Now: that’s not the case everywhere, and there are TIC owners who are wonderful people who do a tremendous amount for the city and their neighborhoods. TICs are, as Sup. Eric Mar told the crowd, a path to home ownership for people who can’t afford the astronomical cost of single-family homes. There are buildings where the owner wanted to sell and existing tenants were able to buy, becoming owners themselves without losing their homes or evicting anyone.
But you get where Flandrich is coming from. These days, most of the TICs coming on the market are the result of Ellis Act evictions, in many cases by out-of-town companies that are just out to make a quick buck. And the result is more than the loss of some residents; it’s the loss of communities.
Matt Mcfarland, Flandrich’s attorney, noted that “we can see first-hand the impact, the way it’s changing neighborhoods.”
That’s why Mar was on hand with tenant advocates to announce that he’s introducing legislation that would require all TICs to be reviewed by the Planning Commission.
Right now, TICs are part of the Wild West of San Francisco city planning; they’re completely unregulated. An investment company buys a four-unit building, evicts all the tenants, then flips the units to TIC buyers who use “fractional financing” – in essence, condo loans – to buy their shares of the building. The city doesn’t even keep track of how often it’s happening.
Mar’s bill would require that the Planning Department review TIC conversions to make sure the units are up to code – just as currently happens with condo conversions. And it would open the door, just a bit, for the public to have some input into the process.
Planning review means the potential for Planning Commission hearings, and that means that neighbors and housing activists can come and talk about the impacts of TIC conversions – and it’s possible, although supporters of the bill say it would require “extraordinary circumstances,” for the commission to reject a TIC application.
This isn’t going to end all of the evictions, but it’s a piece of the puzzle, and a first step toward regulating TICs for what they are – in essence, condominiums, which the city has always regulated.
