she said
You're evicted!
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 12:49 PM
*Please vote yes on Prop 99 and No on Prop 98.*
If we pass Prop 99, then Prop 98 cannot be implemented. It addresses the eminent domain questions of Prop 98, but leaves these protections in place.
Election day is Tuesday, June 3rd. Don't forget to vote!
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 12:49 PM -
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Wed, May 7, 2008 - 6:33 PM
I'm sorry to disagree with you...
I'm sorry to disagree with you but there are many strong arguments that rent control does more damage to the overall community than it helps. The overall argument is that market competition will take care of the rental market far more than will rent control. And, there are many times when Rent Control enables unjust people to take advantage of a situation. (Story below). Excellent Article here: www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-274.html With 99 the rules of eviction aren't changing, they just refer to other existing laws. Under 99 are 1161 section 2, 3, 4 and 5 which are: 2)Failure to pay rent, 3)Failure to do something else you agreed to in the rental contract, 4) being cited as a nuisance (and the terminology there clearly indicates that this is targeted towards drug selling/manufacturing, and 5) when you give notice that you're leaving, but then don't leave. Also 798.56 of the Civil code which already exists and isn't changed by this. The rules certainly don't say "we can be evicted for our lifestyle choices." Yes, landlords can try to evict people for a lot of reasons, but 99 isn't changing those reasons from what they are now. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see the loss of "just cause" anywhere. I think 99 is good, but then again, I'm against rent control. I agree that the city needs low income housing, but I think that should be handled through zoning mechanisms rather than keep an archaic rental control system around. 98 is a suckers bet. A bunch of city planners created it. I preserves the government right of Eminent Domain for larger apartment buildings, etc. Sure, it helps for the small, private home owner, however that's not the target of ED actions anyway. This gives away something the city doesn't often want or care about, but preserves what they do want. It's a sop. So, Steve says: Yes 99, no 98. Thanks, Steve. So, here's a story. My neighbor (call him Fred) and his wife are not wealthy people. They own the oldest house on the hill where I live, worth about $500,000., and they have a four unit apartment building they bought on Van Ness and 22'nd (I think, perhaps 23rd.) Let me say Fred is not rich. He's got mortgages on both places, etc. Two of the units are rent controlled. The two that weren't were smaller apartments at market rates (although one was occupied by their daughter). In the rent controlled apartments you had one rented by a youngish couple who had just been there a long time, had decent jobs and could have paid market rates, but didn't. In the other you had a poor, loser, family. Let me clarify, a poor family is fine. No issues with that. But the loser family is one where the father was an alcoholic bum who stayed in the apartment or on the front steps all day, the son was a gang member who did something with drugs, no school, etc. and the mother was the hard working hispanic woman who did some job which brought in some small amount of cash. A sad family. So, I have no issues with fred's house being subject to zoning which requires that two of the units be lower rents (like 60% market rates or something like that). However that's not how rent control works. Here's what happened. The loser family started a fire in the house. Space heater (which Fred doesn't understand because he had replaced the buildings heating system a few years earlier, and none of the other units needed space heating). The fire consumed much of the back of the building rendering the place unlivable. Fine, shit happens. The two at market rates just move out somewhere else. The rent controlled couple moves away somewhere else in the city at market rates. The loser family moves somewhere else. When you have a rent controlled apartment, and your renters are forced to move out, you have an obligation as a landlord to offer them the same apartment, at the same rates, when the place is again ready for habitation. Now, Fred has spent a boatload of money to bring the house not only back to it's original condition (which insurance supposedly pays for but they try to weasel out of everything), but to improve it. He essentially can't afford to bring back the renters at below market rates. So, he has to try to get them to willingly leave. Well, there's no way to do this without buying them off. The only legal way is if family moves into the unit and stays there for three years. Even then you have to offer the former renters *other* equivalent apartments if you have one. So, there's no real way out. The typical rule of thumb that the lawyers have told his is that the normal "buyout" to get someone to give up their rent control rights is about seven years of the difference between the market and the controlled rate. Imagine you have an apartment where you're paying $700 a month and it could be going at $1800 or more on the open market. That 1,100 * 12 * 7 = a payout of about 91,000 dollars!!! To the people that started the fire and are undesirable renters! (And that's not just Fred saying it, it's the other renters in the building.) Even the couple who can afford it needs to be paid to give up their rights, it's less, but still about $40,000! So, the unfairness of the whole thing just sucks when you see and hear about it firsthand. Sure we all know we need cheaper apartments, but it's been pretty well proven that rent control or stabilization isn't the answer. The way San Francisco is going, with all power going to the tenants because they will always outnumber the property owners, it's a wonder that owners ever want to rent buildings. Again, yes 99, no 98. |
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Wed, May 7, 2008 - 8:39 PM
Steve, I absolutely don't think that people should *not* vote on 99. I meant, yes on 99 and no on 98. If we vote 99 in, we keep just cause because, as you said, it doesn't attempt to rewrite local and state law. [See Cynthia edit blog momentarily.]
I've been at the hand of a force-out in a non rent controlled city, San Deigo, in 2001, when rents were going up and up. I brought up the fact that my landlord couldn't give us less than 60 days notice to raise our rent by 20%, and so he decided I was his pet project. Up $100 and no fixes of repairs every until I left. Also no return of my deposit. I won in small claims court, but as you know, the burden is on the person bringing the case. I barely broke even to prove a point. Of course, I heard that all of my neighbors got their deposits in full after they moved. I suppose I paid it forward. Rent control isn't the best situation for everyone. I agree that people rather than property should be given assistance. But slum lords are slum lords and they don't change. People that neglect buildings don't all of a sudden renovate buildings when rent control goes away. I think that in the Chronicle, even today, that they cite a 20% increase in building renovations when rent control was lifted in the Cambridge/Boston area. However, rents soared upwards of 75% during that time. That doesn't seem worth it. And as far as buyouts go, the market rate for someone paying under market rate for 10-15 years on an apartment is about $20K, not that much for someone who is going to sell a building tenant free. |
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Wed, May 7, 2008 - 11:04 PM
This is awesome
Can the two of you debate all of the important propositions on the ballot?? This is so much more helpful than the other election information!! :-)
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Thu, May 8, 2008 - 11:00 AM
So, we're agreeing...
So, we're agreeing, Yes on 99, no on 98. I think I misread your first posting to say the other way around. It's easy to see why renovations don't jump as fast as rent goes up. Changing the rental rates is fast, easy, and doesn't require that you have any money on hand. Alternatively, doing extensive renovations requires cash... the kind that comes from having higher rental rates for awhile. Either way, there's little question that Rent Control or Stabilization as now practiced isn't very helpful to the overall market for low income housing. It gets abused by the people who can afford market rates on their own, and creates a "shadow economy" which perpetuates it. It is, however, politically difficult to get rid of it. Now, as to debating the rest of the propositions... :-) There are none at the moment. However later this year we'll be presented with www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/01-0...tered.pdf a 10 Billion dollar bond measure for a high speed train link between SF and LA (and perhaps for others after that is built.) I'm not sure what I think of that. Environmentally, it's got to be better than all the flights going back and forth between LA and SF every day, however it's got to be affordable enough that people can take a family of three for less than it would cost to take the family car. (Of course with gas prices rising the way they are (and should) that's not going to be difficult! ) I'll need more data. :-) Steve. |