California Apartment Association

According to one lawmaker, a law already requiring property owners to have low-flow plumbing fixtures installed by 2019 doesn’t go far enough.

Sen. Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, has proposed legislation to require plumbing fixtures conserve more water than mandated by an existing Jan. 1, 2019 deadline, and he’s adding more fixtures to the list.

The current law demands water-conserving fixtures for residential, multi-family, and commercial properties. Fixtures that don’t comply must be replaced.

Hertzberg’s SB 1173, however, changes the definitions of noncompliant plumbing fixtures.

The bill calls for the replacement of the following:

• Toilets that use more than 1.28 gallons per flush, instead of the current 1.6 gallons.
• Urinals that use more than 0.125 gallons per flush, instead of the current 1.0 gallon.
• Residential lavatory faucets that emit more than 1.2 gallons per minute, instead of the current 2.2 gallons.
• Kitchen faucets that emit more than 1.8 gallons per minute, except for those that may have the capacity to increase to 2.2 gallons per minute momentarily for filling pots and pans.
• Public lavatory faucets that exceed 0.5 gallons per minute.

In many cases, because of plumbing constraints in older buildings, it will not be feasible for property owners to install these very low flow fixtures.

Additionally, many property owners have already complied with existing law and have already replaced their fixtures to the existing low flow standards.

They would now be out of compliance with the state law, and would require building owners to again change the fixtures to meet the new standards in SB 1173.

CAA has asked Hertzberg to exclude residential rental property from the legislation.