News Alert: Santa Monica Considers Mandating ALL-Electric Appliances in All Residential Properties

Tomorrow, April 17^th, from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm, Santa Monica’s Office of Sustainability and the Environment will hold a webinar to further discuss Santa Monica’s move towards mandating ALL-Electric appliances in ALL existing residential buildings. Timelines include full electrification with requirements starting as early as THIS YEAR and many additional ones starting in 2025.  We urge all AAGLA members with residential rental properties of any type, including multifamily, single-family, accessory dwelling units and condominiums in Santa Monica to attend the webinar tomorrow and voice your strong opposition to this extremely costly, required transition for property owners and renters to full electrification of existing residential buildings.

The webinar information is as follows: Link to Webinar

• Meeting ID: 290 976 167 859, Passcode: NgxaQk
• Dial-in by phone: 310-883-7522, phone conference ID: 684 743 439#

The existing “roadmap” mandates replacements for all natural gas appliances with electric alternatives, including space heaters, water heaters, ranges and cooktops, and clothes dryers. Also included are additional, “other mandatory upgrades,” including weatherization, on-site solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery systems, and smart controls.

According to the roadmap, 72% of single-family properties and 93% of multifamily buildings were built BEFORE 1978.  This means that the vast majority of residential housing in Santa Monica would fall under these new mandates and incur substantial costs to comply.  Costs would not only include the appliances themselves, but also the required new electrical panels, wiring in walls, reinforcement and patching of roofs (for new heat pumps for space heating and cooling), potentially new or additional ventilation, and repairing of walls and ceilings (e.g., drywall, texture, painting).  Implementation of these all-electric requirements would also mean the very real possibility of more owners existing property insurance being cancelled due to major renovations being undertaken and voiding of existing roof warranties.

The roadmap also misstates that costs would only be the burden of owners.  As we all know, underlying capital and operating costs play a significant role in determining rental rates.  Further, renters will be forced to switch from a much less costly utility in natural gas to a much more expensive utility being electricity generated via renewable or clean energy.  This will severely harm low-income renters, in particular, who are already apparently struggling to make ends meet each month in paying their existing utility costs. 

The guidelines provide a timeline of 30 years for owners to realize a return on investment (ROI) for potentially being “more cost effective,” which is highly suspect at best and ignores the fact that most renters move every 3-5 years, on average.  It also ignores the fact that struggling mom-and-pop owners will be forced to fund these conversion costs, with many forced into selling their buildings due to the sizeable investment required to comply with these new mandates far before any ROI would be realized.  

We urge all Santa Monica members to take one-hour tomorrow to protect their investments by attending the webinar and making their opposition heard to these extremely unreasonable mandates to go All-Electric.

ELECTRIFICATION ROADMAP

This article is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions regarding your property or specific tenancies and the requirements of any local law changes described herein, please consult with an attorney.