You can't hear it.

Do you know if the people on the two can hear us?

Oh, I don't know.

Well, she should be able to hear us.

Okay, thank you.

Going live.

Welcome to the September 25th, 2025, Randall Housing Committee regular meeting.

This meeting is a call to order at 6.10 p.m.

I will proceed with roll call.

All members are present.

Second.

Let's go to the vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Now we move item to on to item four oral communications.

We will now open the meeting for oral communications from the public.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the committee on any matter not on the agenda.

Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to three minutes during the session.

State law prohibits the committee from acting on non-agenda items.

If you would like to speak on this item, please raise your hand on Zoom or press star nine on your phone.

See none, we'll move on to item 5.1 annual update on the rent stabilization petition program.

For the common worker after the presentation item and committee questions.

Today we'll give you an annual update on the petitions that are related to the CSFRA and the MHRSO.

A little bit about the background.

And the petition process can include rent to request rent increases above the annual rent increase limits or rent decreases for claims of unlawful rent increases, habitability and maintenance issues, and tenant hardship.

This past year, for fiscal year 2024-25, the petitions increased in volume and complexity, requiring more staff's staff time.

We're going to give an overview of the petitions data and of trends in the petitions filing in the past year.

So in general, since the start of the program uh in 2017 through the end of this past year, a total of 291 petitions were filed.

As you can see, tenants are the primary filers of these petitions.

Two hundred and seventy petitions were filed by tenants and twenty-one by landlords.

Also noteworthy is that the um petitions in fiscal year 24-25.

Fiscal year 23-24 was definitely an outlier in that respect.

But the complexity and time needed to process the petitions have increased over time, particularly for those petitions that involve two or more issues, and also translation requests for landlord petitions.

Twenty-one petitions were filed since 2017.

13 positions of the 15 landlord uh initiated petitions and 30 hearing on process, and they received judgment in favor of the landlord, or were uh or reached a settlement agreement.

Um three of the 15 petitions were appealed to the rental housing committee, whereby the hearing officer decisions were affirmed.

Um, no capital improvement petitions were filed.

Then we move over to the tenant petitions.

As mentioned.

270 petitions were filed by the tenants uh since November 2017, and a hundred and 190 of which were completed through the hearing or settlement process.

Additionally, 20 tenant hardships were filed judgments in response to the landlord initiated petitions, and they are excluded from this number.

Also mentionable is that 613 inquiries were received about tenant initiated petitions, and six about joint or new additional housing services.

Many of these inquiries concerned issues of unlawful rent, habitability, and maintenance concerned.

Of the 44 petitions filed in 2004 24-25, 21 were completed, and 20 received judgment in favor of the petitioner or were settled through an agreement.

14 petitions were still in the petition process at the end of the fiscal year.

Three petitions were appealed.

One was decided on appeal by the rental housing committee, and two were remanded to the hearing officer.

Since fiscal year 2017, 15 exemption petitions were filed, and nine decision compliance petitions were filed by tenants.

100% of the properties with more than 20 units submitted a petition and information needed within the deadline.

This consists of 215 properties representing 31.6% of all the properties, and 76.6% of all the units.

Since the start of the MHRSO in 2021, we've only received one petition, and that petition was not accepted since it was a tenant hardship related to an AGA, and hardship petitions can only be submitted for a banked increase or a landlord-initiated petition.

First, there is a multi-issue tenant petition filings, and second, petition filings requiring translations and interpretations.

So the multi-issue tenant petition filings, 34 of the 50 petitions filed last year had multiple issues.

They filed for both unlawful rent, failure to maintain habitable property, and those require property inspections, legal assistance, and interpretation and translation services.

And as you can see in the PowerPoint, there is an overview of what percentage of petitions have multiple or complex issues or a required interpretation.

The decision compliance petitions have increased.

Also because those decision petitions were developed a couple of years ago.

They didn't exist since 2017, and they offer a good insight into following through with the decision awards.

Fewer decisions from filings in 24-25 were appealed.

Most of what the rental housing committee has seen were still petitions from 23-24 in this past year.

And again, filings involving multiple issues from a single unit or multiple petitions for the same unit continued along with ongoing need for translations.

And these complexities and translations needs continue in this fiscal year.

That concludes the presentation.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Are there any questions from committee members by Chair Cox?

Uh yes, thank you for answering the four questions.

I guess that I turned in, but I just I have one follow-up question.

One clarification question, one follow-up question.

I'm trying to, I'm I'm trying to make sure I understand or need to be corrected on how an M NOI petition works.

And in particular, I had asked a question about the three that were appealed.

So the M and I M N OI petitions are ones that are filed by the landlord.

Okay, and so the when it comes back on appeal, is it that the landlord appealed or the tenants appealed?

It can be both.

Okay.

So yeah.

All right, but in these three cases, do you know what the situation was?

I don't have the exact numbers, but from what I remember in general is most appeals were filed by the landlords themselves.

So why would I mean it said here that those petitions, the hearing officer decided in favor of the landlord in that case?

Can the landlord appeal?

Is it because he thought he didn't get enough money?

Yep.

Okay, okay.

That makes sense then.

Alright, that answers that question.

Thank you.

And I have one other question here.

I'd asked about we had talked about, you know, whether or not filing a petition could affect somebody's immigration status.

And you know, that's a troubling situation to me to think that what we were doing here, you know, might you know affect somebody in that way?

And I appreciate that you send the answer in, but I'm I'm trying to get my hand around that around one question where I mean one part of that where you said immigration retaliation has happened in previous petition cases.

Um I'm taking that to mean that because somebody filed a petition, somebody was uh immigration was notified about somebody.

Is that really true?

Can you say anything about who did the notifying?

Was it his landlord?

Was it somebody on staff?

I mean, somebody in the audience, or that you can't say that.

I mean, that's the property manager or the landlord.

Okay, okay.

Wow.

Okay.

Well, that's that's very disturbing, but thanks for clarifying it, and thank you for clarifying that referring to legal service agencies can help address those concerns.

Member Keating.

Thank you.

So I'm looking at it says uh 19 at the bottom of it, and um it talks about multi-issue tenant petition filings.

And then there's this phrase requiring property inspections, legal assistance, and interpretation and translation.

And the one that caught my attention the most was legal assistance.

And so a tenant never needs legal assistance, but they might want it.

Is that correct?

They don't need it, but uh some tenants um really do not understand the process or what is requested if they file a petition, they have to provide the evidence of what they're uh inquiring and requesting.

So sometimes they do need to help of a legal person, so to improve their chances of the petition getting uh a reasonable hearing.

And then do tenants turn to free legal assistance usually or they pay for another.

We use CLESFA for that.

And the property inspections, those are initiated by the hearing officer?

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions from committee members?

All right.

Uh I have a question.

Um, I did see in the charter petitions.

We had a few joint petitions filed.

Do we know anything about why those joint petitions are filed?

Can you repeat the question?

There and the listing of petitions in the past, so a few years, there are a few joint petitions.

Is there any details about those joint petitions or a joint petition usually happens when a tenant say wants to have a new carpet?

And he's willing to go in a joint petition with the landlord to raise the rent because of this provision of a new carpet.

That's one example.

Okay.

Just checking.

All right.

I have another question.

Go ahead, member keying.

Thank you.

On that same topic, have there been any joint petitions around uh electric car chargers?

Uh no, we have not seen those yet.

Thank you.

Uh that actually reminds me of the other question I was going to ask.

Um, given the trends and petitions, uh, do we feel like we have our hearing officers are still performing fine, or do we believe there's perhaps potential ball index in the number of officers?

We definitely we put an RFQ out for more hearing officers, and we also want to bring back to the rental housing coming uh committee the reenumeration for the hearing officers.

Is that going to be part of next year's budget, or would that be sooner than that?

Um hopefully we can bring it sooner, um, so we can um recruit more hearing officers.

Okay, thank you.

All right, now we will move on to public comments.

If you are you would a member of the public and you would like to comment on this item, please raise your hand on Zoom or press star nine on your phone.

Seeing no one, we will go return back for the committee for deliberations and feedback.

Does any member of the committee have any deliberation or feedback?

Seeing none, we will close the item.

We will now move on to item six, committee staff announcements and updates.

Staff.

Thank you.

We'll be yep, we'll begin with uh agenda item 6.1, upcoming workshops and uh office hours.

So we will continue as we have been to do our virtual office hours every Tuesday from 10 to noon.

Um we also have our workshop schedule for October.

So we have two workshops on October 7th, one specifically for landlords in the afternoon, and this will be a presentation from CSA to explain their services and how CSA is able to assist landlords.

Um, and the reason we're doing this for landlords is because CSA has specifically told us um once a landlord or property manager has worked with them in the past and understands the process specifically around rent assistance, um, and what the landlord needs to do in order for the tenant to receive that assistance, um, they have a higher um success rate in the future getting the the landlord to sign off on receiving some of that rent assistance.

So we just want to educate some of the landlords and property owners around the work that CSA does in the programs that they have.

Um, and then in the in the afternoon, in the evening, we're doing a tenant-focused CSA and services workshop.

And on October 14th, we are continuing with our outreach around the utility adjustment petitions, and this will be tenant focused at 6 30, mostly um explaining to tenants how the rent increase or the rent decrease around their um utilities will look and how that will be presented to them.

Right, and for our help centers, we continue to have separate help centers for landlords and tenants.

Our landlord help center is continuing to be every week, so it's every Thursday from 1 to three, both in person and virtually.

And we have our um help center for tenants.

That is the first and third Thursday of every month from 6 30 to 8 p.m., both in person and on Zoom, and this is where we have a lot of our community partners coming so people can learn about um programs from CSA, from Project Sentinel with Mediation, from CLESBUT to get some legal resources, and then of course our staff is there as well.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Alright, moving on to item 6.2, expected future agenda items for RHC meetings.

For next month, we will have an appeal as well as anti-harassment, anti-retaliation regulations.

Are there any other comments or announcements from any member of the committee or city staff?

Um I just want to remind the rental housing committee that we have a special meeting on October the 4th, which is a retreat.

And next Tuesday night, there is a celebration of the volunteers of the committees.

So don't everyone got the invite for celebration of service.

All right.

Quick question.

Have we received information about the retreat?

Like where?

Um it's at Michael's, but um a formal agenda will be sent out uh the Friday before, but it's from 10 to 4 at Michaels Restaurant.

To four?

Or two, sorry.

Four hours.

Yeah.

Like going on that day.

A lot long treats, I guess.

All right then.

The meeting is adjourned at 6:30 p.m.

The next rental housing community meeting is scheduled to be held on Thursday, October 23rd at 6.