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Rental Housing Committee Moves Forward on Tenant Anti‑Harassment Rules, Keeps Complaint Mechanism
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Summary
The committee advanced draft anti‑harassment and anti‑retaliation regulations for tenants and landlords, asked staff to clarify language and implementation mechanics, and—by straw poll—kept a complaint submission mechanism for staff review. Staff will return with edits on language, retention policy, and options for mediation and referral.
The Mountain View Rental Housing Committee on Oct. 23 reviewed draft tenant anti‑harassment and anti‑retaliation regulations and directed staff to return with revised language and implementation details. Staff said the draft draws on best practices from other jurisdictions and is intended to clarify prohibited conduct, provide examples, and identify possible remedies and enforcement pathways.
In the staff presentation, the housing division explained the draft would add definitions and examples to the CSFRA and the MHRSO, ban retaliation and harassment, and provide remedies and enforcement measures while noting that some remedies (including monetary damages) require court proceedings. "These draft regulations ban retaliation and harassment, give ample examples of what might be considered retaliation or harassment," the staff presenter said, noting the regulations are non‑exhaustive and intended as both guidance and a legal reference.
Committee questions focused on plain‑language edits, how draft provisions interact with state law (including references to Civil Code sections such as 1942.5 and related privacy protections), whether refusing partial rent payments counts as harassment (staff: generally no; the protections refer to lawful full rent payments), and whether reporting tenants to immigration authorities is prohibited (staff: the draft prohibits requests for citizenship status and threats to disclose status consistent with cited state law sections).
Public comment included a statement from Anil Babbard of the California Apartment Association opposing additional local regulations as duplicative and urging education instead. "We're opposed to adding duplicative and unnecessary regulations that already exist under state law," Babbard said.
Committee members discussed the draft at length. Some members emphasized the value of specific, non‑exhaustive examples to help tenants and landlords identify unlawful behavior and to give courts clearer guidance. Others raised concerns about the proposed complaint mechanism: how long records should be retained, public‑records implications, protections against frivolous or repetitive filings, whether staff should perform triage, and what remedies staff can pursue administratively versus what must go to court.
By straw poll the committee expressed majority support for moving the regulations forward, and a separate straw poll favored including a complaint submission mechanism in the draft regulations. The committee asked staff to:
- Clarify and simplify statutory citations into plainer language where possible, and refine definitions (for example, clarifying "bad faith" and entry/notice windows); - Add a clear statement on what the complaint filing does and does not do (including that filing does not by itself create a determination of harassment or automatic court action), and build language into the complaint form to set expectations; - Propose a records retention approach and options to exclude manifestly frivolous repeat filings (or to limit repeat filings on the same subject/time period), while preserving the ability to track trends for enforcement or education and to refer repeated or severe complaints to the City Attorney; and - Consider a public, self‑serve summary (for example: number of complaints at a property and number of unique complainants) while researching privacy and due‑process implications for publishing such statistics.
Staff additionally noted the draft cannot change state law constraints (for example, the RHC cannot award rent reductions for harassment in administrative petition proceedings in most cases) but that local regulations can define conduct, provide remedies that courts may enforce, and supply guidance that could reduce displacement pressures. The committee asked staff to return with an edited draft that incorporates the input and addresses retention and implementation logistics.
Next steps: staff will revise the draft regulations, produce plain‑language materials and an FAQ for the public, propose a records retention approach and complaint form language, and return to the RHC for formal adoption consideration at a future meeting.
