House Rentals Face New Challenges in San Francisco
Owners of house rentals in San Francisco may have to ready themselves for additional challenges to their rental investments after the Board of Supervisors in the city approved a proposal to extend eviction protection laws to rental homes and condos built after 1979, the year the rent control legislation was passed.
Under this new legislation, owners of rental housing built after 1979 will have to follow tenant eviction laws followed by owners of residential rental properties built before 1979. Under tenant eviction laws prior to 1979, landlords are prohibited from evicting renters without a reasonable cause. Tenants can only be evicted by just reasons such as breach of lease contract or failure to pay rent.
The new legislation would affect about 20,000 residential rental properties built after 1979 and about 10,000 units more which are being constructed or being planned.
While tenant advocates were elated at the approval of the eviction protection legislation, they cannot claim complete victory yet because the legislation still needs approval from Mayor Gavin Newsom, who had expressed strong opposition to the legislation that would add more challenges to those currently faced by owners of house rentals.
According to spokesperson Joe Arellano, Mayor Newsom planned to veto the proposal, and his veto can be upheld if the final voting by the board gives him the majority. The latest voting, 7-4, needed one more vote so that the legislation would become veto-proof.
The board will again consider the legislation to get the veto-proof majority, but the swing vote – expected to come from Supervisor Bevan Duffy – may not be easy to get. According to Duffy, he does not plan to change his vote.
But Duffy, who has expressed his plan to run for mayor in 2011, is being pressured by renters and tenant advocates to change his vote. Sara Shortt, head of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, said that voting for the proposal should be an easy decision for any city lawmaker because 60 percent of the city is comprised by renters and there is a shortage of affordable housing.
According to Duffy, he would have voted yes if the legislation focused on evictions due to foreclosures. He argued that the legislation would have unintended consequences.
In addition, real estate owners and investors in San Francisco argued that the new legislation would diminish real estate rights and violate a pledge made by city officials to owners of house rentals when they enacted the rent control law in 1979.
