Supervisor fights for renters' rights
By Rachel Gordon
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF
Tuesday, September 14, 1999
©1999 San Francisco ExaminerIn the latest effort to preserve rental housing in San Francisco, a move is under way at City Hall to severely restrict a popular entry into home ownership for the middle class.
Supervisor Sue Bierman on Monday called for legislation that would subject tenancies in common to The City's condominium conversion law, a regulation limiting the number of rental units that can be turned into condos to 200 a year and forbidding the eviction of seniors because of the conversions.
Under Bierman's plan, there could be no more than a total of 200 condo conversions and tenancies in common a year. Currently, The City has no restrictions on the number of tenancies in common.
Tenancies in common, known as TICs, allow multiple owners who presumably could not afford to buy a building as individuals to take over rental units for their own homes.
Tenant activists estimate there are some 400 of them a year in The City, which doesn't keep statistics on the number.
A measure approved by voters last year was supposed to have ended TICs by limiting to one the number of units in a rental building that a new owner could move into.
However, property owners have been using the state Ellis Act to get around the restriction. The Ellis Act allows owners of rental properties to take the units off the market, which in turn lifts any rules governing rental housing.
Bierman's proposal would forbid property owners to use the Ellis Act to create TICs.
The supervisor requested the legislation on behalf of the San Francisco Tenants Union, the chief advocacy group for renters in The City.
The tenants union has pushed its cause in both City Hall and at the ballot box in a town where two-thirds of residents rent.
While a series of pro-tenant laws has been passed, including curtailing owner move-in evictions, landlords have gone to court to block them. The judicial decisions have been mixed.
Ted Gullicksen, chief spokesman for the tenants group, said TICs have been responsible for two problems in San Francisco: the forced eviction of dozens, if not hundreds, of tenants and the loss of rental housing in The City.
"And as we deplete the rental stock in San Francisco, it makes San Francisco increasingly unaffordable," Gullicksen said.
The City has one of the tightest housing markets in the nation, with a low vacancy rate and high prices.
Advocates for property owners say Bierman's legislation will do little other than reduce the opportunity for middle-income people to buy a home, since they're the ones who use TICs the most.
TICs "are the only chance for moderate-income people to buy a home in San Francisco," said Janan New of the San Francisco Apartment Association.
Charlene Delaney, who serves on the board of the San Francisco Association of Realtors, agreed.
"What Bierman wants to do is close down the avenue that most tenants have used to become homeowners," she said. "She's going to hurt the people she says she wants to help."
Bierman disagreed. "What we're trying to do is take care of the needs of the people who can't buy or don't want to buy and to preserve rental housing," she said.
To assuage some of the concern of property owners, Gullicksen said it's possible that as the law is debated, backers could negotiate a higher number of allowable annual TICs and condo conversions than the 200 Bierman proposes.
An earlier law Bierman sponsored took aim at the Ellis Act by requiring a city permit to convert rental units to ownership units, but the law was struck down by a Superior Court judge earlier this year, who ruled The City could not meddle in state law. Gullicksen said the new effort to take on the Ellis Act as it relates to condo conversions would be legal.
But Delaney wasn't so sure and, should the proposal be signed into law, expects property owners to challenge it on the ground that it is an unlawful taking of property.
Delaney and New said the real answer to the problem is not to pass more laws to clamp down on property owners but to build more affordable housing. Tenant advocates also say more affordable housing is needed, but in the meantime, something has to be done to preserve rental stock, much of which is governed by rent control that keeps rents affordable for long-time tenants.