Back from Spring Recess, Legislative Committees Working Fast but Statewide Rent Control is Dead for the Year

Just this morning, the WMA legislative team met with the committee consultant for the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee about the statewide rent control bill authored by Assemblyman Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) and after that meeting, we were informed that the bill will not be granted a hearing, meaning statewide rent control for mobilehome parks is effectively dead for the year.

To read the language of AB 2778 that would have been heard, please click here.

In other news, The Legislature returned this week after its yearly Spring Recess, and bills of concern to WMA are quickly moving through the process of being heard by various policy committees.

Several bills were heard earlier this week or will be heard in the next few weeks, and they include:

1. Assembly Bill 3200 (Hoover, R-Folsom) was scheduled to be heard in the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee on Wednesday. This bill, sponsored by WMA, was introduced to begin a pilot program in areas that receive water from private water companies under the jurisdiction of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

The pilot program would have allowed mobilehome communities to begin turning over ownership, management, and responsibility for repairing or replacing water systems in master-metered mobilehome parks over to the CPUC regulated company.

The Utilities and Energy Committee planned to amend the bill to only require the CPUC to study existing water systems in mobilehome communities and determine what would need to be done to bring them up to current standards without requiring private water companies regulated by the CPUC to take over the systems.

As a result of the amendments, AB 3200 was withdrawn from committee, and WMA will pursue the issue in the 2025-26 legislative session.

To read the introduced version of AB 3200, please click here.

2. Assembly Bill 2539 (Connolly, D-San Rafael) will be heard in the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee next Wednesday, and this bill would provide tenants the ability to exercise a right of first refusal to purchase a mobilehome community listed for sale that could delay such a sale by ten months or longer.

WMA has engaged other groups and organizations to join a coalition to oppose this unconstitutional measure, and a special thank-you should be extended to the California Mobilehome Parkowners Alliance, the California Rental Housing Association, the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, the California Business Properties Association, and the Security Investment Company for joining the coalition.

WMA has also launched an aggressive VoterVoice campaign urging our members to contact legislators on the Housing Committee and encourage them to vote NO when the bill is heard next Wednesday. If you have not already done so, please consider taking a few minutes to send a message to the committee members by clicking here.

To read the language of AB 2539, please click here.

3. Assembly Bill 2022 (Addis, D-Morro Bay) will also soon be heard by the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee. The bill would require community managers or responsible persons to sign under penalty of perjury that they are available to facilitate emergency evacuations of mobilehome communities and have a working knowledge of the community’s gas, electric, and water systems. They must also confirm they are able to assist in evacuation efforts.

Mobilehome communities already have a requirement to post evacuation plans in common areas, and AB 2022 would expose parkowners to excessive liability if power is left on or if a catastrophe happens through no fault of the mobilehome park.

The bill has not yet been set for a hearing date by the Housing Committee, but a VoterVoice alert will be distributed once we know when the bill will be considered. If AB 2022 passes out of policy committee, it will be considered by the Appropriations Committee before being considered by the full Assembly.

To read the language of AB 2022, please click here.

In addition to the above-listed bills, WMA is closely tracking many others, but the significant addition to the list is Assembly Bill 1999, authored by Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin and others, removing the requirement that the CPUC adopt fixed electricity charges on an income-graduated basis.

A last-minute budget trailer bill passed last year after being in print for only three days to require high-income earners to pay higher electricity costs regardless of electric usage. AB 1999 is a clean-up bill that would set a fixed charge for electricity customers at $10 per month for people not enrolled in the California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) program and $5 per month for people enrolled in the program. WMA is supportive of AB 1999.

To read the language of AB 1999, please click here.

To view a list of all the bills being monitored and tracked by WMA and to learn about the positions WMA has taken on these legislative measures, please click here.

HCD Announces Fee Increases for Mobilehome Parks and Special Occupancy Parks

On April 1, the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) announced a schedule of fee increases for employee housing, mobilehome communities, special occupancy parks, and manufactured housing. This is the first time since 2006 (18 years ago) that the fees have been largely increased.

To view the HCD Information Bulletin containing a list of the fee increases, please click here.

HCD was very clear that fees charged by local enforcement agencies shall NOT exceed the fees detailed in the Information Bulletin.

It is an honor to serve WMA. Please feel to reach me directly at chris@wma.org or on my direct line at the office at 916.288.4026, if I may be of assistance or if you need additional information.