Los Angeles could require that every apartment include an air conditioner.
In response to record-breaking heat waves, the Los Angeles City Council has approved a study on the feasibility and cost of cooling all of the city’s rental units, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“At this point in the climate emergency, the ability to cool one’s home cannot be considered a luxury and rather must be treated as a necessity,” Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez said in her motion proposing the feasibility study.
The study, expected to be presented to a city housing committee in the next several weeks. will include a cost estimate for updating the city’s building code.
The Southland suffered a 10-day heat wave last year that smashed temperature records. By the time it subsided, L.A. County emergency crews had responded to 146 calls classified as “heat.”
A 2021 Times investigation found that 3,900 deaths were caused by extreme heat in California from 2010 to 2019.
But access to lifesaving cooling devices and the ability to cover the costs of electricity during a heat wave are often out of reach for low-income and fixed-income residents.
As part of the study, the council asked staff to determine which buildings lack submeters, or devices that allow utility companies to track power consumption on a unit-by-unit basis.
The council also asked staff to study the difference in costs between installing wall air conditioning units versus a central air system for an entire building. Staff will explore potential programs to help low- and middle-income families pay for the installation and operation of an AC unit.
Landlords are not required to include air conditioners or central air to ensure a rental unit is habitable in California, according to the state building code.
Fred Sutton, senior vice president of local public affairs for the California Apartment Association, said tenants are aware of the amenities available when they sign a lease. Those tenants can and should approach their landlords if they want to have a cooling device installed in their units, he said.
But mandating that all rental units have a cooling device would push the cost onto the landlords and the tenants, Sutton said.
“I heard a lot from the city about subsidies for tenants facing extra utility costs,” Sutton told the Times. “But what cost would that work mean for the building and the [landlords]?”
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— Dana Bartholomew