Although it has been put aside, the City Council may later consider a proposal, at the request of landlords and developers, to allow submetering tenants' apartments.  Any proposal to allow the installation of individual meters for each apartment is an assault on renters for several reasons:

- TENAC feels this is really a rent increase in disguise, another ingenious means to increase costs to renters on the part of deep-pocketed landlords.

- TENAC feels this is also a gift to the utility companies as well; it is well known that landlords maintain special accounts with utility providers, and pay a fraction of what renters would for energy costs. With submetering, charges to ordinary tenants who have no special agreements would surge, as would the income of the already rich utility companies.

- Not only is it an attempt to do away with the age-old renters' benefit of utilities being included in the rent, but it would require renters to pay for the grossly inefficient heating and cooling systems that landlords largely use, passing the wasteful costs of poor quality systems on to tenants. 

- Equally bad, it appears that submetering is one way landlords are trying to do away with the benefits traditionally associated with renting, by tacking on endless fees that are characteristic of condos, without the benefits that come with condos, including ownership.  

We urge all tenants, at the next indication that the Council will consider submetering, to write the mayor and your councilmember and explain that you vigorously oppose such a plan, and why. We welcome you to use our above explanation, and we will alert you whenever we hear the council is to reconsider submetering.