The Board of Supervisors recently sought to limit speculator evictions of seniors and longterm tenants under the state Ellis Act. Now, Supervisors Dufty and Alioto-Pier seek to reverse course by sponsoring legislation that would bring an entire new wave of evictions of vulnerable tenants. While the Supes cloak their measure under the popular idea of “increasing homeownership,” those benefiting are already homeowners; the Board must reject this ill-conceived legislation when it comes for a vote on April 5.
It is hard to believe that two Supervisors, including the representative of the Noe Valley/Castro neighborhoods where high-profile Ellis Act evictions have occurred, would sponsor legislation that would increase such evictions. But that is precisely what Supervisors Dufty and Alioto-Pier are doing, in legislation set for a March 30 Land Use committee hearing.
The Dufty-Alioto Pier measure would immediately allow all owner-occupied homes owned as tenancies in common (TIC’s) to bypass the city’s condominium conversion lottery. None of the standard duration of occupancy requirements under the city’s condo law would apply. In fact, owners could see their buildings converted to condos after having lived in their property for less than three months!
Since all current owners of TIC’S are already homeowners, Supervisor Alioto-Pier (who seldom hesitates to lecture others on proper conduct) is relying on baldfaced lies to sell her legislation. Here’s what she said in an e-mail message to supporters:
Working together, we can make this bill a law, we can make secure home
ownership a reality.
Secure home ownership? If Alioto-Pier believes that TIC owners are not “secure,” than she should be holding a hearing that demands answers from the real estate companies who aggressively market such units.
There is an attorney in San Francisco, D. Andrew Sirkin, who goes around lecturing and doing media interviews on the virtues of tenancy in common ownership. I’ve never heard him say that such ownership was not “secure,” so either Alioto-Pier is lying or an entire industry is engaged in consumer fraud.
The truth, of course, is that the Dufty-Alioto Pier measure has nothing to do with expanding or strengthening “homeownership.” All TIC owners are already homeowners. What the legislation seeks is to suddenly and dramatically increase the value of particular ownership interests, and to boost real estate commissions for the hundreds of newly created condos that could then be sold for a quick and large profit.
Just think how appreciative the beneficiaries of this legislation’s largesse will be when approached by Supervisors for campaign contributions. Getting a law passed that gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to an identifiable class of people is a campaign fundraiser’s dream.
Incredibly, the measure even rewards TIC’s that were created by evicting elderly, disabled and/or longterm tenants. What possible good-faith motive can there be to allow those who evicted for profit to bypass the condo lottery? The Dufty-Alioto Pier measure is a backdoor attempt to void the Board’s recently passed law making it harder for such wrongdoers to convert to condos..
Dufty strongly supported the prior measure, but it apparently responding to real estate industry criticism over his position by reversing course. He must have access to some polling data I am unaware of that shows District 8 voters eager to throw seniors and people with HIV/AIDS out of their homes.
While the legislation claims to simply exempt current TIC owners from the lottery, its real impact is to kill the lottery altogether. Alioto-Pier writes of the “horror stories” she has heard about homeowners unable to immediately convert to condos—does anyone believe that the Supervisor would not want to similarly respond to the tales of woe she hears from TIC owners who bought after the January 20, 2005 deadline in her measure?
I can see it now—Alioto-Pier introducing legislation next Fall to resolve the “injustice” of TIC owners who bought after the effective date of her prior measure. Passage of this legislation would set off a frenzy of evictions for profit, as speculators gather up properties while awaiting the next “onetime” exemption from the condo lottery.
Alioto-Pier is not looking for a onetime “fix;” she wants to eliminate all restrictions on condo conversions and tenant evictions and will not stop until the Board firmly and flatly rejects her legislation.
Since 1980, San Francisco law has protected its rental housing stock from conversion to condominiums, allowing only 200 per year. This law passed when condos were far more affordable than today, and yet even the real estate industry’s great ally, Mayor Dianne Feinstein, recognized that the desire for ownership should not come at the expense of displacing vulnerable, longterm San Franciscans.
In election after election, San Francisco voters have soundly rejected selling off the city’s rental housing stock to expand homeownership. Given that nearly 98% of current San Francisco tenants do not have the $167,000 annual salary necessary to buy a home, increasing condo conversion largely benefits upscale people often desiring a second or third home. These are not the people who will be regularly patronizing local stores, who will be volunteering at the senior center, or who will stay home to hand out candy on Halloween.
The Land Use Committee should reject the Dufty- Alioto-Pier measure when it comes before them on March 30, and the full Board should do likewise on April 5.
