What we are live.

Good evening.

Welcome to the January 22nd,

2026 rental housing committee regular meeting.

This meeting will now be called to order at 6 0 1 PM.

I'll proceed with roll call.

Do I read it?

Okay.

I'm just going to promote committee member to the panel.

Mark, we can hear your background.

So if you wanted to stay muted until then, thanks.

Committee Member Balch will be participating in this meeting by teleconference pursuant

to Government Code Section 54953B from the Hampton Inn Hotel 108 110 West 24th Street,

New York, New York 10011 in the Public Lounge.

The teleconference location will be accessible to the public and the agenda for the meeting

will be posted at that location pursuant to Government Code Section 54953B3.

Members of the public have the opportunity to address the legislative body at this location.

And all committee members are present.

Moving on.

Chair Ma, under the Brown Act, if committee member Balch could let us know if there's

anybody older than 18 in the room with him, and if so, what their relationship to him

is.

There are two people who are guests of the hotel, unrelated to the proceedings, who are

finishing their dinner and having a conversation about 10 feet away from me.

Thank you.

All right, we will now move on to section three, consent calendar.

These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the committee wishes

to remove an item for discussion.

The purpose of the consent calendar is for the committee to efficiently and quickly consider

routine or administrative business items with one motion.

Public comment will occur after the discussion.

We invite you to submit a speaker card now or raise hands on Zoom or press star nine on

your phone if you'd like to speak on this item during public comment.

Would any member of the committee like to pull an item?

Seeing none, I now invite public comments.

Seeing none, I'll bring this back to the committee for action.

A motion to approve the consent calendar should include reading the title of the agenda items.

Vice Chair Cox.

All right.

I make a motion to approve the consent calendar items.

3.1 minutes for the December 18th, 2025 RHC meeting, and 3.2 minor clarifications in the

CSFRA regulations, Chapter 13, Utility Charges.

Second.

That is motion made by Vice President Cox, seconded by Member Brown.

Does anyone have any discussion on the motion?

And I believe this has to be done by roll call today.

Yes, all votes need to be done by roll call.

Okay, in that case, we will go to roll call vote.

I'll just do from left to right.

Member Keating?

Yes.

Vice-Chair Cox?

Yes.

Member Statsisla?

Yes.

Member Brown?

Yes.

And I vote aye.

Motion is unanimous.

5-0.

All right, we will now move on to item four, oral communications.

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

This portion of the meeting is 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 section.

Stay involved.

Prohibits the committee from acting on non-agenda items.

Would any member of the public like to provide comments on non-agenda items?

Seeing none, we'll move on to Section 5, Item 5.1, a new update of outreach and education

program.

Public comment will occur after the presentation item, committee questions.

We invite you to submit a speaker card now if you'd like to speak on this item during

public comment.

We will start with presentation from staff.

Good evening, committee members.

My name is Alexelle Camacho, and I'm an analyst one with the Rent Stabilization Division.

Tonight, I'll be presenting on agenda item 5.1, an annual update of Outreach and Education Program.

The purpose of this presentation is to provide an annual informational update on the Outreach

and Education Program of the Rent Stabilization Division, including a summary of activities

conducted in fiscal year 24-25 and activities planned for fiscal year 25-26.

The rental housing committee requested this annual update to stay informed of the rent

stabilization division education and outreach efforts. This presentation will provide an

overview of tasks completed in fiscal year 24-25 and offers a roadmap of activities to be implemented

in fiscal year 25-26.

A similar presentation was presented to the RHC

in the January 2025 meeting.

Effective communication, education, and outreach

play a crucial role in ensuring that tenants,

landlords, mobile home residents,

and mobile home park owners are well-informed

about their rights and responsibilities

under tenant protection laws

and a clear understanding of these regulations.

Our materials were translated into Spanish, Mandarin, and Russian.

Our goal is to increase community awareness and understanding of tenant protections in

Mountain View.

We do this by following our three objectives supported by strategies.

You can read more about this in the memo.

In the graph here you can see a summary of outreach and education activities performed

in fiscal year 24-25 compared with previous fiscal years.

I will go more in depth in the next slides.

Public inquiries remain at the same level as previous year.

Although tenant petition related inquiries leveled off in fiscal year 24-25 but still

50% higher than fiscal year 22-23.

Registration inquiries are decreasing because landlords

are now more familiar with the system. The division

responded to 3,369 inquiries from the public.

Targeted

mailings slowed down as we wrapped up our outreach to help

landlords and tenants understand the one-time utility adjustment petition process.

The rent stabilization newsletter was sent to fully and partially covered units reaching

both landlords and tenants, mobile home residents, and mobile home park owners.

We decreased the number, we increased the number of workshops mostly for one-time utility

adjustment petitions for both landlords and tenants.

Housing Help Center and or office hours remain popular

among tenants and landlords.

Tenants' assistance focuses on rent assistance,

support with registering for low-income housing

and legal help.

To assist the one-time utility adjustment petition,

registration, fee payment and landlord-related issues,

weekly housing help center were added.

This helped increase compliance.

We expanded our attendance at outreach events

to include our vulnerable and hard to reach community members,

including Cafecito, Second Harvest Brown Bag

food distribution, CSA events, and school events

to include families with children.

This included back to school nights, open houses,

and Dia del Nino.

Staff organized our fourth annual summer community kickoff event.

It is a family-friendly housing focused resource fair in collaboration with

community partner organizations.

466 attendees attended our summer kickoff event in 2025.

We continue to implement our customer service feedback.

95% of our clients felt that they received the support they needed.

94% of our clients agreed that the information provided to them was helpful.

98% of our clients agreed that staff were helpful and courteous.

Here you can see some of the feedback we received in fiscal year 24-25.

One was from a housing help center attendee, another from a tenant petitioner, and another

one from a workshop attendee.

These can also be found on our memo.

The goals, objectives, and strategies outlined will continue in fiscal year 25-26, including

but not limited to the following.

We will continue our outreach campaign

on the one-time utility adjustment petition

and targeted mailings to landlords and tenants.

We are in the process of redesigning

the rent stabilization division's web pages

as part of the housing department's overall redesign.

We will also continue to conduct

an annual targeted outreach campaign to landlords

about registration requirements, program updates,

noticing and compliance requirements.

You can see that this has been very helpful

as our compliance numbers have increased

tremendously over the years.

We will continue to conduct an annual,

we will continue to engage our vulnerable

and hard to reach community members

throughout workshops, office hours and community events.

We will continue to evaluate outreach and education program, analyze our quarterly active

status reports, housing help center data, and customer satisfaction surveys.

We will also continue to update our rental housing committee on an annual basis.

This concludes the presentation.

I'm happy to take any questions.

All right.

Do any members have any questions?

You can just raise your hand if you have any.

Vice Chair Coxon.

Yes.

First of all, thank you for giving the testimonials.

I think that those are wonderful.

They put some flesh and bones on the bare facts and let us see the good work that is

coming out of this group.

I just had one question, and that was about, you know, I noticed that, you know, for the

HARD-TO-REACH GROUPS.

YOU KNOW, THERE WAS AN INITIAL

EFFORT LAST YEAR AND THEN THIS

YEAR THERE WAS SAME AMOUNT OF

OUTREACH EVENTS BUT FEWER

PARTICIPANTS.

AND I'M JUST WONDERING, I MEAN,

WHEN YOU GUYS DECIDE ON HOW TO

DO YOUR OUTREACH, MAYBE YOU'RE

DOING THIS ALREADY, BUT I WOULD

WONDER MAYBE IT'S GOOD TO REACH

OUT TO, LIKE, SOME COMMUNITY

LEADERS AND SEE IF THERE'S

places that you could go that you haven't gone like the previous year that would, you know,

give you a broader outreach. Any thoughts on that?

Sure. Yes, we did start that. We do go to the schools. We do go to the cafecito. We do go

at open house events at the schools. We are in contact with community organizations such as CAT

and other Spanish-speaking communities.

If we hear of new opportunities,

we always embrace that fully

and add them to our outreach events.

Okay.

I mean, let me ask you this.

Did you talk to any people from faith-based groups?

Yes.

So we are in contact with certain churches

to see how we can integrate our outreach

with their programs.

Okay.

Thank you.

Does anyone else have any questions?

Mark, if you have any questions, you can raise your hand.

Member Statsisle?

Not a question, just great work with the compliance on the rent registry and fees and

all of it.

The numbers keep going up and up.

Good work.

Member Keating?

Were the testimonials all from tenants or were there a mix of tenant and landlord?

It's a mix. The third one, the bigger one, that was from a landlord who attended an OTUA

petition workshop.

All right, we will now move on to public comments. If anyone would like to give public comment,

please raise hand or submit a speaker card. Seeing none, we'll move back to the committee

for deliberations and feedback. Does any member want to give any discussion, feedback, changes

via member Brown.

Also good job and I'm excited for the summer kickoff again.

Does anyone else have any comments, any more direction they would like to give staff?

Seeing none, we will move on to item 5.2.

And again, thanks staff for the presentation.

We will move on to 5.2, annual update on relevant legislation and case law in California.

Public comment will occur after the presentation item and committee questions.

We'll begin with the staff presentation.

Yes, good evening.

So Naz and I will be trading off on this.

So next slide, please.

So the purpose of this is to provide you with an update on relevant legal changes that have

occurred this year and also case law.

So the first thing we wanted to talk about is the Brown Act because you as the rental

housing committee are subject to the Brown Act in terms of how you conduct your meetings.

SB 707 was passed this year and it was probably the most substantive change to the Brown Act

maybe ever, but certainly in a long time.

There are a lot of provisions in 707 that do not apply to you.

they will apply to your city council but not to you so we're not going to go over those

but one of the things we wanted to go over is that the there have been changes about remote

attendance by committee members at meetings so as the brown act now reads after sp 707 was passed

there are two different processes for remote attendance one which has been in the brown act

for quite a while, which is under Government Code 54953.

And that's the procedure that we're using tonight

so that committee member Balch can participate.

We listed his location on the agenda.

The agenda is posted where he is located.

People are allowed to attend the meeting

from the location where he is.

And it's been noticed appropriately.

So that's been in the Brown Act for quite a while.

um after the pandemic there were amendments to the brown act to allow other options for

remote attendance they were a little complicated there was a just cause reason and there was an

emergency reason and it was very unclear as to which was which and there were different procedures

So 707 has collapsed those.

There is only one reason, it's just cause.

So members can participate remotely if they have a just cause.

There's a whole list of just causes there.

It has to be one of those causes.

So it cannot be any other reason to attend remotely.

Next slide.

If you're using the just cause for attendance, you are supposed to notify the chair and we

would ask you to notify staff as soon as possible.

But that may be at the beginning of the meeting and that is fine.

The minutes of the meeting have to identify the just cause and you have to give some description

of the just cause if you are using that provision you do not have to reveal medical information

um you are also limited in the number of times you can use just cause so because the rental housing

committee meets once a month you are limited to using just cause for two times in a 12-month

period so if you exceed that then you would not be able to attend the meetings and there is an

exception to that if you are attending remotely as a reasonable accommodation

because of a disability and that's a whole different process. Next slide.

Regardless of which provision that you are relying on for remote attendance, you

are required to use both audio and visual to participate. There is an

exception once again for reasonable accommodation. All the votes do need to

be right by roll call if anybody is attending remotely.

And always we have to have a quorum

of the committee attending here.

So we can't have a meeting without that.

Next slide.

So a couple other provisions of 707 that are relevant.

There are some changes about teleconferencing,

which is what 707 calls,

the way we're all conducting meetings now by Zoom.

some of which you have been doing since the pandemic,

but they now are more specific.

So the agenda does have to include

whether the members of the public

can participate remotely and how.

There is a new provision that if the technology

is disrupted during the meeting,

you must take a break and you cannot conduct any business

until the technology is restored.

So fortunately you are not what is called a, I think, a qualified legislative body

because there if the technology is disrupted you must take a one-hour

break, but you don't have to do that. There are also provisions about allowing

sufficient time for people to participate remotely. The statute talks

about a reasonable period of time, it doesn't define what that is. I think the

real point here is to allow people who are participating remotely to have

sufficient time if they have to register on whatever your platform is if they have

to find the unmute button whatever it is you have to allow a little time before

you move on to the next item and then finally the changes make it clear that

the provisions of the Brown Act that currently exist about removing a member

of the public who is disruptive, which you can only do in very rare instances, but that

also applies to members of the public participating remotely.

So it is putting into statute the fact that if your meeting is Zoom bombed, you can cut

those people off.

Next slide.

Okay, so now into more landlord-tenant law.

There were several bills this year that made changes regarding mobile homes.

AB 456 made some changes that essentially require park management to be responsive

when somebody wants to sell their mobile home or they want a new occupant, wants to be recognized.

If park management doesn't respond to a notice about whether repairs are going to be required within 15 days,

then they cannot require repairs.

Also, if they don't approve the purchaser within 15 business days,

then the purchaser is deemed approved.

The one thing for mobile homeowners is they now are supposed to provide the disclosures.

They provide to prospective purchasers, to park management as well.

Next slide.

AB806 requires that park management has to allow mobile homeowners

to install cooling systems, and there's a bunch of language about what management cannot do.

So they can't charge you extra money if you want to add a cooling system.

Next slide.

SB 610 impacts of disasters is really a response to the LA fires of last January.

There are a variety of provisions.

The main ones are that if a tenancy is terminated due to a disaster, the tenant is entitled to a refund of any prepaid rent.

So if the disaster occurs on the sixth day of the month and the tenant's already paid rent for that month, they're entitled to get the rest of it back.

And the other one that has been really important for people in the LA fires is that the apartment owners are required to remove the debris from the disaster.

that includes ash and smoke and water damage that was the big issue in LA and until the debris is

determined not to be a toxic substance the apartment is considered uninhabitable

so and then there's also a provision of it that will change closure impact reports if a mobile

home park is closed after a disaster because of destruction there's additional information that

has to be provided.

These provisions only apply if it's a disaster

that's been declared a disaster

by either the president or the governor.

Next slide.

A few other changes, AB 391,

just for our mobile home owners,

that there is a change in how you can elect

to receive notices from your park management

and you can opt in to email.

And then SB 525 makes manufactured homes,

including mobile homes, subject to the California Fair Plan

for property insurance.

Next slide, and I think this is Naz.

Yes, thank you.

All right, so next one is AB 246.

This is the Social Security Tenant Protection Act.

This is arising out of the government shutdown.

or shutdowns that we've experienced at the federal level.

But basically this authorizes tenants in California to assert a social security hardship as an affirmative defense to an unlawful detainer.

A social security hardship means any loss of income due to the interruption of social security benefits,

due to inaction or inaction of the federal government.

In order to qualify for this affirmative defense, the tenant must provide evidence that their benefits were terminated, delayed, or reduced through new fault of their own, and that the hardship prevented the tenant from paying the rent that is the subject of an unlawful detainer.

So it's worth noting that this is only an affirmative defense to a non-payment of rent case.

case. If the tenant provides the evidence that is required of both of the conditions

I just mentioned, then the court has to delay the case until the earlier of 14 days after

the tenant's benefits are restored or six months after the stay is issued by the court.

So the affirmative defense, if proven, does not relieve the tenant of their obligation

to pay the rent that is owed.

So the tenant must either pay the past due rent within 14 days of restoration of their

benefits or enter into a payment plan with their landlord detailing how they will pay

back the rent that is owed.

And if that requirement is satisfied, so the tenant either pays the rent that's owed

or enters into a payment plan, then the court must dismiss the case or set aside any judgment

against all of the tenants in the case.

AB 1414, this makes additional changes to security deposit law. We've seen a number of changes to

that law in the past few years. This one relates to how the balance of the tenant's security deposit

is returned. So the statute, the provisions that are added make the default either personal

delivery or a check made payable to the tenant and mailed by first-class mail post is prepaid.

Or if the tenant paid their rent or security deposit electronically, then their security

deposit must be returned electronically to their bank account that they use to pay their rent or

security deposit or any other virtual payment method agreed upon by the tenant. So, you know,

in informal settings like Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, things like that. The landlord and the tenant can

mutually agree that the landlord will send the itemized statement that is required for any

deductions that are made from the tenant's security deposit to the tenant's email

rather than mailing it to the tenant. And the landlord must return any balance of the security

deposit by check made payable to all adult tenants who are on the lease unless they enter

into an alternative disbursement plan or agreement with all of the adult tenants that specifies

the percentages of the balance of the security deposit that will be returned to each tenant.

86 to 8, this might come as a surprise. This seems to be a bigger issue in the LA area, but

Apparently there are landlords, many landlords in the LA area who do not provide stoves and refrigerators.

And so this amends existing law related to habitability to establish an affirmative duty of landlords to provide both a stove and a refrigerator that are maintained in good working order.

The landlord and the tenant at the commencement of the tenancy can agree that the tenant will provide and maintain their own refrigerator.

However, that does not exclude the tenant from later notifying their landlord that they want the landlord to provide and maintain a refrigerator.

In that case, the tenant has to provide 30 days notice to the landlord that they want them to provide a refrigerator.

And the landlord has to install the refrigerator at the end of the 30-day notice period and then becomes responsible for maintaining it.

AB 299, so this one also arises out of the Southern California wildfires from last year.

but the governor had passed or adopted an executive order that basically suspended

the rule related to the establishment of a tenancy after 30 days in a hotel, motel,

or other short-term lodging. So this basically codifies that executive order that the governor

had issued and provides that an individual who occupies a room in a hotel motel or other short

term lodgings for 30 or more days or does not become a tenant until they have occupied the room

for 270 days or more so it extends it from 30 to 270 days and there are certain requirements that

must be met in order to qualify for this exception or extension.

AB 1414 relates to subscription services.

So landlords must now allow tenants to opt out of any subscription from a third-party

internet service provider.

If the landlord fails to provide this option, the tenant can deduct the cost of the subscription

from their rent and a landlord cannot retaliate against their tenant for exercising their right

to opt out of this subscription subscription um maybe 863 um this is really just super

it's informative uh but won't impact people directly until um january 1 of 2027 but basically

this directs the Judicial Council to create a mandatory use single form summons in English,

Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Korean for unlawful detainer cases. So that summons will now

be quite long because it will be in all of the languages, but that is great because

then people will be able to access it in their primary language. And I think back to Karen on

Yes.

Yep.

Okay, so that was the legislative highlights,

and then there were also some reported cases this year

that impact landlord-tenant relations or rent stabilization.

The first one is the California Apartment and Owners Association

versus the City of Pasadena.

So the CAA challenged Pasadena's charter amendment

adopting rent stabilization and just cause for eviction

that was passed in 2022.

At the trial court, the court upheld the charter amendment, made two minor changes of reformation of items that were preempted, and the CAA appealed.

So the California Court of Appeal issued a decision in December, so this is all very fresh.

the highlights are that the court found that the charter initiative was appropriately a charter

initiative as opposed to a charter revision because charter revisions can only be put to

the voters by the legislative body not by an initiative so that was important

Pasadena's rental housing board has a requirement that seven out of 11 of the members have to

be tenants.

And the CAA challenged that on two grounds.

One, that that constituted a violation of the constitution because it required property

ownership as a condition of holding office and the court did not find that to be a persuasive

argument and basically found like no actually it's not property ownership it's requiring you

don't own property fascinating discussion if you'd like to go back to the California Constitutional

Convention of like 18 whatever when that item was added to the Constitution and then the court

also found that the unbalanced board did not violate landlords equal protection rights

There were two items that the court did find problematic.

One was a provision of the Pasadena Charter Amendment that says that if a landlord imposes a rent increase that is greater than 5% plus the annual general adjustment,

and the tenant vacates the apartment because of that, the tenant is entitled to relocation assistance.

the California Court of Appeals found that that was preempted by Costa Hawkins because it restricted the property owners who own units that have to be exempt from rent stabilization from freely raising their rent

and then they also found a requirement in the charter amendment that landlords give a written

notice to cease before commencing eviction proceedings to be preempted by california law

that regulates eviction protections um the city of pasadena is filing a request for review with the

california supreme court but solely on the item regarding the uh rent increase and relocation

Next slide.

And then we have CP6 Admirals Cove, LLC versus the City of Elameda.

This is a case that involved former Navy housing that the developer bought and rehabbed and

then put on the market and claimed that the housing was exempt from the city's rent stabilization

on the basis that Costa-Hawkins exempts any units that receive a certificate of occupancy

after February 1st, 1995.

The property owner made a variety of arguments,

including that they got a new certificate of occupancy

because of the rehab, and that also that the housing

was never part of the rental housing stock

because it was limited to members of the Navy.

The California Court of Appeal did not buy

either of those arguments,

and followed some precedential case law

with regard to this provision in Costa-Hawkins

found that the housing is subject to the city's rent stabilization next slide i think it's naz

yeah um okay so anaheim mobile estates uh versus the state of california so this relates to a new

law that the state legislature passed in 2021 that placed a cap on rent increases for tendencies in

and mobile home parks that are located within

and governed by two or more incorporated cities.

So it applies to, I think,

maybe two or three mobile home parks in the state.

Nonetheless, a mobile home park owner

to whom this does apply filed suit against the state

alleging that this new statute is facially unconstitutional

because it lacks a fair return rent adjustment mechanism.

And really we're just flagging this

because there's a really good discussion by the appellate court, which upheld this new law,

placing the rent caps, explaining that the existing case law, Birkenfeld, Kavanaugh,

cases that you have likely heard of, do not stand for the proposition that a rent control law

must have a fair return adjustment mechanism to be constitutional, rather the fair return rent

adjustment mechanism is exactly that, a mechanism by which a law that is otherwise facially

confiscatory can be made constitutional. So there's no requirement that this be included

in the law. And then the last case, this case really just reiterates well-accepted law in

California related to eviction cases. So this arose out of an appeal, a tenant's appeal of a

trial court's decision that entered judgment for a landlord in an unlawful detainer case based on

the tenant's non-payment of rent. And the appellate court agreed with the tenant basically

that the landlord's three-day notice to pay rent or quit did not strictly comply with state law

requirements it didn't state that the tenant would lose possession of the rental unit if they

did not pay the rent that was owed before the three-day notice period expired it did not state

when the notice commenced or ended or that the notice period did not include weekends and

judicial holidays and it also did not provide a clear address where and the days and times when

the tenant could pay the rent owed and so again this is just really reinforcing that um you know

eviction notices must strictly comply with the requirements of state law in order to be actionable

in a lawsuit. I think that's our last one. Thank you. We will now move on to questions

from committee members. If you have any questions, Vice Chair Cox? Yeah, just on two things. One is,

and I want to thank you for, I sent in questions before,

so thank you for the answers that you provided me.

That's why this is a much shorter list,

because there's only one there that I didn't quite get in the answer,

and that had to do with AB 628,

with the, this is the refrigerator stove thing.

And what it says there in the last thing in the staff report under that item,

these provisions apply only to leases that are entered, amended,

or extended on or after January 1st, 2026.

And so, I mean, I understand that you quoted this back

in terms of the limitation of its applicability.

But here's the case I'm thinking of,

and let me give you the for instance,

and you can tell me what the answer would be in this case.

Because I'm not sure I understand completely

what the three terms legally mean.

I'm thinking about a case where you have somebody who has,

is in a rent control department and they are getting

a year to year lease and sometime after January

their lease is coming up for renewal.

So one question is I would have taken that as an extension

of the lease at that point.

You can correct me if that's not what that means.

But at that point, what I'm wondering is if it's rent

controlled under the csfra i mean who pays for the refrigerator of the stove if it's not there

the answer we got back from staff was is that you know it might require a joint

agreement but how can that be if it's a requirement under california law

yeah and i think that the language of the statute is not super clear what happens in the case of

like a month-to-month tenancy that continues.

You know, I think that in comparison, there's another law that we talked about, the new

statute that we talked about, that specifically talks about tenancies that are continued on

a month-to-month or other periodic basis.

And it says the provisions do apply to those, whereas this one doesn't.

And so I would read that to mean that in a scenario where a rent-controlled tenancy

is continuing on a month-to-month basis, this new affirmative duty does not apply unless

the parties go through the joint petition process and agree that the landlord is going

to provide a refrigerator and a stove.

Now, in the case of a renewal that you're talking about where maybe there's a longer

a term lease i mean i i guess that the statute is really just not not clear a rule a renewal is not

necessarily an extension and there's not it's not defined in the statute so i mean i would say

that to be safe uh they should go through the joint petition process but um you know i think

I don't know if Karen has other thoughts on how to interpret that provision.

It's really not clear.

Well, okay, I'll just take that, that it's not clear.

It's not the first time I read a piece of legislation where everything wasn't clear.

Okay, but I mean, so thanks for your efforts in trying to understand that.

I'm going to take it to be that if somebody push comes to shove, it'll probably get decided in the court somehow.

The other thing I wanted to ask about

was this Anaheim Mobile Estates lawsuit.

And in particular, I mean, the comment that,

where it says, since the park owner

had not demonstrated that Section 79835

was confiscated in all cases or in a majority of cases,

then they had not demonstrated the need for fair return rent adjustment mechanism.

And that struck me just as strange, and I want to know if you have any comments back on it.

Why it seems strange to me is that to require it to be problematic unless you can show all or a majority of cases have a problem with it.

I mean, I know that, you know, when you're in business, I mean, some people have access, some business owners have access to services from people at a cheaper rate, maybe just because they've held it for a long time or they, you know, they have some other agreement.

And so the cost basis isn't always the same for all landlords.

And so, you know, I just, I wouldn't have thought that that would have been a justification.

communication, you know, I would have agreed, I guess, with the first judgment and not with this

one. But what do you guys think? Yeah, so because this was a facial challenge, so in the law,

there's facial challenges, which just talk about the law as it's written, not applied to any

specific case. And then there are as applied challenges, which relate to a specific, in this

case, a specific landlord's case of whether or not they are being denied a fair return.

And so on its face, it's possible that a law can be confiscatory. And the standard that the courts

have set in order to demonstrate that something is facially unconstitutional because it denies

landlords a fair return is that it denies landlords in all or a majority of the cases

a fair return just based on what it says on its face.

And so I'll give you the example of where this came from, which is the Birkenfeld case,

where basically their process was in order to get, they didn't have any, in the first

version of the Berkeley Rent Control Law, they did not have any annual adjustment.

So in order to get a rent increase, you had to apply for it.

and you could not they didn't have any rules around consolidating petitions so if you had

100 units you had to do 100 petitions 100 hearings before the Berkeley rent board and so in that case

in looking at how the law was written the court said this is going to deny landlords in all or

majority of the cases in Berkeley a fair return because it's going to take so long and it's so

burdensome to get any sort of rank increase. And so basically that's sort of the framework that

courts now use to assess it. And so because this law, the one that was in question in

the Anaheim Mobile Estates case, provides for an annual adjustment of a certain amount,

it's more difficult to demonstrate that it's going to be confiscatory and it's going to deny

landlord's a fair return in all or a majority of cases. And so that's the idea. That does not mean

that this landlord in this case can't come back and do a facial challenge, I mean an as-applied

challenge, and say, well, here I'm showing you why I'm being denied a fair return by this law.

And in that case, it might be unconstitutional as applied to that landlord, which is different than

it being unconstitutional as applied, you know, in general on its face.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, that does make sense.

Thanks for clarifying it.

I mean, the main thing I was trying to get at is, and I think you confirmed, is there

is some legal mechanism by which, you know, a particular landlord, if he felt he was in

a disadvantaged situation relative to the majority, that, you know, he could make a

case and, you know, you would get a judgment.

So, yes.

Yeah, and I just, I mean, part of this is to overturn a statute on a facial challenge

is a high threshold.

Okay.

So the court has set a high bar for that.

Whereas on an applied challenge, it's only going to impact that person.

In this instance, I do think there's only a single mobile home park that's affected by

Yeah, it could be because it has to be between two cities.

Maybe I thought it was more than one.

I know, I think it's the only one.

Okay, okay.

Thank you for that.

We'll move to Alderman Member Bolch. I see your hand is raised.

Yes, thank you. I had a question about the Brown Act. Yes, can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes, I have a question about the Brown Act changes, specifically around Just Cause.

I'm wondering if I have just cause today because I am traveling but not on official business for the city of Mountain View.

I'm traveling for my career or my employer.

So what is the appropriateness of my remote participation in situations like I have tonight?

so for a just cause if it's travel it has to be travel on business for the city of mountain view

or if you're actually traveling for official business of the state or some other public

agency so if you were employed by the state and you had to travel theoretically that would work

even though it's not mountain view business but traveling for your job for a private employer

is not a just cause.

Right.

So in other words, am I in violation at this moment?

No, because we posted

on the agenda where you would

be located

and you are posting

the agenda where you're at.

You are in a public place

where members of the public could actually

attend if they wanted to.

So that's been

the provision in the Brown Act for quite a while

that you can post the agenda.

to use the provision you used, the main issue,

and I'm just saying this again so everybody knows,

if you're going to rely on this, you have to tell us in time

so that we can put it on the agenda.

So your situation does not fall under the just cause.

Right.

It falls under the other remote attendance provision.

So, but if you're traveling for business

and you want to attend a meeting remotely,

give us a lot of advance notice

because we do have to put it on the agenda,

which has to get posted 72 hours in advance of the meeting.

And you do have to post that agenda where you're located.

And you have to be someplace where you would be willing

to allow a member of the public

to come and speak at the meeting.

Yes, definitely confirmed there.

And so am I also subject to the two meetings per year limit?

No, that only applies to Just Cause.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you very much.

They just like to make it confusing.

Thank you.

No problem.

Okay.

Member Keating.

So just to follow up on the Brown Act and attending remotely.

So really it's discretionary to the longstanding option.

So it can be for any reason.

you know you can be on vacation or yes but remember you have to be willing to

allow members of the public to attend where you're attending so if you just

want to stay home you theoretically could do that as long as we posted the

agenda but you have to let members of the public come into your home so noted

Thank you.

So then my other question is on the SB 610,

and I just was having trouble imagining the benefit of this.

I mean, I'd just like more detail if it's available on the section that says,

apartment owners are required to remove debris caused by disaster,

including ash smoke, mold odor, and water damage in a timely manner.

So I notice it doesn't go all the way to make the place inhabitable again, but it just says get rid of the debris.

So this does come out of the L.A. fires.

So there were a lot of issues after the L.A. fires in that tenants did not want to return to their units.

Their units were not burned, but their units had ash or smoke, and landlords were denying that it was their responsibility to clean that up and telling the tenants, you have to keep paying your rent.

So that's the purpose of SB 610 is to say, no, it actually is the landlord's responsibility to take care of those items.

you know so theoretically the unit is habitable except for the fact that there's a bunch of

debris from the fire that's the thinking behind it and that was the case for a lot of

rental units in southern california helpful thank you yeah i will note that the the statute

does have one provision that says that until a determination has been made by a local public

health agency or official that the debris from the disaster has like doesn't contain toxic

substances then the presence of the debris at the rental unit is presumed to make the tenant

of the rental unit untenatable subject to section civil code section 1941.1 so until a determination

so there might be ash and debris and it but if a public health official has made a determination

that it doesn't contain any toxic substances then that presumption doesn't apply but if that

such determination has not been made then it is presumed to be not tenable right and just to note

so even though it's untenable um until the debris is removed the tenant has a right to return once

it's removed so that's another provision because once again that was another issue in la where

landlords were saying okay well then you're out and i'm going to re-rent this to somebody else

Member Statsoslip?

In the Pasadena case, the holding around the notice to cease, does that impact the CSFRA?

We are looking into that.

Does anyone else have any other questions?

Seeing none, we move on to public comment.

If you're a member of the public and you would like to wish to provide comment on this item,

please raise hand on Zoom or press star 9 on your phone.

Seeing neither, we will go back to the committee for deliberations and feedback.

Does any member of the committee have any feedback or deliberation or direction to staff?

Member Hislip?

It's not direction or anything.

I just looked up.

I was curious about the Anaheim Park,

and it's not subject to any local rent stabilization,

so I think it has vacancy decontrol.

Am I correct?

So I just want to point out that if there's vacancy decontrol,

the fair return is likely not an issue,

just to lessen the concern about the holding.

Right.

I think the other reason why the Anaheim case is interesting

is because the Tenant Protection Act does not have,

a fair return process um yeah so that is always been curious to me so now we have some clarity

that it's not needed

seeing no other discussion deliberation or feedback we will bring we'll move on to item six

committee staff announcements and updates we'll provide it back to staff

Thank you. So we will start off with our upcoming office hours and workshops. We continue to hold our Tuesday virtual office hours. And underneath that, you'll see our workshop schedule for the remainder of January into February.

So we're sort of rounding out our property owner registration and annual fee workshops right before the due date of January 31st.

So we'll be holding that virtually at 2 o'clock on January 28th.

And finally, we have there on January 30th, a tenant-focused understanding the utility adjustment petition workshop at 630.

and that's sort of focused on tenants who may be receiving their rent adjustments in the mail so

they can understand how that affects them moving forward and then we are going to have another

landlord focused workshop February 6th for submitting utility adjustment petitions

and we continue to hold our housing help center for landlords every Thursday they have been

very busy lately because of the due dates for registration and fee payment and those are from

one to three people can join virtually or come to our office and our housing help center for

tenants continues to be the first and third Thursday of each month from six to eight p.m.

again that is hybrid and during the tenant help center we have our staff available and our

partners with community legal services, CSA and Project Sentinel.

Any questions about upcoming events?

Seeing none online or in person.

We'll move on to item 6.2, expected future agenda items for RC meetings.

The expected future agenda item for the next meeting on February 26, 2026 is an annual

update on the registration fee payment compliance as well as an appeal.

One?

One appeal?

Okay.

Just checking.

Would that require translation?

Okay, translation will require for that meeting.

Look forward to it.

Are there any other comments or announcements from members or staff?

Seeing none, this meeting is adjourned at 6.59 p.m.

The next rental housing committee meeting is scheduled to be held on Thursday, February

26th at 6 p.m.