… and a giant project at Fifth and Mission.
By Tim Redmond
SEPTEMBER 14, 2015 – Tenants flooded City Hall again last week, reminding the mayor and the supervisors once that the housing crisis is only getting worse – and that there are local policy measure that can make a difference.
Among them: A comprehensive anti-eviction plan that will come before the supervisors’ Land Use and Transportation Committee Monday/14.
The measure, sponsored by Sups. Jane Kim, John Avalos, David Campos, and Eric Mar, would close some of the biggest loopholes that have driven no-fault and so-called low-fault evictions – that is, evictions where the tenant has, if anything, committed only a minor and easily corrected violation of the lease.
It would be the most important anti-eviction legislation of the year.
In the first hearing on the issue, tenants presented a long list of horror stories and Kim explained how her law would keep thousands in their homes – without doing any harm to decent landlords:
As Kim pointed out, there were 2,120 eviction notices filed in the 12 months ending Feb. 28, 2015 – a 67 percent increase in just two years. The number on cause of eviction: Breach of Lease. The second cause: “Nuisance.”
Those, she said, have included claims that tenants have carried bicycles through common space, have hung laundry out to dry from windows, or have left shoes or a baby carriage in a hallway.
The law is aimed directly at speculators and people who want to use any ruse possible to get rid of long-term rent-controlled tenants. It would allow tenants to remedy minor violations. It would allow tenants to add roomates as long as they didn’t exceed the maximum legal occupancy of the unit. It would prevent evictions that are based entirely on the fact that a unit wasn’t legally zoned for housing (if landlords rented it to residents anyway).
And if a tenant is evicted for an owner move-in or for renovations, and the unit is later rented out again, the law would mandate that the new rent not exceed the rent the evicted tenant was paying. It would, in other words, end the incentive for fake OMI evictions.
Some landlords, of course, have been howling – and lobbying behind the scenes. And at the first hearing, both Sup. Scott Wiener and Sup. Malia Cohen voted to delay consideration, saying that they wanted to see changes to address some landlord concerns.
But Kim hasn’t backed off, and the measure will be a showdown between tenant and landlord forces.
I think it’s unlikely that Wiener will vote for any version of the bill – but some advocates think Cohen might be persuaded that at a time when evictions are eviscerating communities, the interests of renters might trump the minor concerns of landlords.
In which case the measure would go to the full board with a positive recommendation – and with the likelihood of getting six votes.
The meeting starts at 1:30 in Room 250, City Hall.
The giant development project at Fifth and Mission gets a hearing before the Planning Commission and the Rec-Park Commission Thursday/17.
The two agencies both need to hear testimony and jointly discuss the project because it would cast increased shadows on Father Alfred E. Boeddeker Park.
That’s one of the issues involved in the massive project; there are many, many more.
The project is massive — a 470-foot tower with 400 luxury condos, 395- and 350-foot towers with 600,000 square feet of office space, and a 200-foot tower with 230 market-rate and 58 affordable units.
The impact on not just the park but on the surrounding community will be on the agenda. The hearing starts at 11am, Room 400 City Hall.
