SF and Daly City: Rent Control Soon to be Uncontrolled?
I am a renter, and thus depend on rent contol to keep my $1968 per month one bedroom plus office affordable. Still, I do see the issue from the property owner’s view, especially when a tenant has been sitting on a unit for decades, maybe paying $600 for something that’s now renting at 4 times that elsewhere. Both sides on the issue have a point: rent contol protects tenants; it also unfairly burdens owners with unprofitable rentals and drives new rental prices up as compensation.
Prop 98 then, you’d think, would be getting a lot of political play in this city, since it aims to abolish rent control along with eminent domain. Curiously, the issue has had very little press. I’m not alone in noticing this: Socketsite posted a commenter’s blog recently saying very much the same thing:
i’m a little mystified that prop 98 is not getting more play in SF. prop 98 is the state-wide initiative on the june 3 [ballot] that limits eminent domain, and importantly for SF, phases out rent control.
given the huge significance of this, i am amazed that the realtor community is not heavily pushing this. but more peculiar, i am only seeing limited involvement from SF apartment advocates, and the larger apartment holders in the city (i.e. citiapartments, etc.) it’s clear that prop 98 will not pass within SF proper, but that does not matter as it’s the massive outlying suburbia that will have the voting power to push it through. still, i’d think that cities like SF would want to make a lot of noise about it, so the rest of the state can see how significant it is.
The writer goes on to speculate reasons for the relative silence, including Realtor communities not wanting to publicly antagonize SF’s progressive groups and supervisors and the possiblity that landlords actually enjoy some benefits from rent control (read the whole comment at Socketsite). The writer also reminds us that SF is not entirely against eminent domain, since this is the legal loophole that allowed the city to seize Hotel Hugo.
Some people might wonder why eminent domain and rent control are packaged together in Prop 98, since you could easily be for one and against the other. For you, Prop 99 is the better bet.
Other things to know:
*Prop 98 would not effect current renters, but will affect all properties coming vacant after the Prop passes (if it passes).
*Prop 98 could interfere with community and environmental laws within cities, such as environmental protection restrictions on building, or inclusionart programs which force developers to include a percentage of low income/BMR housing.
*Prop 99 “is a careful and narrow restriction of the use of eminent domain. It focuses only on homes taken and transferred to private uses, and allows for appropriate exemptions to protect public health and safety, and for other legitimate purposes. These exemptions do not exist in Prop. 98. (Source: SPUR Voter Guide)
*Prop 99, also according to SPUR, “has the potential to limit smart growth development. In particular, it would make it more difficult to develop transit villages or to restructure single-use subdivisions into mixed-use communities….and to dampen the ability to finance new public transit by making it more difficult to create transit villages near stations.”
Incidently, SPUR comes down as a no-vote for each Proposition.
In any case, Bay Area and particularly SF voters need to get fully informed and perhaps a bit more vocal about these two June issues on our ballot. They will certainly impact us, though just how is perhaps up to the voter’s perspective. As long at that perspective is educated, I can’t complain.
No on 98 text (advocates 99 instead)
Image credit: Laila Lalami
