brought to the council during its March 10 meeting<\/a>, city staff had recommended requiring people trying to start a MEHKO to notify or get approval from their landlord, property owner or homeowners\u2019 association. But the council requested that this requirement be removed from the ordinance. Instead, council asked staff to create an option for property owners\/HOAs to be notified within the permit process, and bring it back during this week\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\nDuring that time, city staffers also met with the COOK Alliance, a nonprofit working to legitimize and support informal home cooking businesses, according to the staff report. The nonprofit recommended that the written letter of agreement be removed from the proposed ordinance, as it may be a barrier for potential operators.<\/p>\n
City staff also met with representatives from the Apartment Association of California Southern Cities and California Apartment Association, according to the staff report, which recommended the city inform the property owner or HOA via written notification to help with early awareness, planning and risk management.<\/p>\n
During the Tuesday meeting, Environmental Health Bureau Manager Judeth Luong said that the MEHKO section of the California Health and Safety Code does not specifically require a MEHKO operator to provide a letter or agreement with their landlord or HOA. But it does not prevent the city from creating its own requirement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt also encourages MEHKO operators to adhere to applicable rules and lease requirements, as expectations are clearly acknowledged upfront,\u201d Luong said about the agreement. \u201cIn addition, it ensures that property owners and HOAs are aware and understand the nature of the home kitchen operations occurring on their property, including any potential issues or violations that may arise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not requiring a letter of agreement may present drawbacks as well, Luong said, such as tenants being discouraged from pursuing a MEHKO permit out of a fear the landlord will respond, while others may face barriers related to additional steps, uncertainty about lease terms or difficulty obtaining permission from absentee property owners.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time, the absence of a letter of agreement creates risk for property owners, landlords and HOAs,\u201d she added, \u201cwho may be unaware that a business is operating on their property.\u201d<\/p>\n
City staff\u2019s recommendation to the City Council was to require a self-attestation from the applicant \u2013 a general acknowledgement that the applicant confirms they will comply with lease terms, HOA rules, and local law \u2013 and that the city notify landlords and HOAs when a health permit application for MEHKO has been approved.<\/p>\n
\u201cKey reasons for these recommendations are reducing barriers to entry, maintaining operator accountability, avoiding city involvement in private contracts, improving administrative efficiency, reducing risk of inequitable access, and providing transparency through notification,\u201d Luong said.<\/p>\n
While some councilmembers supported both the self-attestation and notification to landlords and HOAs, others said that two notifications should not be necessary. Others shared their continued concern about a MEHKO violating the terms of residents\u2019 leases and causing an eviction or financial loss if property owners, landlords or HOAs are not notified.<\/p>\n
\u201cI completely understand the goal here is to reduce barriers, make it easier to set up a home-based kitchen,\u201d Councilmember Kristina Duggan said, \u201cbut allowing them to operate without upfront, written consent could be a trap that some tenants are going to fall into and because the city cannot force landlords to allow commercial kitchens in the residential leases, requiring approval up front is a way to protect the tenant and not the landlord.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council discussion led Councilmembers Tunua Thrash-Ntuk and Mary Zendejas to suggest that the permitting process only require the self-attestation for potential MEHKO operators.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel that this added notification puts additional pressure, concern and fear for renters,\u201d Councilmember Suely Saro said, \u201cthat\u2019s where I just feel that self-attestation might be the best approach in order to address concerns and also allow flexibility for tenants in the ways that they can communicate with the property owner.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final decision by the City Council was to pass the ordinance with only the self-attestation, which passed with a 5-3 vote. Councilmembers Daryl Supernaw, Duggan and Joni Ricks-Oddie voted against only requiring one form of notification.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know we\u2019re saying that if something happens, it can trigger code enforcement, but one of the things that people aren\u2019t talking about as well is if you\u2019re a property owner, sometimes these types of businesses can trigger changes in your insurance, or impact your ability to get insurance, so not knowing that this type of thing is happening on your property can be really problematic,\u201d Ricks-Oddie said. \u201cI am also concerned about having to get our code enforcement involved in this type of enforcement, because I think as a city, we typically try to stay out of the tenant-landlord engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the panel was split on the decision, they unanimously approved, with an 8-0 vote, to move forward with the zoning code changes and local coastal program amendments to allow MEHKOs to operate. The final reading for both the ordinance and amendments will happen during next week\u2019s council meeting, according to the staff report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City leaders approved a local ordinance this week that allows microenterprise home kitchen operations in Long Beach, so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,1610,23,131,133,132,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-272845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-city-council","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-long-beach","12":"tag-long-beach-headlines","13":"tag-long-beach-news","14":"tag-los-angeles-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}