News: Our Positions
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At the California Apartment Association, we advocated for and against dozens of bills this year that could affect the rental housing business.
In most cases, Gov. Jerry Brown agreed with us.
While some bills below will affect multi-family housing more than others, each is important to landlords, tenants, and California as a whole.
Check out the following roundup of laws taking effect in 2014, their anticipated impacts, and where CAA stood on them.
Subdivision Maps: Extensions — AB 116 (D-Bocanegra) — CAA position:
Support — Like other legislation before it, AB 116 extends the life of expiring subdivision maps by… Read More
Update: On Sunday, Oct. 13, Gov. Brown vetoed Assemblywoman Toni Atkins’ inclusionary zoning bill, AB 1229. The story below was published earlier this month.
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Right or wrong, the specter of rent control has hovered over AB 1229.
Owners of existing rental property, however, shouldn’t sweat it.
Toni Atkins’ inclusionary zoning bill, which remains on Gov. Brown’s desk, wouldn’t change a thing for landlords with property in either rent-control or non-rent-control jurisdictions.
The bill centers on a method for requiring affordable housing in new construction projects and would reaffirm a tool that more than 170 jurisdictions have used to provide… Read More
Sen. Lois Wolk’s water submetering bill sank this year, but it’ll likely resurface in 2014.
With some success at the negotiating table, it has a good chance of passing, too.
SB 750 got close this year. But by the end of the legislative session, loose ends and disagreements about the bill’s wording had it taking on water.
When Wolk introduced the bill in early February, she said it would help Californians “make environmentally and economically responsible choices and that they needed accurate information about their water usage and cost so that they can use existing supplies as efficiently as possible.”… Read More
Tagged: LegislationOur Positions
The California State Legislature is finishing up its summer recess and will return in August to wrap up the first year of the 2013-14 Legislative sessions.
To date, 2013 has been one of the most challenging Legislative sessions for the apartment industry in a decade. The California Apartment Association has actively lobbied on 75 bills to make certain that the industry is protected from over-reaching legislative proposals.
Three measures in particular would have had far-reaching economic impacts on the industry but were successfully stopped or amended by CAA.
Senate Bill 750 – Water sub-metering and RUBS
The issue of ratio-utility… Read More
Apartment dwellers are often at a disadvantage when it comes to reducing their energy costs. It may sound relatively easy to cut down on your power bill by turning off a light switch here and there, or doing fewer loads of laundry. But the big energy savers – such as more efficient appliances – aren’t always available to people who rent their homes.
That may not seem like a big deal, but it can have a significant financial impact for those who live in apartments in San Diego County. The reason is a well-intentioned but outdated rate structure established by… Read More
Tagged: EnergyOur Positions San Diego
The California Apartment Association and state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, believe legislation spelling this out is necessary — and would help prevent all too frequent scams associated with the practice.
In addition to requiring those who offer prepaid rental listings to hold a real estate license, Hill’s SB 269 would mandate that those selling prepaid rental lists include their real estate license number on contracts with prospective tenants.
A prospective tenant might want to buy a prepaid rental list to avoid the time and hassle of searching through classified ads, scouring Craigslist, searching rental-housing websites — and even driving… Read More
For the first time in 2013, the California Apartment Association has taken official positions on a series of bills, from whether to ban smoking in multifamily complexes to a proposal that would require interest payments on security deposits.
CAA staff is continuing to analyze and debate the merits of hundreds of bills sponsored by the state Legislature.
As the CAA Legislative Steering Committee takes formal positions in the months to come, we’ll report that information in this newsletter, as well as on our blog, caapartments.org.
Here’s a rundown on CAA’s positions thus far:
Oppose: SB 603 (Leno-D) Interest on security… Read More