As heat-related deaths rise, LA County will soon require that landlords keep apartments cool

In response to rising heat-related deaths driven by climate change, Los Angeles County will soon require landlords to maintain a maximum indoor temperature of 82°F for their renters.

After years of consideration, the Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 Tuesday to pass the county’s first cooling mandate in rental housing. The fifth county supervisor, Kathryn Barger, was not present for the vote.

L.A. landlords have long been required to provide heat in their units, but not air conditioning. Public health officials and tenant advocates say changing that will save lives as heat waves continue to get deadlier. Opponents argued the new rules could put a heavy financial burden on landlords.

Supervisor Hilda Solis, one of the authors of the proposal, said the county will look for sources of financial support for landlords who need to retrofit their buildings. But she said landlords in some areas could likely comply without installing any cooling appliances.

“I would want to rephrase it from being called an air-conditioning ordinance, because that’s not what this is,” Solis said.

She said in many buildings, cooling methods such as blackout curtains, reflective roofing and double pane windows may be enough to keep indoor temperatures to 82°F. However, county officials acknowledged that in hotter regions, AC units may be necessary.

Where cooling will be required

The rules will apply in unincorporated parts of L.A. County, such as East L.A. and pockets of South L.A. The requirement could also end up applying in L.A. County’s 88 incorporated cities, but only if local officials in those areas choose to adopt the county’s rules.

According to a 2025 report from the California Department of Housing and Community Development, heat is the nation’s leading cause of weather-related death — and dangerous heatwaves are becoming increasingly common. The report recommended 82°F as a safe maximum limit on indoor temperature.

A handful of other cities across the country have set different thresholds. Palm Springs requires indoor temperatures to not exceed 80°F, while Dallas, Texas, sets a limit of 85°F.

Between 2013 and 2022, seven extreme heat events in California caused 460 deaths and more than 5,000 hospitalizations, according to a report from the California Department of Insurance. A two-week heatwave in 2022 that affected L.A. County and other coastal regions up and down the state was the deadliest event, killing 200 people.

Tenant advocates said the requirement can’t come soon enough. Jannet Torres, an organizer with Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, said her family is not allowed to plug in an AC unit because their landlord told them the building’s electrical system can’t handle it.

“You become very depressed or you can't move — you're not as productive as you wish you were,” Torres said about living at home during extreme heat. “My mom gets nosebleeds sometimes, and it makes it really hard for her to be able to get to and from work.”

What’s changing — and when

Thirty days after Tuesday’s vote, the county’s rules will give renters protections against eviction and landlord retaliation for installing their own cooling appliances. Landlords will ultimately be responsible for keeping units in compliance with the 82°F limit. But the county will not begin enforcing the rules until Jan. 1, 2027.

Enforcement will involve inspectors responding to tenant complaints through the county’s Rental Housing Habitability Program. If landlords need to carry out retrofits to meet the new cooling standards, they will be given a two-year grace period to comply.

Supervisor Janice Hahn said she worried the cost of compliance could drive some small landlords out of business. She put forward a successful amendment to allow landlords who own no more than 10 units to satisfy the requirement by cooling just one habitable room per unit until 2032, at which point they would need to provide cooling in all habitable rooms.

Hahn said she doubted the county’s efforts to help landlords would be enough to quell their concerns.

“Some of our landlords are still reeling a bit from some of our COVID-related ordinances,” Hahn said. “Many of them would be skeptical when it comes to us identifying resources and funding for different programs.”

Fred Sutton, a spokesperson for the California Apartment Association, said a landlord could be found out of compliance if they actively cool all bedrooms, living rooms and dining areas, but fail to keep kitchen temperatures at or below 82°F.

“These projects can take a lot of capital outlays and can be incredibly complicated and invasive,” Sutton said. “I don’t think the board understands, with some of these properties, what this will actually trigger.”

What about the power grid?

Ted Bardacke — the CEO of Clean Power Alliance, which serves 300,000 utility customers in unincorporated L.A. County — said by the time the ordinance will be enforced, 100% of the electricity supplied to affected areas will be carbon-free.

“We’re not exacerbating climate change with any increased level of electricity consumption,” Bardacke told the Board of Supervisors.

In response to concerns about potentially overloading the region’s electrical grid, Bardacke said adding air conditioning to every unit that doesn’t already have it would not increase peak demand beyond serviceable levels.

“In terms of the reliability question and whether folks will have access to the electricity, we don’t see this as an issue that should prevent you from going forward,” he said.

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who co-authored the cooling proposal, said in a news conference ahead of the vote that the mandate is urgently needed.

“Extreme heat is no longer a future problem,” Horvath said. “It is here.”