LANDLORDS NEVER MET A METER

THEY DIDN'T LIKE!

We thought electricity metering in apartment buildings for tenants (individual and submetering) was a dead letter. We thought that Chairman Mary Cheh's bill killed all forms of metering period, once and for all.  Now we understand that individual metering is permitted, with an offset provision, to evade becoming a de facto reduction in services.  TENAC believes that authorizing meter installation of any kind, sooner or later, is going to impose unauthorized utility costs on tenants.  By definition, that will become a backdoor rent increase.  We understand that management at the Dorchester House is installing meters, even as we write.  That needs to be corrected.  "Individual metering" sounds like submetering's baby brother, and the $2 "offset" Dorchester  is offering its tenants is enough to power a 40-watt bulb for 40 minutes.

TENAC believes individual or submetering are unauthorized rent increases waiting to happen.  They are a Trojan horse waiting to trample rent increase caps recently enacted and a device that no matter how you camouflage it, ultimately becomes a "reduction in services."

Dorchester House has suffered a lot of hardship over the years, including probably one of the longest running litigations in the city's history, reminding one of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Dickens's Bleak House.  Dorchester House isn't Bleak House, however; it is a beautiful building, filled with outstanding tenants, two of whom sit on the TENAC Board.  We urge Dorchester House management to get with it, get with the tenants, and get rid of the meters.