While the original ordinance required the seller’s real estate agent to certify compliance, potentially increasing their liability in the transaction process, the onus would now rest with the seller.
Still, Realtors continue to reject the notion that a point-of-sale measure would address enough homes to realize significant savings.
“Not one person has mentioned any kind of hardship this would put on people,” said Darin Chase, legislative representative and past president of the Burbank Assn. of Realtors. “It’s like a tax on people at the worst time in history since the Great Depression.”
Burbank Water and Power staff met with Chase and the parties agreed to lift the burden of compliance from real estate agents before the matter was to return before the council June 23.
Realtors on June 23 requested that the matter be postponed to August to allow city officials to review pending state legislation.
The original draft of Senate Bill 407 would have mandated a statewide retrofit-upon-resale requirement, but was amended and to impose deadlines requiring all properties built before January 1994 to meet state plumbing code standards within 10 years. Under the city proposal, as approved by the Burbank Water and Power Board, upgrades for low-flow retrofits would be capped at one-tenth of 1% of the building’s selling price, so a $400,000 home would require expenditures of about $400 for retrofits.
Burbank Water and Power officials estimate the cost of brand-name ultra low-flush toilets to be between $100 and $300, with an additional $100 for installation.
The council recently approved six stages of mandatory water rationing and a revised water rate structure as the utility expands the use of recycled water and programs promoting rebates for high-efficiency units.
Utility officials arrived at 7.5 million gallons in first-year savings by assuming half of the 500 resold homes in Burbank would change out two high-water-using toilets, two bathroom faucets and one kitchen faucet.
Realtor Michael Napolitano said it would take 36 years to reach each home in Burbank, according calculations kept by the Burbank Assn. of Realtors. He instead proposed a ZIP-Code-by-ZIP-Code program where the city could tackle large neighborhoods and affect “real change.”
“I think this is a little, tiny thing that gets no real result,” he said. “If we’re in a major crisis, we need to address it. But if we’re not, if we don’t have this major crisis that takes a solution today, let’s not rush this thing.”
