Legislature Continues to Kneecap Housing Providers

Are you ready to be instructed to help the state achieve goals for energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the apartment buildings you own or manage?

The legislature is in hyper speed to approve the following bill.

SB 48, as amended, proposes to track all renters’ private information if they reside in a building with five or more dwelling units within the building, and obligate an owner/manager of 16 or more units to report the energy usage of those units to the state Energy Commission.

AAOC is opposed to the measure because: a. While there is value in assessing greenhouse gas emissions based on the growing concerns of cli- mate change, as SB 48 states, “…[l]arge buildings represent a small share of total buildings, but a much larger share of total energy usage and emissions of greenhouse gases.” b. A large commercial or industrial building is not used in the same capacity as a large residential building and, therefore, those buildings cannot be tracked in the same manner. c. A large residential building is equipped with hundreds of dwelling units, yet each unit only takes up a small portion of that building. Each unit’s energy is used differently depending upon the needs of those residents; and most importantly, is that information is private. a. Any building with five or more active residential utility accounts is subject to the provisions of SB 48. b. There are approximately 2.8 multi-family units in California, which represents 23% of the State’s multi-family residential units and approximately 9.1 million residents. c. If 45% of California’s population rents, and there are 39 million residents, then about 17.5 million Californian’s rent their homes. d. SB 48 would mandate more than half of California’s renters to involuntarily release private information about their households through “tracking” and “assessing”, while the other half of renters would be protected from releasing their private information.

I. SB 48 unconstitutionally invades upon the privacy of a third-party renter.

SB 48 will conflict with Whalen v. Roe (1977) 429 U.S. 589, which is the primary Supreme Court case concerning constitutional protections for control over information and an individual’s interest in avoiding disclosure of personal matters because there is no requirement for the previous tenant(s) to provide consent.

II. SB 48 uses energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions to convince the legislature the government should track personal information about renters.

III. SB 48 unfairly and unequally treats renters of single-family homes differently than renters of multifamily homes.

Another bill that AAOC opposes is SB 567 (Durazo)

SB 567 proposes to unjustifiably and unreasonably punish both renters and property owners if a property owner evicts a renter for No-Fault Just Cause.

Among our reasons to OPPOSE SB 567 are: a. SB 567 forces ALL renters from ALL dwelling units to be evicted even if only some dwelling units are affected by repair or substantial remodel, regardless of the number of units on the property. b. SB 567 does not, “…[e]nsure that renters can stay in their homes.” In fact, forcing prop-

I. SB 567 unfairly and adversely evicts renters and prohibits lawful tenancy by those who are not impacted by the need for repair or substantial remodel.