that we're able to kind of regulate or facilitate any sort of process, but, um, beyond, yeah, the five utilities that I just mentioned. We can't, as city staff, do anything at this time, but yeah. Does that answer your question?

It does. I just have a follow-up question of curiosity. For affordable housing, like, you know, establishments run by a city, like, you know, would Wi-Fi potentially be considered, like, a utility for those properties, or would that still be separate? You know, I...

I don't want to give incorrect information. I'm truthfully not sure how they manage Wi-Fi at those properties. I think it's likely property-to-property dependent.

Okay, very well. Thank you. Yeah.

Okay, so... During the tenant response period you're going to receive multiple pieces of information in the mail and you'll receive the tenant response form from our office, which will have a unique ID and then you're going to receive a PDF version of. the workbook that your landlord submitted with all of the information. This process, we're actually in the process of sort of transitioning away from the PDF workbook. And if you're watching this video, you might actually be receiving a document that has just the specific information from your unit, but we're still in the process of changing that. So for now, tenants will receive a PDF packet that is the workbook, the petition, and any additional information. And what we need from you the tenants is for you to review the petition information and make sure the information about your unit is accurate because the amount of rooms in each unit changes what the amount, the utility adjustment is for your specific unit. You have 30 days to respond to that also if you disagree with any information. And then this just kind of shows the current piece that you'll the things that you'll be receiving but again this might be changing shortly so after the tenant response period um staff will review the petition again and any tenant response period or tenant responses to make sure that everything is accurate if um something you know the tenant response change something which we've had in the past some mistakes that have been you know administrative errors that have been caught um that can change the outcome of the petition process for all of the units so it's really helpful when tenants respond um we may request additional information such as like a lease or something along those lines um so we'll do a final review of the calculations and everything um make any edits that are needed um and then what we're gonna do is take the average utility charges from each unit. So for the same period of time that we were looking at the utility bills, what we'll do is look at how much was each tenant actually charged through the ratio utility billing system. then we'll compare those two and see, is the amount that we're assigning that unit specifically, is it higher than what they had been paying previously or lower? And some of those differences come in just the difference in the calculations. Neither are specifically based on the usage because there's no submeters for these types of utilities. And so it's, yeah, just a different approach to the calculation. So inherently there's gonna be a little difference in how much people are assigned. So next, we will be sending the landlord and then also the tenants a notice of final determination, which will state the final amount that you will be assigned. As you can see, it'll say if it's a downward or an upward adjustment, and you will be able to review the actual utility amounts that you paid to make sure that that's accurate as well. And so depending on if the utility adjustment is higher or lower than what you've been previously paying, this will change when that adjustment can be implemented. So if your utility adjustment is a downward adjustment, so it's less than what you had been previously paying through RUBS, then that has to go into effect basically as soon as administratively possible. So the landlord has about 60 days for that to go into effect. It kind of gets rounded up but approximately 60 days. So they have 30 days to send a rent decrease notice to the tenants. And then after that, there's 30 more days that will go into effect, and then it will go into effect. So once the one-time utility adjustment is added to the tenant's rent, they are no longer responsible for paying rubs, although there may be some prior month, like if you're billed in rears, so if you're, you know, get the July bill a month after July, you may have a little bit of overlap, but beyond that, you will be not responsible for those REBS charges. If it's an upward adjustment, so the opposite, it's more than what you've been previously paying, the landlord cannot add that to your utility or to your rent until you're eligible for your next rent increase, which is one year after your prior rent increase. So that wraps up the information about the utility adjustment petition process. If you need any additional assistance, have further questions, this is just another resource we offer. We have a housing help center for tenants where we have a legal aid organization that joins, community services agency, which has various resources for the community. Staff will be there to assist with any other questions that you might have, such as habitability concerns. interest in filing a petition for a decrease in housing services, if there's any of those things that are applicable, we can help you out there. And then sometimes we have an affordable housing provider. HouseKeys also joins us every so often at the Help Center. And that's it. If you need to get in touch with us, this is our contact information. Do you have any final questions, Alexander?

Yeah, thanks Amanda for all of that. That was fantastic and really detailed. So I did have one or two items and then we can call it quits. So I found that was very interesting and also very... Exciting that tenants are no longer responsible for utility adjustments. That's good. But you mentioned something about adjustments for costs in general. And even though we're expecting annual rent increases per landlord, but is there a possibility with this adjustment and with involvement by the city that we could be looking at maybe lower rents or lower costs of things potentially?

Yeah. So per the CSFRA, the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act, there's no mechanism beyond the petition process to decrease rents. And so generally, we release the annual general adjustment every year, which caps rent between 2% and 5% every single year. The instances where rent would potentially be lowered is if you were, for example, a experiencing a reduction in housing services. So if you, you know, had a pool or like a parking spot or something like that, and that was in your original tenancy, but then that was removed later, you could file a petition with the office and then we could decrease or there would be a formal process where a hearing officer would hear the case and potentially require a decrease in rent. Generally, the city can't necessarily initiate like a massive you know, or a like blanket rent decrease, that's not within our capacity.

Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. So, um, and then I guess my, uh, my last question would be, uh, cause it looks like, you know, this, this rule, this law is, or this rule is law, uh, up until 2024. So like, or from March 1st, 2024 onward. Um, so, um, Do you have any information on how this would affect developer, landlord, and future renters' relationships with the new property coming up?

Yeah, so the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act is only, it doesn't apply to new buildings. So it would be, they are able to build the utilities as they will. We have no control over the rent increases. in those situations because they're not covered by our law. So yeah, this, it would not affect them.

So in other words, like, you know, new tenants for new buildings, like, you know, some of the stuff that's being built around town right now, this would not apply to any of those folks.

Yes. Yeah, that is correct.

Interesting. Okay. Well, that's it for me, Amanda. Thank you very much.

Wonderful. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate it.

All right. Have a good night.

Yeah, you too. Thank you, Alexander. Bye.

Bye.

Thanks, Jason. Sorry you didn't come in or we didn't end up doing any interpretation. All right. Well, that concludes our presentation. So thank you for listening.

Oh, sorry. I was listening, but I couldn't find the mute thing.

No problem. Sorry that you, yeah, we didn't have any need for interpretation, but thank you for joining.

I'm in that. Sorry, I got to stop my camera off. Yeah, no, that's no problem. I mean, that happens, you know, so it's just good to have the, you know, have interpretation available. Totally.

Just in case. Yeah.

Okay. Totally. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I don't think we've met before, so it was nice meeting you.

Yeah, I don't think so either. Do you work with MEP a lot?

Uh-huh. Yeah. This is the first time I've done one of these workshops. But yeah, we do. I do a lot of city council meetings. Oh, awesome. And petition hearings, that kind of stuff.

Okay, super cool. That's great. Well, it's good to meet you. How long have you been with Mountain View?

About three years now.

Nice. Awesome.

Yeah.

Cool.

All right. Well, I will see you next time.

Yeah, thanks so much. I appreciate it. Good night.

No problem. Good night. Yeah.