News: Debra Carlton
Filter
A CAA-sponsored bill that would streamline the conversion of hotels and motels into multifamily housing won approval Wednesday in the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee.
The committee approved AB 2580 by Assemblywoman Susan Eggman, D-Stockton, on a 7-1 vote. The measure now moves to the Appropriations Committee.
Assemblywoman Susan Eggman
The bill would address California’s unprecedented housing supply and affordability crisis by converting existing structures into long-term housing.
CAA testified to the benefits of hotel and motel conversions.
“To meet housing needs, we need novel housing solutions,” said Debra Carlton, CAA’s executive vice president of state public affairs. “Hotels and… Read More
Tagged: LegislationNews
The California Apartment Association is reminding its members that it’s against California law to include “No Section 8” or similar verbiage in advertisements for rental housing.
As of Jan. 1, Senate Bill 329 prohibits landlords from rejecting a prospective tenant solely based on the applicant’s use of a Section 8 federal housing voucher. The law also bans advertisements that say voucher-holders won’t be considered for tenancy. The legislation applies to apartment and single-family home rentals.
The California Apartment Association has been educating the rental housing industry about SB 329 for months. Efforts have included publishing articles about the legislation at caanet.org and in its newsletter, creating an Industry Insight compliance paper on… Read More
Tagged: ComplianceLegislationSection 8
During a televised round-table discussion of Proposition 10 last week, Debra Carlton of the California Apartment Association recalled the days before the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.
In 1995, the Legislature passed Costa-Hawkins to protect against extreme forms of rent control, including rent caps on single-family homes, individually owned condominiums and new construction. Before those protections were in place, many landlords were quitting the rental-housing business.
“Property owners were getting out,” Carlton, senior vice president of public affairs for CAA, said during an episode of KQED Newsroom. “Even in Berkeley, we lost about 3,000 single-family homes because owners said, ‘I’m not… Read More
Tagged: Rent Control
The California Apartment Association provided testimony this week about the role of NIMBYism in the high cost of housing for the middle class.
Debra Carlton, senior vice president of public affairs at CAA, told an Assembly Select Committee on Monday about how NIMBY groups — short for Not in My Backyard — leverage environmental-impact reviews and the California Environmental Quality Act to delay projects.
“The costs — when you’re stuck in the EIR process or the CEQA process — can add over a million dollars just in delays alone,” Carlton said. “And I think that we know that the locals… Read More
The California Apartment Association reacted with skepticism this week to an online poll measuring voter support for rent control.
The poll, which comes from the UC Berkeley Institute for Government Studies, found that a majority of California voters support the policy.
Tagged: NewsRent Control
A pair of California Apartment Association-sponsored bills that would help solve the statewide housing crisis advanced Wednesday from the Assembly Local Government Committee on a unanimous vote.
The bills, AB 943 and AB 352 by Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles, would raise the voter threshold for approving no-growth measures and support the development of micro-apartment units, respectively.
Tagged: Affordable housingLegislation
A bill that would require water submeters in all new construction now has amendments allowing landlords and third-party billing companies to collect administrative fees.
Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, revised her bill, SB 750, to permit collection of up to $4 in fees to help recover the actual costs of reading submeters and providing billing services for tenants. A lower administrative fee would apply, however, when the water bill is less than $10, according to the amended bill.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2017, an administrative fee may be adjusted annually by the landlord commensurate with an increase in the Consumer Price Index.… Read More
Tagged: AdvocacyLegislation
A bill that would require water submeters in all new construction now has amendments allowing landlords and third-party billing companies to collect administrative fees.
Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, revised her bill, SB 750, to permit collection of up to $4 in fees to help recover the actual costs of reading submeters and providing billing services for tenants. A lower administrative fee would apply, however, when the water bill is less than $10, according to the amended bill.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2017, an administrative fee may be adjusted annually by the landlord commensurate with an increase in the Consumer Price Index.… Read More
Tagged: Legislation
The Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee today stubbed out a bill by Assemblyman Marc Levine that would have banned smoking in apartments, condos and townhomes.
“Assembly Bill 746 would have created an enforcement nightmare for property managers while infringing on the privacy rights of law-abiding tenants,” said Debra Carlton, senior vice president of public affairs for the California Apartment Association. “We also want to remind Californians that property owners already have the right, thanks to legislation we sponsored, to ban smoking at individual properties.”
Tagged: In the newsLegislationSmoking