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LOS ANGELES – In her first year as a state lawmaker, Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia exhibited a thoughtful and balanced approach to rental housing issues.
With this in mind, the California Apartment Association proudly names Garcia as a CAA Legislator of the Year.
“Assemblywoman Garcia, a landlord herself, shows a deep appreciation for both landlord and tenant needs,” said Beverly Kenworthy, executive director of CAA’s Los Angeles Division.
CAA, a trade association that represents ethical members of the rental housing industry in all aspects of California government, honored Garcia on Wednesday, Dec. 4, during its Signature Awards at the Skirball Cultural… Read More
Tagged: Legislature Los Angeles
In October, Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 60, which provides for the issuance of drivers licenses to undocumented individuals and specifically prohibits discrimination against an individual because he or she holds or presents a license issued under the new law.
Existing California law (Civil Code Section 1940.3) prohibits rental property owners and their agents from making inquiries about a tenant or applicant’s immigration and/or citizenship status. These laws raise some questions about appropriate screening practices for undocumented applicants.
When are the new licenses going to be available?
AB 60 set a deadline of Jan. 1, 2015, however, the California Department… Read More
While the deadline to sign bills for the 2013 legislative session passed on Sunday, CAA’s commitment to building relationships with lawmakers is never done. Consider it a year-round endeavor.
Building on that effort, CAA’s 2013 political and legislative game plan included hosting a series of four Legislative District Leadership Conferences.
In this new endeavor, we tried four formats to bring together legislators and local government officials with our members and CAA’s local and state government affairs teams.
We did so in relaxed and comfortable settings away from Sacramento – and back where legislators call home.
Goals achieved
Impressed legislators, local… Read More
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
While the California Apartment Association helped prevent any split roll legislation from becoming law this year, threats to Proposition 13 are manifesting themselves beyond the Capitol.
Groups including ReFund LA Coalition and California Calls, both with strong union ties, are working to undermine Prop. 13, which limits property tax increases by basing them on the initial assessed value.
A split roll would allow counties to reassess rental and commercial property annually based on current market value, potentially costing California rental housing providers billions of dollars in new taxes. In 2009, CAA created Rental Housing Against Higher Taxes to battle split… Read More
Tagged: In the newsLegislatureTaxes
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
A statewide coalition will work to educate California opinion leaders and the public about the devastating impacts of increasing property taxes, the group announced today.
The coalition, Californians to Stop Higher Property Taxes, will inform lawmakers and the public about the importance of Proposition 13’s protections for California families and small businesses. The California Apartment Association is a member of the coalition.
To that end, the group, including organizations that represent businesses and taxpayers, will provide studies, analyses and other information.
A key goal is to raise awareness about how proposals for higher property taxes, including “split roll” and parcel… Read More
Tagged: LegislationLegislature
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