Rental Housing Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the 11/20/2025 rental housing committee regular meeting. This meeting is called to order at 06:03PM. I'll proceed with the roll call. I see all members are present. Moving on to item 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 discussion. We invite you to submit a speaker card now if you'd like to speak on this item during public comment.

Would any member of the committee like to pull an item? Pulling an item? If you're commenting, we can do that later. Commenting. Oh, we can do that afterwards. Okay. Okay. I now invite public comments. In person public comments will be called to speak first. Any member of the public wishing to provide virtual comment on on consent calendar items, please click the raise hand button on Zoom or press star nine on your phone. This is for consent calendar. Seeing none, I will now bring the item back for committee action. A motion to approve the consent calendar should include reading the title of the agenda items.

Do I get the comment?

Vice chair Cox.

Okay. Thank you. I just wanna make a few short comments on item 3.3, rent stabilization division activity report for quarter one of fiscal year twenty twenty five twenty six. Just something stuck out in the report and I thought they were worth noting. One is that there's a new high in notices to cease and so that's a little bit concerning.

But the failure to pay rent notices is at a very low point, which is good. As far as the market conditions, the vacancy rate for the newly built units is down to 10.6%, which is about a drop of 3%, which is a positive thing. And for fully covered units, it's down to 3.5%, which means that it's getting harder and harder to find a rent controlled unit in Mountain View which is somewhat of concern. The rents for the newly built units are actually up to 4,461 per month and for fully covered units it's still around 28.96 which is a ratio of means that the rents for the newly built units are 54% higher which is down 1% from last time but is still stubbornly high so there's a big discrepancy between the newly built units rents and fully covered units and so that's a troubling situation for our city. Anyway, those are my comments.

Thank you for letting me make them.

And anyone else would like to speak? Otherwise, a motion is in order. Elijah Coxson.

I make a motion to accept the consent calendar, all the items, including three point one minutes for the 10/23/2025 RHC meeting. Item 3.2, community stabilization and fair rent act and mobile home rent stabilization ordinance financial expenditures for quarter one of fiscal year twenty twenty five-twenty six. And item 3.3, rent stabilization division activity report for 2526.

And that has been seconded by a member Emily Stotts Hislop. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we'll go to vote. Motion passes unanimously. Now we will move on to item four. This is oral communications. We will now open the meeting for oral communications from the public. This more portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the committee on any matter that is not on today's agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits committee from acting on non agenda items.

Would any member of the public like to provide comments on non agenda items? If you are online, please raise your hand or on phone, star nine. If you're in person, please bring a speaker card. Seeing none, we will now move on to item five, the appeal hearing. This agenda item will include in person Spanish interpretation.

Please see one of the interpreters to receive a translation headset. The original 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, RRC 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 RRC is to be based on the record presented to the hearing officer.

Information disclosed to an RRC 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 to public comment for agenda item 5.1. Are there members of the public who are not parties to the petition who would like to speak? If you're online, please raise hand or press 9 on your phone. Seeing none, we will move on to agenda item 5.1, appeal of hearing officer's decision regarding petitions numbers twenty four twenty five forty, twenty five twenty five forty four, and 242549. We'll now proceed with the hearing.

Yes. And good evening. I'd like to introduce you to Estrella Lucera and from my office who is gonna present this appeal.

Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Wonderful. And I can hear you. Thank you so much, chairman. So the purpose of this agenda item, we're gonna be considering tentative appeal decision. You all, at least on the committee, have seen these first slides very often, so we're going to paraphrase the next few. We can just move to the next slide.

Estrella, I'm just going to say this is being interpreted, so you may need to slow down a little.

Oh, great. Okay. We can interpret that first part.

Just you need to speak slowly. Okay.

Okay, great. Should I continue, or has the translation happened? Go ahead. Okay, great. So we can move to the next slide. We're going to hit all of these. So staff believes that there is sufficient information in the hearing record. We are recommending against a de novo hearing or remand. Obviously, the final decision is in the hands of the committee, but we are recommending record. Next slide.

So just a reminder that the committee must use the substantial evidence standard when you're reviewing the hearing officer decision. That is, you're determining if the hearing officer decision is justified by the evidence in the record. You're not determining your own conclusion based on that evidence. Next slide. Again, the committee shall not hear or find facts in addition to the ones that are already in the hearing record.

So we'll go over this again, but as some table setting, in this case there are three petitions from two tenants consolidated for this one hearing, so the scope of the appeal is limited by the appealing parties and appealed elements. Here we had one tenant appeal, two landlord appeals. So this will become clear as as we keep moving forward, but there are some limits to the scope of review. Okay, so the schedule here is a little different than what we typically see in an appeal hearing. As I mentioned, we have a consolidated petition with two tenants.

One of the two tenants submitted an appeal and so did the landlord. The tenant from Unit 11, Mr. Negrete, submitted a complete appeal first, so he is referred to as the appellant tenant. The landlord is referred to the respondent landlord, even though they also submitted an appeal. And the tenant from Unit 25 who did not submit an appeal but had an appeal submitted for the Unit 25, that tenant from Unit 25 is referred to as respondent tenant.

So as you will see in the schedule for this evening, we are going to proceed as follows. The appellant tenant from unit oh, well, you can read it, but, you know, if if there are any questions, let us know. Note that folks have ten minutes for the first argument, five minutes for rebuttals, but we're allowing twenty minutes for translations and up to ten minutes for translations on the second half. Okay. We'll move into summary of the petitions.

So this is a consolidated this petition consolidated three petitions pertaining to two units. They are petitions for downward adjustment basis of decreased housing services. The first kind of pool relates to both Unit 11 and Unit 25 that the landlord decreased housing services for both units, all units, by removing the pool, removing a assigned covered parking space and eliminating a second unassigned uncovered parking space, and removing small storage units located at the carports. The second issue was that the landlord decreased housing services in Unit 11 only by failing to sufficiently intervene and mitigate harassing, disturbing actions of a neighbor towards the tenant in Unit 11, the upstairs neighbor's behavior towards the downstairs neighbor, Unit 11. All right, summary of the hearing decision.

So the hearing officer found that petitioners had met their burden of proof, that they had suffered a reduction in housing services related to the pool, the parking and the storage units without a sufficient corresponding in rent reduction in rent. We wanted to draw attention to the fact that the landlord did voluntarily offer a rent reduction. That's in the first column. And so the issue here was, was that reduction sufficient? And the hearing officer found that the voluntary reduction was not enough, and so she ordered these higher amounts.

Although the detail isn't presented here on the slides, each of those dollar amounts are justified in the hearing officer decision and are based off of evidence in the hearing record. So the hearing officer took into account testimony, took into account submitted documents from the tenants, and did her own research to confirm what she was able to. I don't know if we want to break down the amounts here, but maybe we can get to it with questions. All right, next slide. So on that second issue that affects only Unit 11, the hearing officer found that the petitioner did meet his burden of proof, suffered reduction in housing services related to the loss of quiet enjoyment due to the behavior of the tenant, a neighbor that was not sufficiently mitigated by the landlord.

So moving on to a summary of the appealed elements. Both the landlord and tenant submitted appeals, but we're going to run through elements first, then the landlord appealed elements. So our appellant tenant appealed three elements. One argues that the hearing officer erred in awarding 165 for the parking, did not take it and that the officer did not take into account increased wear and tear on vehicles that are parked in an open air lot now. Second, that the hearing officer erred in awarding 162 for loss of storage units and did not sufficiently take into consideration the inconvenience of going to and from the storage units and three, that the hearing officer erred in awarding only 165 per month for the loss of quiet enjoyment as that did not adequately value the tenant's peace of mind.

Next slide. The respondent landlord appealed two elements. One, that the hearing officer erred in finding that there was any reduction in housing services related to the loss of the second parking space and two, that the hearing officer erred in awarding 162 per month for the storage units, that was too high. The tentative appeal decision, as you'll see, affirms the hearing officer's decision in its entirety. So we are the tentative appeal decision kept the same amounts for each of the appealed elements.

So in response to the appeal appellant tenant appealed elements, keeping the reduction for loss of parking at $165 per month, keeping the reduction for the loss of storage units at $162 per month, which I believe the hearing officer justified it with $137 for the loss of storage unit plus $25 per month for transportation and inconvenience, And maintaining a reduction of 165 per month for the loss of quiet enjoyment. So this one would incur well, they all incur refunds, but specifically for the loss of quiet enjoyment, that once situation has been sufficiently dealt with, the rent would jump back up. All right. And similar to the respondent landlord elements, the attentive to field decision does find that the loss of the second parking space is a reduction in housing services despite the fact that the second parking space was never in the written lease agreement. There was evidence of oral agreements, and there was a history of habitual use of a second parking space.

And that housing services, as defined in the CSFRA, is not limited to the four corners of the lease. And so tenants are entitled to that $165 per month reduction and affirming that the loss of the storage units is appropriately set at $162 per month. You've seen these slides before, but any decision by the committee could potentially lead to litigation, which would have an impact. And we are recommending you to consider the tentative appeal decision, either accepting it or modifying with instructions. And that's the end of our staff presentation.

All right then. We will now move on to the addresses. Well, the fellow tenant miss Vinaigrette or their representative please come to the podium if you're speaking in person or click the raise hand button on Zoom if you'd like to speak. The speech timer will be displayed on the screen. You will have twenty minutes to allow for interpretation.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening. I have two declarations. First of all, I never thought that the mediator, the official that mediated our case committed any kind of error in their calculations. According to me, all of their calculations were correct in the reduction of services that occurred in my unit or in the apartment complex. Second of all, I'd like to state that in no way do I mean any disrespect towards Mr.

Orvik. We respect him. The only problem that we had was with the way that he managed the building and the situation that we're in. I believe that when damage has occurred, that that should be resolved and that we should be, you know, that damage should be restored or we should be refunded for any kind of damage that occurs. For example, just because I don't have the storage space that I had before, I spent $3,031 this year just in storage costs alone.

That doesn't include any kind of inconvenience or the transportation costs of any of my goods. And I'm not really worried about the money. All I want is my storage place back, and I'd also like the covered parking spot that I had for my car before. And those are the things that I was most worried about and that I want because that's what was stipulated in the contract that I signed, the lease agreement that I signed. The next point I'd like to make has to do with our neighbor in Unit 22 who lives above us.

Now, according to the resolution by the mediator, Mr. Orvik was supposed to have taken care of this situation, and he had mentioned that a possibility of maybe having their lawyers try to maybe evict the person that lived upstairs. But none of this has happened, and the person that lives above us, our neighbor, continues to harass and threaten us. Oh, sorry. And we continue to be victims of this harassment.

It's an ongoing threat to us. The amount of money that was supposed to be given to us isn't compensatory to the kind of living situation that we've had to endure. You can't put a price on health or any kind of tranquil kind of living situation, and the situation continues. It hasn't been taken care of, and that's the fault of Mr. Orvik who has not taken care of the situation.

According to the law, we all have the right to live in a place where we feel safe and secure and the problem has actually gotten worse due to the inactions of Mr. Orvik. Thank you.

Thank you. Respondent landlord or representative of the respondent landlord please raise hand on zoom if you like to speak and staff will temporarily promote you to be a panelist. You will be given ten minutes on screen. Hello? We hear you.

Okay, great. So my name is David Orvik. I am the landlord. Our company Management Group, manages the apartment where Mr. Negrete lives at. So just a few things to hopefully resolve this. We do want to return his covered parking space and storage unit back to him. Okay, now that our construction has been completed there, it is available and we will be discussing that with him.

Okay.

So hopefully him and I and as well as Ms. Steele in '25 can move on from those items. Okay. And then I mean, really quickly in response to Mr. Negrete claims about the tenant that is an issue upstairs from him. We are aware of this. We are taking action. We do have an attorney that is filing the eviction. We've taken many steps that we were hoping would be more swift than the process of this is on. But.

Didn't receive the cooperation necessary from that tenant upstairs in order to resolve this. So this was the process that we're taking. It is lengthy. The tenant is, you know, basically maximizing their ability to lengthen this process, and that's what we're in the middle of. I don't think that we are neglecting this.

I do regret where we're at in this. I obviously wish that this was resolved quicker and better or not ever an issue at all. But we are in a lengthy middle of a lengthy process that we had tried to avoid in the past and just were not able to. But I do hope it's clear that we are making attempts to resolve this nuisance from the tenant upstairs. And we do want to return their parking space and storage back to the tenants. I think that's really all I want to say. I mean, we are accepting the tentative appeal agreement,

but, I do wanna make that clear for, where we stand with some of these items. Thank you. Alright. Now we've moved on the to the respondent tenant. If miss Steele would like to make a comment or the representative, please come to the podium or raise hand on Zoom.

You will be given ten minutes. Timer will go on screen.

Yeah okay,

I'm Ms. Steele and I don't really have too much to say that I didn't say the first

time that we

came in to talk about this, so I would prefer having my parking spot and storage unit replaced, but you know because my car the wear and tear has been horrible in just the amount of time that we've been parking outside the uncovered parking spaces. But I really, other than that, don't have much to say. So thank you.

Thank you. All right. Appellant tenant, so mister Negrete and representative, you will have ten minutes to rebut any statements made by the respondent landlord. Please limit your comments to rebuttal rather than repeating information already presented. If you wish. If you don't want to, you don't have to. Okay.

Okay.

Good evening, my name is Mercedes Martinez and on top of what Mr. Victor had said, what I want to know is what are we supposed to do? It's been way more than two months since we've been putting up with this harassment from our neighbor, and it's almost been going on for one year. And what are we supposed to do in the meantime while this situation is supposedly being resolved while we're having to wait? That's all.

Thank you. Okay. Respondent landlord representative, you have five minutes to rebut any statements made by the appellant. Please limit your comments to rebuttal than any repeating information.

Okay. I don't have too much but I believe I mean, in her response, what are we supposed to do? I believe that's what the monthly rent reduction that was awarded is to compensate for the $165.66 That's I believe that's the answer to her question, which is really all I have to rebuttal to it.

All right. Thank you. Moving on to respondent tenants, Ms. Steele, you have five minutes to rebut any statements made by the appellant if you wish to speak. Alright. Moving to the committee. Any members have any questions for staff?

Alternate Bulge. Thank you. Yeah I'm just curious for actually for my own understanding of obviously all tenants have the same legal protections and so there there is a due process requirement whenever a landlord is enforcing the the terms of a lease And the the landlord representative talked about there being a legal process ongoing and that the I believe what he said was that the tenant who is doing the harassing has been exploiting some of some of their legal due process rights to draw out the process and there are obviously bounds to all of that. So my question is that if a if a harassing tenant is taking is is utilizing all of the legal protections that they are due, what is the landlord's liability during that window of time when action has started and that harassing tenant is exercising their due process rights?

So I think in the context of this hearing, the hearing officer gave the landlord multiple opportunities to submit evidence that they actually were taking action and no evidence was submitted, which was basis of the decision. If evidence had been submitted, she might have taken into consideration the time that it would take to complete that process. But because nothing was submitted, the evidence is that nothing was being done. So that's why the decision was written the way it was.

Thank you very much.

Vice Chair Cox.

Yeah. I just wanna make sure I've got all the facts straight. In particular, there are two tenants and both tenants had lost their covered parking and small storage space and it was my understanding that that was due to construction activities that were initiated by the landlord. Is that right?

That's correct.

Okay. Okay. And then we heard testimony that one of the tenants has now that the construction activity is finished, he has gotten back his covered parking space and storage space. That's not true?

That's not evidence that's in the record. The evidence we have is this was to be permanent, that the property owner was creating accessory dwelling units in that parking space. Something may have changed.

Okay. Okay.

Our record is that there was this was a permanent reduction of housing services.

Okay. Okay. And so we we need to go by based on what's in the record. With respect to the pool, I mean, the was the pool removed completely?

That's my understanding.

Okay. And this as far as you know, it's all has to do with the construction of the new ADUs, right? Yep. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for that. I'm following up on what committee member Balch had asked. I'm just wondering if you can say like how long can it take for, you know, when a landlord has decided that he needs to evict the tenant because the tenant is causing a nuisance between when he recognizes he needs to take action and the tenant can finally be removed? Can you say anything about that?

That's a really hard question. Eviction proceedings have priority in the courts.

Mhmm.

So they are supposed to be an expedited proceeding. That being said, our court system is backlogged. They don't move very fast in the courts. And there are ways that the process can be extended. So I don't think there is a typical time for an eviction. It is supposed to move fast, but it probably does not move as fast as property owners would like.

Also would like to add that we have not seen the first step in that procedure in the evidence. So, we have not seen a copy of the UD form, the unlawful detainer form that you filed with the court to start the process.

Okay. So, no record like that was put in evidence during the hearing? Okay. Thank you.

Does any other member have any questions

for

staff? Does anyone have any questions for either landlord or tenants, plural? Member Brown.

It's for David. Were the ADUs completed? I believe that there's seven or eight ADUs were that was part of the hearing discussion.

Yes, they should have been finaled today. I haven't gotten confirmation, but they are should have been finaled today with the final inspection.

That's some good timing. And I remember that there was discussion about the open parking spaces and there being enough that each tenant was allowed to have the covered parking space and had access to the oral agreement to one uncovered space. And in the hearing you said that the uncovered spaces were part of the pool of things can be used by the ADUs. Any resolution to that?

It was the other way where the covered space spaces are where the ADUs were or where the ADUs are built.

Thank you.

Seeing no other questions for staff or appellants or respondents, I will bring this back for the committee. The RC will now deliberate. It would be appropriate at this time to entertain a motion to okay. Vice chair Cox.

I'm gonna make the motion to accept the tentative appeal decision in its entirety and let me give you some of my reasons. Okay. First thing on all of these hearings is to note that the hearing office has wide discretion in the determination of the amounts that are awarded. And as long as she supports her decision with a reasonable methodology, it's the duty for the rental housing committee to uphold her decision because that shows that it's based on substantial evidence. So in particular, I'll tick off a few of the things that were discussed in the hearing officer's decision.

With regard to the reduction in services due to the loss of the second parking space, It's really important to note that it is not required that the parking space be mentioned explicitly in the lease for it to be considered part of the housing services. I mean the bottom line is that I mean if the tenant has a reasonable expectation and continued use of a facility that he gets as a result of renting the apartment, that's a housing service whether it's mentioned explicitly in the lease or not. And so I agree with the tentative decision based on that. The compensation for the removal of second storage for the storage space was determined by the hearing officer based on her review and the cost of comparable storage spaces available in Mountain View. It doesn't need to be equal to the cost of the tenant's choice of a substitute storage space.

So I mean bottom line is the pace to shop around and that's a reasonable way that the hearing officer used to determine what the compensation should be. And so I'm in favor of holding that too. The one I struggle the most with is that you know the loss of quiet enjoyment of the petitioner's unit and that it's taking this long to resolve. This is a problem you know both for the tenant and the landlord because the tenant has to deal with not having the quiet enjoyment, when he's trying to sleep at night. And that's like key if you have a job during the day.

On the other hand, a landlord does seem to be moving expeditiously with trying to take care of it, but as Ms. Van Dersen pointed out, I mean, we have to go by what is in the evidence of the record and the records of the steps that he's taken aren't there. And so he could have put a stronger case forward on this. He needs to compensate the tenant for that loss. Another thing that was even brought up is that I mean like this is a guy who is walking around a lot at night and his squeaky boards and stuff like that that he also understood that he should take action on.

But I just find this to be a really unfortunate circumstance but I don't see a better way around it than that. And so that's why I also think that the hearing officer did something reasonable by figuring out how much of the rent time was when the guy needed to be sleeping and compensated for that. So anyway those are my statements on this and I listen I look forward to hearing what others have to say.

Member Brown has seconded the motion. Moving on to alternate Bulge.

Thank you. Yeah. I wanted to make a couple comments. First of all, I'm to second what Vice Chair Cox said. Really, the issue here is about reasonableness.

We talk about this a lot, that the CSFRA gives very little latitude, like almost none, to this body. We are really assessing whether there was a reasonable conclusion here, not necessarily what we might have had our opinion say. So think we just have to be clear on that. But I think also there are a couple of points here about additional benefits that are not in a lease. In other words, the additional parking spaces, as well as what landlords can do or what the liability is when there is a conflict between tenants.

We're gonna talk about this later. Mountain View has set up a highly litigious situation between landlords and tenants. In that situation, it really behooves both parties to be fully educated on their rights under the law and to operate to the maximum extent of those rights. So tenants should be educated and landlords need to be educated as well. And it is true that my understanding, it is true anyway, that the presumed benefits are not just what's in the lease.

And so, if a property owner wants to exercise their full rights under the law, they have to be very careful about what benefits they offer, whether it is in the lease or not. And, secondly, this issue about upholding the lease terms. If a landlord sees that there is a violation of a lease, it's gonna behoove them to exercise their rights maximally and to promptly proceed with with the eviction process because, otherwise, all sorts of liabilities start to stack up. That's the reality of what we've set up here, and I think both parties, both tenants and landlords, to operate with a very keen awareness of what their rights are under the law. Thank you.

Member Statsaslop?

I apologize if this falls into the question category, but the the I've had to go back and read the decision. The mister Orvich mentioned that the parking and storage could be restored. I don't think in the hearing officer's decision there it's addressed that should, know, parking be covered parking be provided or storage again be provided if that reduction would cease and I I'm not familiar enough with the regulations if that can be addressed in a compliance hearing or if we may want to consider remanding to the hearing officer to to adjust the language of in the event that

The evidence in the record was that it was a permanent reduction. So there isn't a restoration, but if it were restored, landlord could come in for a compliance hearing. Thank you.

Anyone else would like to give comment on the current motion? Member Brown?

I agree with what Robert said.

Alright then. Seeing no more discussion on the motion, I will give my 2¢. So I believe I agree with the tentative appeal decision. I mean, I think everyone who discussed tonight act is in favor of it. And I just echo the things that my fellow committee members have said. Right? The hearing officer's decision is reasonable. We're not here giving a 96 reduction. We are here to see logical processes followed as well as evidence to give for things such as how the landlord was addressing the tenant upstairs. And that's really all I have to say.

Let's go to a vote. Motion passes unanimously, and that closes the hearing. Moving now on to item 6.1. This is our new business, the adoption of anti retaliation and anti harassment regulations. Public comment will occur after the presentation item and committee questions. We invite you to submit a speaker card now if you would like to speak on this item during public comment or raise your hand on zoom or press star nine on your phone. We will begin with a presentation from staff.

Thank you very much chair, members of the rental housing committee. And tonight's purpose is to request an adoption of the CFRA and MHRZO regulations providing protections against tenant retaliation and harassment by amending the existence CFRA and MHRZO MHRSO regulations number two definitions and incorporating new regulations, specifically CSFRA regulations chapter 14 and MHRSO regulations chapter 13, retaliation and harassment. The first 30 session of the rental housing committee occurred on March 27. The rental housing committee at that time reviewed existing federal state and local policies of compare comparable jurisdictions, and direct the staff to come back with draft regulations. Again, a study session was held in last October 23, where the rental housing committee reviewed proposed regulations, asked some clarifying questions, suggested minor edits, and overall supported the recommended draft regulations.

So, the requested minor edits from the rental housing committee have been made in attachment one regulations that are in front of you. There were seven items that were clarified, and we have itemized them in our memo. As you can see, certain words were added to make the intention clearer from the previous language. There were also some questions asked by the rental housing committee that were addressed in the memo. There were like three questions.

One question was, are unwelcome hostile comments included in these regulation examples? And you can find those in the quoted sections. Another question was, is tenant to tenant retaliationharassment included? And the answer to that is that these need to be addressed through the tenants' right of quiet enjoyment under state law or through the Mountain View Mediation Program as examples. And the last question was if there's a retention of complaint forms.

In that respect, we will be following the city standard record retention policy, which gives a two to five years for these types of documents. So, again, the recommendation is to adopt these regulations, and this is the end of the presentation and happy to answer any questions.

Alright. We will move on to questions from committee members. Does any committee member have any questions? Alternator Balch?

Yeah. Thank you. I'm curious. We talked about this a little bit last time. Do we have any kind of data to indicate the lack of harassment actions that have been brought before courts because there's an assertion that the current statutes for the state of California are inadequate. I haven't been able to find any data like that. And for something consequential of enacting law, I I would like to be able to learn about what we know about how the law is used or not used today.

Sure. So I don't think there's anything incorrect in front of the court. I think state and federal law lack a lot of examples and explanation of situations that could be explained as retaliation and harassment, and that forwarded the request from the rental housing committee to make regulations here for Mountain View.

Walter and Balch, do you have anything you would like a further question on?

I'm sorry, no, thank you.

Vice Chair Cox.

Yeah, just a follow-up question on that. So these regulations are being put forth by the RHC and when they're voted on then they become official regulations for the city of Mountview, that's right?

Or CCFRA and FTRASO units.

Okay, okay. So then is it also the case that the rental housing committee has the ability that if they find out that the specific regulations that we might vote on tonight are inadequate in some way, meaning that are overreaching in some way that we can bring it back at a future time and then revise them to improve them.

Yes. You can always change amendments to the regulations.

Okay. Thank you.

Are there any other questions from committee members? Seeing none, we will now move on to public comments. In person public comments, we'll be calling to speak first. And people commenting online, please raise hand or press 9 on your phone to get in queue.

Neil? Good

evening commissioners. I'm here representing the California Apartment Association and I'm once again urging you to reject these regulations. They're unnecessary given state law, and the amount of forms of harassment that state law and civil code already cover negates a need to duplicate what is already provided. And so, you know, we're basically asking to, reject it and instead follow through with a more robust educational component that allows, tenants in the city to understand what their rights are under existing law rather than create a more complicated bureaucracy to continue making operating and managing property in the city more and more difficult. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone on Zoom? Again, you need to raise your hand or press 9 in order to speak tonight. Seeing none, we'll bring this back to the committee for deliberations and feedback.

Chair, can I just note that you did receive some correspondence and that is part of the record?

That is part of the record in a packet. You can find the correspondence online on our Legislav page for the meeting. Does anyone want to madamview.legislator.com. Alright. Does anyone want to speak on this item? Member Satzislav.

Thank you Chair Ma'am. I want to acknowledge that there was public comment and I believe we didn't receive any written public comment and but just one speaker, Mr. Babar, during our study session. I just want to note while I understand the issues raised, not one of them seem to point to where in state law and what mechanisms and how a tenant can enforce these rights in court. They just made general statements. I would welcome a discussion like that before the committee of raising here's the mechanisms. As from my understanding, you have to get an attorney, you have to navigate the court system, it's a

very

hard, high threshold to prove these allegations. Also just want to note that what's being put forth is not necessarily an enforcement mechanism. It's a way of collecting data and also understanding what's happening and helping tenants understand what their rights are and what is legal for a landlord. It's an opportunity to educate without any other enforcement mechanisms. All a landlord has to do is give notice of the tenant of these regulations and also has the right to respond and set the record straight and perhaps have an opportunity to mediate.

So I do want to invite property owners, managers to the conversation when we're doing these regulations, but you've got to come and give us something to work with.

You.

Auditor Balch.

Thank you. So, yeah, before I talk about what I was gonna talk about, I I do want to address your comments. This is an acting statute. So this is not just about data gathering. We talked about that last time. Attorneys are always required. We're talking about statute that a effectively, a legal action would be brought in front of a court. So there is no I mean, to operate with a court, you need an attorney or you can represent yourself. But that is that's always the way. Last, at the study session, we did talk about specifics.

We specifically cited actual numbers of statutes which were readily available. I discovered them in the moment with Google. So I think that there is a lot of information that we talked about. But really, I didn't really see a lot of engagement at the last study session about discussing how the current statute is used versus how the new one would be used. That's why I've been asking for data.

I really haven't seen data. I don't believe data exists. I haven't been able to find data that actually tries to quantify the shortcomings of the current statute and therefore the benefits of proposed statute. As as I mentioned at the appeal we had just a few minutes ago, we have created and we're strengthening an increasingly litigious society. Landlord liabilities are increasing both with economics and statutorily.

And that's what we're talking about tonight. We're talking about continuing to raise the bar from a statutory standpoint, not to mention the economic standpoint. I think it's really important for government bodies to have humility and data when we enact law because there are consequences to every law that we enact. To the comment about the public input, we did receive a couple of dozen emails which I believe I scanned them quickly as we were sitting down because that's the first time I saw them. They were all from landlords and property brokers.

But nonetheless, I didn't notice any from otherwise in the community. We do have to think about balance when we're enacting law that sits on top of the CSFRA and MHRSO, which already is a substantial body of law in terms of regulating the relationship responsibilities of landlords and tenants. I'm also going to go back to something we had quite a lot of commentary among ourselves at the meeting last time. There isn't there is an inherent assumption that it is the landlord that that is the bad actor here, both in the CFRA as well as in the statute. And to the point I made earlier, we're always talking about an attorney being present.

So legal processes are very costly. They're costly for the tenants. They're also costly for landlords. One of the inhibitors, and I'm not going to speculate on why the prior party took longer than maybe they should have to to start legal action against the harassing tenant. But I can tell you once you do that you are immediately committing to months of expensive litigation and and loss of rent.

So for a landlord to even begin a legal action, they are committing to four, five, six months of loss right there. So a landlord really has to think about that and weigh their liability. Vice chair Cox made a really interesting observation at the beginning of this meeting. He said that something approximately the rent for the new construction units is substantially more than the rent for the old units. Well, that dichotomy is going to continue to grow.

I agree with you it's not healthy. We're going to by continuing to pass more legislation and create more of these processes, we're going to continue to expand that dichotomy because we're going to create we are we've already created a two tier housing system where landlords are trying to absolutely minimize costs as much as they can under the law because they are highly constrained both in the liability as well as their ability to collect rent over time. But, the new properties are not subject to the same laws. So, every time we take an action here, we are gradually, steadily increasing that dichotomy between the old and the new. So, I feel like we have a lot of speculation going on.

I'm not seeing any data. I would not proceed with legislation statutes without clear data. I wouldn't want to do this based on the speculation that I think is happening now. Thank you.

Pleasure Cox.

Okay. Just a few comments. A minor one first. I thank the staff for going over and incorporating some of the things we talked about in the study session in particular. The issue of the record retention policy and I think that the two to five years for various types of records is quite a reasonable one and I'm glad to see that called out.

Thanks for doing that. Beyond that, I think for me it just comes down to we need to think, I'm thinking back on why we started this in the first place. And the reason, I mean we had a call for new items to go before the RHC this year and this was one of two major items that we were going to be taking up beyond our normal workload of appeal hearings and other kinds of examination of fiscal reports and that kind of thing. For me personally, I think that the best time for people to start from the public to start commenting on that kind of thing is at the beginning so that we know that once we've set off on a process that, you know, mean if they voice vocally and early the idea that we're on the wrong track here or we've missed something important, that gives us the opportunity to fold those comments into the discussion and direct us in the appropriate way. And I don't feel that while there's been an attempt for the landlords to give us comment on this process, I wish it had come earlier because it just came after the major study session where we were talking about the particulars and now again a repeat when they finally come before us for a vote to say we don't agree with this, don't do it.

As opposed to here are some things that could make this better. There was no input like that. So again, back to the beginning of this, from my understanding, the reason we went down this path was because while California law does allow a tenant to sue the landlord based on things like harassment and retaliation. It doesn't provide clear enough coverage in the legislation itself about what exactly that means. And so it puts up a pretty high bar for a tenant to be able to go into court and say that he really doesn't, to say that he believes that he has sufficient evidence to make a clear case on this.

And so by adding these regulations that give specific examples which are illustrative, are relatively comprehensive but not completely, okay, a tenant can by looking at those he can tell whether or not he has a reasonable case. Now maybe we should have gone further and because it's true, landlords can be harassed by the tenants and the tenants can cause problems and maybe we should have gone further by including examples of those kinds of things to make it easier for the landlords to go after bad tenants. But there are both good landlords and bad ones, good tenants and bad ones with respect to specific things. And you know the purpose of doing this was primarily because it's an unequal situation. Typically the landlords have access to more wealth and resources to make what they want happen, happen.

And a tenant, you know, often our tenants are just very ordinary simple people, okay, that are not lawyers or even have friends who are lawyers, okay, that can help and assist them in this. Now, might get some help from the RHC staff, okay, but having things listed out clearly of specific examples of what harassment and retaliation mean, I do think it's a step in the right direction, even if it is a cost somewhat to the landlords that, you know, because of the clarity, they might be subject to having an issue raised and successfully litigated, which might not have been because the whole process of navigating the courts for the tenant is so difficult. So anyway, that's my long way of saying that I'm still on board for supporting this but as I asked earlier, there's the issue that if we haven't done it right this time we can come back a year or two from now, get some specific evidence and talk about whether we need to do some changes to this stuff. So that's what I have to say. I wanna hear what other people have to say.

Member Brown.

Once again, I agree with Robert. I think that the thing that I would have liked to see in opposition to this isn't evidence of cases that don't exist because that feels impossible to prove, but evidence of cases that are being brought under the current state laws that are being where TENS are successfully vindicating their rights using California state or federal laws. If I had been shown evidence that the system is working and tenants are currently being protected using those and that this was not necessary because they were successfully vindicating their rights, then I would question if we're doing something, but I did not see that. That was not presented to us in any of the comments or in any of the emails that we've received. While I have heard from many tenants in Mountain View that they are afraid to call out retaliation, to call out actions that they don't know what their rights are and they don't know what they can do.

Like I have had people come and ask me for help, who do they go to? And I think having something like this, having examples, being able to say, your rights are clear. Here are examples. If this looks like you, reach out. Like there's a process, there's now a channel, people can get help. And I think that that is the thing that is most valuable to me is being able to provide people with a sense of safety and for them to know that they have a right to quiet enjoyment of their housing. I also strongly support continuing and checking this off of our list of major items for this year.

Member Keating?

Thank you. I support this and I'd like to respond in part to committee member Balsh's comments. And so when we enact when the voters of Mountain View enacted rent stabilization, the CSFRA, it wasn't evident immediately but really what they did is they created something valuable for tenants. If you're in a CSFRA unit, over time there are limits on how much your rent can go up and so you have you may end up with depending on what the market does and the inflation rate and so on. Is it a, you know, hard or soft rental housing market?

But you may end up with an apartment that is at a rent lower than what would be easy to find in the marketplace. So you have an interest in wanting to stay in that unit and you know it's your better choice rather than having to rent a comparable unit in the market at some other place because if there's a vacancy decontrol so you're going for a market you know rate when you first move in even if you move to another CSFRA unit it may be more expensive. So while most landlords remind us they are housing providers and are well most landlords certainly provide you know good and fair services to their tenants. I think there is some instance of landlords having an interest and knowing they have an interest in higher tenant turnover. So could that lead to harassment that is not addressed and stopped by the landlord?

I think it in some cases it can and I think it empowers tenants to call that out and to let them know what is harassment in their rights even if we don't help them in court. But I think empowering tenants to know their rights and to help them you know, move forward to defend their rights is upheld by these this draft ordinance. Thank you.

Member Brown, would you like to speak?

I would like to move to adopt the rent the Community Stabilization Fair Rent Act and mobile home rent stabilization ordinance regulations which provide protections against tenant retaliation harassment by amending the existing CSFRA and MHRSO regulations. Chapter two, definitions and incorporating new regulations, specifically CSFRA regulations. Chapter 14 and MHRASO regulations chapter 13 anti retaliation and anti harassment.

And that motion has been seconded by member Cox. Does anyone who want to speak on the motion on the floor? I will speak. Okay. So I agree with member Brown that we do need to demonstrate that the current state laws that a lot of the members of who provided comment today has are working.

As a person who does work with housing law at the state, I do recognize how vague it is at some times to the point where it's basically impossible to know what it means. Much as us with the CSFRA, right, our existing one time utility adjustment petitions are technically very clear cut from our definition of what base rent meant, and yet we're here we are working on it many years later since the the CSF was passed by the voters. So I can see there's always a need to, you know, review portions that we have jurisdiction over to see if they are correctly used and then adjust if they aren't. Right? If we find out that there is a bunch of frivolous litigation introduced by this then we can always, know, scale it back and figure out where we need to make changes.

But until then we have heard from our various appeals that do obviously is a minority that of the appeal of the petitions that do come to this body and division, but, you know, harassment and retaliation is a concept that is common across all of them. And it is true that it is something that we as a body do not have direct capability to intervene. Right? That is a case for the courts. We're here to just provide clear definitions to in order to address perhaps some deficiencies in state law.

And to perhaps counter some of the things that have been sent to us, we are not here necessarily addressing administrative complexity. Right? These are just more defined examples of what is supposed to be covered by said state laws that had been, you know, shaped by decades and decades of case law. Our our our our interaction with it is purely a notice that the tenant may provide the Archie staff about their intention to sue, but other than that, we could be completely out of the picture, is no different than it is today. So as such, I will also be voting in favor of the motion.

Any final speakers on the motion? Member Satsislop?

Very quick. I think what I I wanna address the need for data, and I believe this will give us at least some data source, and we can look at it in a couple of years and, you know, see what the engagement been, the number of complaints filed or whatever, but we will have some data. That's, I think what I find to be an advantage to these regulations is having those definitions and also having a way to actually collect information. If we're not making a determination if it's true or not, we're just getting information about what people are experiencing.

Seeing no more speakers in queue, we will now move on to the vote. Motion passes five zero. And I would like this to be perhaps brought to our council's attention just because this is as mentioned by a bunch of our okay. Can do that. In the meantime we're moving on to item seven, committee staff announcements and updates.

Thank you. So we'll start by looking at item 7.1, upcoming workshops and housing help center dates. As usual, we continue to have our office hours every Tuesday from ten to noon. Those are virtual only. And looking forward to December with our workshop schedule, we are focusing on utility adjustment petitions as our final deadline is the December.

So we are having a tenant focused workshop December 9 as well as a landlord focused workshop on December 11. We are having our help centers for landlords. We continue to do those every Thursday at this point to continue to add and provide extra support for our landlords for utility petitions, and then we are gearing up for our registration and fee payment rollout in December and January. Oh, yep. Here we go.

Just see, we also have our housing help center for tenants every first and third Thursday. So there is one happening now over at our office on Escuela and also online, and that's from six to eight. And we have our community partners in CLASPA and CSA and the Mountain View Mediation Program there as well.

I also would like to add, you may have seen that in our consent items, that we would like to provide the financial and data information on a six month period due to lack of staff.

Are there any questions or comments from that presentation or anything specified by staff?

You did also receive copies of the landlord and tenant newsletter that were mailed out last week or the week before.

Ahead. Just have a question. I mean in terms of the data that's going to be provided every six months, you know, I'm wondering, are you talking only about what was in 03/2002 or 03/2002 and three point three?

03/2002 and 03/2003.

Alright. Oh well, I'm gonna miss 03/2003. I just wish that the market, even if you could just do the market stats, I mean that would be wonderful.

We might be able to come

back If you could do that, yeah that last page. Mean that because to me what that is showing is that's showing the health of the rental market in Mountain View. And we got here because of the lack of health of the rental market in Mountain View in terms of income inequality and everything. And so that's why I consider that a primary thing. So if you could just provide that last page, I would think it would be wonderful.

Would you like to speak, Van Buren Brown?

Through the chair, I I think that we should notify city council that we adopted the regulations this evening for anti harassment. We should do it.

Would you like that in a form of a motion or just direction to staff?

If the chair would consider re agendizing it at a future meeting to vote on it or just consent

is new. How do you wanna do this?

Oh, we can just inform.

Okay. That works as well.

Sweet.

Just just just forward it over because I do recognize that we are in a time of great national turmoil and immigration is a top issue and one of the things we're addressing in the regulation is perhaps concerns we've heard from the community about, you know, bringing up immigration status status in terms of under the table dealings. In the meantime

Thank you, chair.

K. You are now recognized. But 7.2 expected future agenda items for the next meeting. The next meeting will be held on December '25 at 6PM. We will be hearing an appeal as well as hearing officer remuneration. Are are there anything else from any committee members or from city staff?

Question? Go ahead, member Keating. So we've had our different phases for different side land different sized landlords regarding the RUBS petitions. And so when will when does it make sense to give us another update about how many landlords submitted petitions and so on?

So we're we're currently targeting the small landlords. They have to submit their paperwork by the December. So early next year, we can give you an update.

And any updates on our middle sized landlords?

We can do that at the same time.

Okay. So that'd sometime in January or February? Okay sounds fine. Anyone else would like to give their last comments, questions? Seeing none this week.

I'm thankful for staff.

Okay then. This meeting is adjourned at 07:22PM. The next rental housing committee meeting is scheduled to be held on Thursday, December 18 at 6PM.