S.F. Supervisors Vote to Curb Use of Ellis Act
Landlords' removal of units must be submitted to panel
Jason B. Johnson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 24, 1999
 
 
 

San Francisco supervisors want to put the brakes on landlords' growing use of a little-known state law that allows them to evict all the tenants in a building and quit the rental business.

A Board of Supervisors committee unanimously passed a resolution yesterday that would prohibit landlords from converting residential rental units in buildings of three or more units to nonrental use without the city Planning Commission's permission.

The resolution's target is the Ellis Act, a 1986 law that allows landlords to evict all their tenants at one time and withdraw from the rental business.

The full board is expected to vote Monday on the resolution, sponsored by Supervisors Sue Bierman and Leslie Katz.

Supporters say the measure is a way to preserve the city's stock of affordable housing. About 75 people with patches that read ``Stop Unjust Evictions'' packed yesterday's hearing.

``I face being homeless in my own city, in a city where my family has been since 1889,'' said Jeanne Dierkes-Carlisle, 66. ``Greed has pushed us into a corner, and we're coming out fighting.''

But to many property owners, the proposal is an unlawful attempt to take away their property rights.

``This smacks of fascism,'' Andrew Long, owner of a three-unit building in Hayes Valley, told members of the supervisors' Transportation and Land Use Committee. ``This sounds like police-state tactics.''

The opposition to the Ellis Act is the newest front in the war between property owners and renters in one of the nation's tightest housing markets, where the vacancy rate hovers around 1 percent.

A growing number of property owners have used the act in the past two years to circumvent the city's rent-control ordinance and tough restrictions on so-called owner move-in evictions.

In 1995, only five buildings were ``Ellised out'' in San Francisco. In 1997, the total was 16 buildings, comprising 34 units. Last year, evictions under the law occurred in 65 buildings and 201 units, according to the city's rent board.

``There are many, many people in our city who need to rent housing,'' Bierman said.

``The need is great,'' she said. ``We have, over time, turned a lot of our rental stock into condominiums.''