What's at stake?
As Fresno’s summers get longer and hotter and apartments more expensive and competitive, there are still no maximum indoor temperature standards for apartment renters.
Housing advocates and landlords geared up for another fight this week over statewide apartment cooling standards, an issue that hits home(s) in Fresno, where about half of all residents rent and triple-digit heat is aggressively reliable.
California law currently requires landlords to maintain a minimum temperature of 70 degrees inside apartments during the cold months, but there are no statewide standards for renters whose apartments are too hot.
Last year, Los Angeles Democrat Henry Stern pushed a bill onto the governor’s desk that required landlords to “maintain a safe maximum indoor temperature” for renters, but the specific cap of 82 degrees was removed and not part of the law that Gov. Gavin Newsom eventually signed.
But a new state bill introduced this week by an Inglewood Democrat would reassert the 82-degree limit in apartments.
Assembly Bill 2616 is part of a package of housing-related proposals announced Tuesday by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor that would, in part, require landlords to provide units that can maintain a maximum indoor temperature of 82 degrees. The bill, which would take full effect in 2030 if passed, also prohibits landlords from passing on the cooling-upgrade expenses to their tenants.
“From the moment someone applies for housing to the conditions they live in, we must ensure fairness, transparency and safety for residents across the state,” McKinnor said in a statement.
McKinnor’s chief of staff, Terry Schanz, confirmed in an email to Fresnoland that AB 2616 would add the specific temperature limit to California state law.
California landlords have generally resisted mandatory temperature laws, frequently arguing that most property owners aren’t corporate housing giants who could easily absorb a savage retrofitting bill.
The California Apartment Association, the state’s most influential landlord lobby, didn’t take a formal position on Stern’s bill last year, but told CalMatters the law was “unnecessary.” The Southern California Rental Housing Association took it a step further, formally opposing the bill as overly burdensome and cost-prohibitive for property owners.
Landlord groups have spent millions opposing other similar laws over the years.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the powerful landlord lobby would take a formal position on the new 82-degree cap proposal or the requirement that landlords bear all upgrade costs, but construction and energy costs remain brutally high.
The California Apartment Association declined to comment on the new proposal announced on Tuesday.
In a statement to Fresnoland, Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria’s office said the new indoor temperature proposal was “cool.”
Press Secretary Brody Fernandez said that Soria, a lifelong Fresno resident, “knows the valley’s relentless heat better than most.”
“Soria has supported legislation like this in the past,” Fernandez said. “Anything we can do in a practical and responsible way, to make houses and apartments cooler—Soria’s cool with.”
But even under the best-case scenarios for Fresno-area renters, any relief is still years away and the city has not been getting any cooler.
Four of Fresno’s last five summers have been punishing, including record-breaking heat in 2021 and 2024.
The good news, according to National Weather Service Meteorologist Kris Mattarochia, is that early March heat does not guarantee that we’re in for a longer or hotter summer.
At least by Fresno averages.
Even between now and the end of May, the Hanford-based meteorologist said there’s still only about a “50/50 chance” that we’ll continue to see above-average temperatures.
But March has been abnormally hot — almost 10 degrees above normal for this time of year.
“We’ve already broken several records in Fresno for high heat this month,” Mattarochia told Fresnoland.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development noted in a report last year that heat remains the leading cause of weather-related deaths and that heatwaves have been growing progressively longer, hotter and more frequent.
