A/C Saves Lives During Heat Waves. Will Los Angeles Require It for Rentals?

When the temperature spikes in Los Angeles — usually around Labor Day — thousands of renters swelter in homes with little relief. Mostly, they wait for it to end. But climate change driven by burning fossil fuels is prolonging the extreme heat.

The number of days from September to November hotter than a temperature baseline have trended upward since 1970, resulting in nine additional days above normal temperatures, according to data compiled by Climate Central. And it’s not being experienced equally. Figures collected by UCLA show more emergency room visits on hot days in zip codes in the asphalt-covered, lower-income communities in South and Central L.A.

Last month, the county adopted an ordinance requiring landlords in unincorporated areas to maintain a “maximum indoor temperature” of 82 degrees F, putting it on par with other hot weather areas like Dallas and Palm Springs. But the county won’t immediately require A/C installation; instead, it will advise landlords of “passive cooling strategies” they could pursue after residents submit heat complaints from their properties. If those measures fail to reduce the heat, landlords “may be required” to install air conditioning or heat pumps.

When it’s hot, the American Red Cross advises finding an indoor space with A/C. 

In a 2023 report to the L.A. City Council, the city’s Climate Emergency Mobilization Office said that mandating A/C would require expensive upgrades to electrical wiring in old buildings and make outages more likely by overloading the grid. But renter advocates say it’s the safest option, and that other ideas, like insulating roofs, aren’t practical or effective on their own.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez is spearheading a push for the city to adopt a version of the county’s ordinance, citing the fact that renters tend to suffer more from heat illness. District 1, which Hernandez represents, takes in a huge urban swath including Westlake/MacArthur Park, Chinatown, Lincoln Heights and parts of Downtown and Highland Park. Sixty percent of her 248,000 constituents are renters, she said.

By adopting the county’s ordinance, she and council colleagues Bob Blumenfield and Adrin Nazarian who introduced the motion, will also have to contend with its shortcomings. 

Los Angeles City Council member Eunisses Hernandez discusses her motion to institute a maximum indoor heat temperature threshold during a press conference at L.A. City Hall on Sept. 3. Photo by Aaron Cantú.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. 

Capital & Main: What is your experience with cooling? Do you live in a home with A/C?

Eunisses Hernandez: I live in a home that has A/C but we just got it. It’s pretty new. It’s a couple years old. But before that, I lived in a very old house, it’s, I think, over 100 years old. When it’s cold, it’s cold. When it’s hot, it was excruciatingly hot. But that’s changed over the last couple of years when we finally got some A/C.

Your motion directs the Los Angeles Housing Department and asks the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power “to recommend ways of expanding incentive and efficiency programs to allow renters to access air conditioning equipment.” But in December 2023, the city’s Climate Emergency Mobilization Office opposed universal A/C, saying that it “does not consider the necessary retrofit costs for most existing buildings to upgrade electrical wiring,” and also said requiring universal A/C is not a “long-term cooling solution.” Does your motion suggest that the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office’s statement was incorrect and that there might actually be a pathway for universal A/C in L.A.?

Our motion doesn’t dictate a path. It gives options for landlords and property owners to take. It doesn’t say, “Landlords, you have to put in HVAC [heating, ventilation and air conditioning] into the entire building.’ It says, “Landlords, you have this amount of time to provide different types of cooling apparatuses for the units.” We’re not mandating people to take on huge renovations, but there are upgrades that can be made that provide — also good labor jobs, whether it’s installing HVAC, or some of the solar stuff, different kinds of cooling apparatuses, so they have options. This isn’t saying anybody’s wrong or right, or mandating anyone to one particular box.

Right, but the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office said that universal A/C is not a long-term solution, so you don’t necessarily agree with that? 

No, I think we have to explore all our options. We shouldn’t close out any option. Some property owners, right now, will have the ability to do that. And others don’t. I don’t think we should pigeonhole ourselves when we need to be looking at all levels of investment and opportunities for this.

The organization Strategic Actions for a Just Economy released a report in July saying that A/C is a must-have when it’s hot. They spoke with about 60 renters in the city who consistently said they need A/C to fight the heat. The state and the county have suggested passive cooling strategies, such as shading and insulating roofs. Where do you stand on taking a firmer position about mandating A/C in the city?

I’d love to see how the first couple of years of implementing this ordinance goes in the city, and that, looking at the data, looking at the impact — I’m convinced, I do believe we need A/C, and HVAC is one of the best ways to keep a home or an apartment at appropriate temperatures. But it is incredibly costly. So, that’s why we’re exploring this phased approach, and giving options. Cooling is cooling, just like we know a heater provides heat, we know that A/C brings in cooler temperatures. And I’m sure that as the industry adapts, it will become cheaper. Because that’s the biggest piece to this. The huge investment that it is to put in an HVAC unit in perhaps a building of 30 units, that’s a heavy lift. We want to be sure we can move some of these pieces, but A/C keeps homes cool, there’s no question about that. It keeps apartments cold. 

In 2023 you carried a motion asking the Los Angeles Housing Department to study how requiring cooling systems in pre-1980 buildings might affect utility bills. The Housing Department told me the “report is still in process.” What steps have you taken to ensure that the report gets completed, and what will you do with that information?

I don’t have a status on where this report is right now. But we introduced this [new] motion because we wanted to reinvigorate the conversation. And I’m hoping the data we get from the Housing Department shows us that the investments won’t be as costly, or there’s different types of technologies or mechanisms we can take on. Even just knowing the impact that this policy will have [on constituents] — I know the impact, but it would be great for other councilmembers to also see that impact.

And hopefully that data shows that we need to make more investments in cooling, and see how the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power can help with the incentivizing of that, or the rebating of that. Especially because — in the end, it all goes back to us utilizing our electricity infrastructure. And if there’s better ways that we don’t have, when I think about when the summer hits and our electrical grid can’t handle all the pulls it’s getting, because everyone has their fans on, I think, hopefully the data also gives us some insight into … leaning more on solar technologies, or other technologies that will help us lean off of our grid a little bit. Especially during moments of high temperatures that usually cause the infrastructure to collapse.

Speaking of the county ordinance, for a tenant to prove their home is not in compliance with the indoor maximum temperature, an inspector has to come during the height of the day’s heat, and take a temperature reading in that unit. That doesn’t really seem feasible. How would the city enforce an indoor temperature threshold during heat waves?

We have to connect with the Housing Department to see what the best mechanism is for that. My team constantly does one-on-ones with tenants in our district. Maybe there are ways the council office can support with that verification of the temperature. I know sometimes it takes us years to complete a project because we only have a certain number of inspectors. So I don’t think that we should be slowing down people’s access to cool air because we don’t have enough city staffers to do the job. So I would try to figure out, and again, I don’t have a process because we just introduced our motion. We don’t have a report back from the Housing Department saying how they’re going to do this. I just know we’re going to be pushing for all types of methods to be able to verify this temperature, and the temperature threshold being passed. 

I’m a constituent in your district. I live in Pico Union. It’s a largely immigrant community with many old homes. Indoor heat is part of our quality-of-life problems. Our power goes out in my unit when we try to run our window A/C and use the microwave, for example. There are other issues such as inconsistent trash pickup, and so when that happens and it’s hot, man, it gets smelly outside. So for renters in your district, especially the heavily paved parts of your district that don’t have a lot of access to green spaces, these heat waves really are a quality-of-life issue, and obviously dangerous to some folks. How will your ordinance improve the quality of life for renters during these heat waves?

The reason why I introduced the motion was because of my district, because of what I saw during door knocking and connecting with constituents. Particularly in the southern portion of our district, I would say Chinatown to University Park. That’s where most of our apartment buildings are. Literally what we saw in the data is once it hits 82 degrees, that’s when we see people start going to the hospital, or people being impacted by heat strokes or other heat illnesses. And it’s no question that people are dying already because of the lack of cooling in their apartments. 

So I put forward this motion because it’s simple. Landlords have to provide heat during the cold. Our summers are not getting any cooler, so we also need to provide that type of — I wouldn’t even say it’s an amenity. I would say it’s basic. A condition of having housing here, particularly as it gets hotter. So, my whole hope is we would see less people going to the emergency room, less people struggling, and even down to the individual experience of not having to sweat through your sheets at night in bed, that’s not going to the hospital but that is — especially thinking about multigenerational homes. Thinking about Westlake/MacArthur Park, you have two, three families living in a one bedroom apartment — having these cooling apparatuses is a game changer.

So, I’m excited. Hopefully, people feel like their quality of life is a little bit better because even when you talk about the trash and the smells, a lot of these things are political decisions. Whether people have A/C, or cooling apparatuses, or not, is a political decision. I’ve been doing my best to try to make the decisions and try to put the legislation forward that will help our folks who have not been heard for a long time but whose quality of life really depends on what we do in City Hall. So I’m excited to see people’s quality of life go up, for people not to have to sweat through their sheets at night, abuelitas not going to the hospital because they got heat stroke while trying to wash dishes in their own apartment. So, I think the level of impacts [is] great. 

If the ordinance passes, when will we start seeing relief?

Landlords have a timeline to when, by when they need to install some of these cooling apparatuses. Once we get the ordinance back, I can follow up what that looks like. Right now we have three councilmembers authorizing this motion, which means there’s a good amount of support already, and we can push this through the legislative process. I don’t know how much pushback we’ll get which might delay things. But once we have the ordinance and the language, I can tell you the Housing Department will give landlords this amount of time, or when this is by when tenants can ask for a cooling apparatus. So that’s what we need clarity on, and that will come back to us with the ordinance. 

Was there anything else you’d like to mention?

On the timeline, so the ordinance takes effect 30 days after we vote to pass it, but enforcement doesn’t begin until Jan. 1, 2027. Or, once the cost recovery fees are approved. So, that might happen sooner. And existing property owners who can meet the requirement on time can request a two-year extension. But, we don’t believe that they will lean on those, because of the amount of options they have to implement these cooling apparatuses. So, this is just phase one. When we get this done, then we can push for accountability and enforcement and implementation. 

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