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Title:
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Ordinance amending Chapter 37 Administrative Code "Residential Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Ordinance" regarding landlord capital improvement and Bond cost passthroughs to tenants, by amending Sections 37.2, 37.3, and 37.7, and by adding new Section 37.8C: by providing for certification of current code required seismic strengthening work and for certification of other live/safety capital improvements required by code provisions enacted in the future, to be amortized and passed through to tenants over a 20-year period (currently a 10-year period) without being added to base rent; to provide that certain other certified capital improvement cost passthroughs may be added to tenant base rent (which is not permitted under current provisions), up to a total increase of 10% of base rent over each designated 3 year period in buildings with 1-4 residential units, or a total increase of 10% of base rent over each designated 5 year period in buildings with 5 or more residential units (currently amortized over a 7 or 10-year period); by providing that capital improvement costs for abatement of code violations may not be certified for passthrough to affected tenants where code violations were unabated for 90 days or more (absent temporary suspension of the 90 day period due to good faith abatement activity by the landlord), and providing that such tenants may not also receive a reduction of rent due to reduction of housing services caused by these code violations (this provision is new); by providing that capital improvement costs for abatement of code violations may not be certified for passthrough to tenants where the work was necessitated by deferred maintenance that resulted in those code violations, even where a prior landlord deferred the maintenance (currently available only as to the current landlord's deferred maintenance); by providing that tenants may file applications for hardship deferment from capital improvement passthroughs at any time during their tenancy, pursuant to specified criteria (currently a tenant must appeal within 15 days of the decision granting certification); providing a pilot program for deciding non-complex landlord capital improvement petitions and tenant hardship applications without a hearing, where the facts are substantially undisputed (currently all such petitions and applications require hearing); and by providing that landlords may automatically pass through to tenants 50% of annual costs resulting from repayment of city general obligation bonds approved by the voters in the November 2000 election or thereafter (currently no automatic passthrough provisions for such bond costs).
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