As more tenants seek rent reductions, Mountain View passes on changes to petition process

Mountain View has a well-established process for settling disputes between landlords and tenants in rent-controlled housing, which can lead to rents going up or down depending on the city’s ruling.

But the procedures are not always transparent, particularly in how officials determine rent reductions when landlords fail to maintain their properties or renege on housing services.

Exploring a potential policy change, the Rental Housing Committee ultimately decided to maintain the status quo at a study session on Thursday, April 25, and not stipulate major changes to how hearing officers address the issue of rent reductions when cases are brought before them to adjudicate.

In a 2-4 vote, Rental Housing Committee Chair Edie Keating and Committee members Alex Brown, Kevin Ma and Guadalupe Rosas rejected a proposal that would have asked hearing officers to follow a more established set of guidelines when determining rent reductions.

Committee members Robert Cox and Mark Balch voted in favor of the proposal to create a new methodology, stating that this would bring more uniformity and transparency to the process, as hearing officers – who typically are lawyers and retired judges – currently have a lot of discretion when deciding on these cases.

In the last two years, Mountain View has seen an increase in the number of petitions filed by tenants living in rent-controlled housing asking for a rent reduction. This has led to more appeals from tenants and landlords alike in challenging the decisions of hearing officers, resulting in more disputes being brought before the Rental Housing Committee for a final decision, according to the committee report.

Petitions for a downward adjustment of rent can be submitted for many reasons, including unlawful rent and undue tenant hardship as well as claims that landlords are not maintaining habitable properties or reducing housing services. The April 25 study session focused on this latter category, with the committee report stating that about one-third of petitions submitted since 2017 were filed by tenants who had claims about habitability and reduced housing services.

The large share of petitions about habitability and housing services prompted the committee to ask staff to explore how other jurisdictions determine the value of rent reductions, and to come up with a more established methodology for hearing officers. But while committee members asked for this information, they ultimately concluded that the process was working fine in its current form.

“Overall, I’ve not had a sense of, ‘Gee, I don’t know where they’re getting this.’ I’ve had a good sense of, ‘This sounds reasonable, and here are some arguments for it,’” Keating said, referring to hearing officers’ decisions on rent reduction petitions.

Cox disputed this, arguing that the reports did not provide enough information about the reasoning behind the settlements. “I don’t know anything about whether these evaluations and decisions are being made on any kind of uniform basis, whether a precedent is being consulted, and those things would make me more comfortable that the right kinds of evaluations are being made,” he said.

Balch also strongly advocated for more guidelines to help hearing officers adjudicate rent reductions. A clearer methodology would provide a consistent frame of reference and would add more transparency to the process, benefiting tenants and landlords, he said.

Other committee members disagreed, however, stating that more guidelines would create an overly cumbersome process that ultimately could not be enforced. Hearing officers could consider the regulations but did not actually have to follow them, according to Patricia Black, senior management analyst, who presented the report to the committee.

Rosas also expressed concern that more regulations could undermine the authority of hearing officers. “I think, allow people to do their job, and they will do great. If it becomes a process of micromanaging, it doesn’t help anyone,” she said.

As a compromise, committee members agreed that hearing officers should communicate more written information about their decisions, which could then be conveyed to the committee.

Committee members also voiced concerns about overburdening staff and wanting to prioritize big projects that are going into effect this year, including the city’s commitment to phasing out fluctuating utility fees, known as the ratio utility billing system, or RUBS.

“Everything we do does have a staff impact, everything we do needs to be monitored by bang for buck,” Ma said, explaining part of his reason for not supporting a more established methodology for rent reduction hearings.