potrero view

August 2010

Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

I was glad to see the article “Property Owners Grapple with Rent Control Regulations” in last month’s View.  While Sarah Mcdonald presented a number of perspectives in a limited space, I didn’t find the article to be balanced.  It’s my belief that small landlords are being relentlessly harmed by San Francisco’s punitive rent control laws.  You could turn this article into a monthly column and would have no problem collecting examples of small landlords being brutalized by rent control statues.  While tenant evictions garner media attention, where’s the press concerning tenants gaming the system for their own profit?

Here’s one story, which happens to be mine and my sweetheart’s, Monica Gillham.  We own, and reside in, a four-unit building located near the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House.  In the 1990s we were tenants in the property, which we purchased from our elderly landlord, who stayed on as our tenant.  The building would otherwise have been bought by someone who would have likely done owner-move-ins.  We saved four groups of tenants their residences, for a while anyway.

Over the years we discovered that the building had major structural and code issues, although we’d purchased it on the basis of a certificate of final completion and occupancy (CFC) that was issued by the Department of Building Inspections (DBI) several months before we bought it.  It turned out that two of the units were sufficiently non-code compliant, necessitating a major remodel, and were not safe for occupancy.  We issued our tenants a notice that capital improvements needed to be made.  Within eight days we were sued for a half-million dollars by one of the tenants for wrongful eviction – though we never indicated that he was being evicted - and mold – which didn’t exist.  While most of lawsuit disappeared after the Tenderloin Housing Clinic discovered we were covered by three different insurance carriers, it still cost us more than $100,000.  The tenant received nearly $50,000 in compensation to settle his false allegations.  The lawsuit was caused by unfriendly landlord rent control statutes, and an incompetent DBI, which is immune from prosecution for their serious mistakes   

Besides our loss of cash, our loss of monthly rental income, and facing $1 million in building retrofit expenses, we have also lost our stomach to be landlords.  And we’re not alone.  A review of apartment listings for Potrero Hill shows a vast number of short-term rentals.  These are all units taken off the long-term market because of rent control statues. 

Dan Redmond

De Haro Street

 

Dear Editor,

Contrary to Judy West’s assertion in last month’s View (“Property Owners Grapple with Rent Control Regulations”), the real distortions to the housing market are Proposition 13 – $17 billion a year in tax subsidies – the mortgage interest tax deduction – $100 billion in subsidies to property owners annually – the property tax deduction – $25 billion a year – and the exclusion of capital gains on residential property sales - $15 billion a year.  I’m deeply envious of this largesse, and would swap rent control for billions in subsidies in a heartbeat. Rent control is a rounding error.

Andreas Michlmayr

20th Street

 

Dear Editor,

Ms. Mcdonald’s article on rent control in last month’s View (“Property Owners Grapple with Rent Control Regulations”) was a fair review of the two opposing positions on rent regulation and how it affects the City.  What wasn’t covered was the result of the Law of Unintended Consequences, which the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Mr. Gullicksen ignore.  

I can stand on my Potrero Hill corner and look a hundred yards down four streets, taking in 30 two- and three-unit buildings.  I know my neighbors, and can count six vacant apartments on these streets.  They serve as “a relative’s City crash pad,” “home office,” or just plain vacant, many for more than a decade. These vacancies translate into thousands of empty units throughout San Francisco; maybe hundreds on Potrero Hill alone.   Rent control on owner-occupied buildings four-units and fewer has been an unmitigated disaster for the rental market.

I’ve owned my building for 23 years, had the same tenant for the last 13, and haven’t raised the rent the allowable amount.  But it’s a chore to keep up with all the rules.  I could easily turn the unit into a big home office and be done with the hassles.  If “no increase-banking” is enacted – in which property owners aren’t allowed to raise rents based on allowable increases in previous years which weren’t implemented – I’d raise my tenant’s rent by 7.6 percent immediately to avoid losing the “bank.”  

There has to be a compromise to protect tenants but still ease the burden on small landlords.

Edward Lortz

19th Street

 

Dear Editor,

“Lack of Transparency Dogs Community Trust Fund,” in the View’s July issue, described the Eastern Neighborhoods Public Benefits Trust Fund. As a recipient of fund monies, the Archives Project would like to thank the fund’s advisors, Joe Boss, Keith Goldstein, and Susan Eslick, for their hard work and dedication to their community. The grant is making it possible for the Archives to work with the Main Library’s SF History Room on digitizing hundreds of historic Hill photos and oral histories, making a rich resource available to a wide audience.

Peter Linenthal

Potrero Hill Archives Project

 

Dear Editor,

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.  I’m writing to commend the View for casting sunlight on the Eastern Neighborhoods Public Benefits Trust Fund in last month’s issue (“Lack of Transparency Dogs Community Trust Fund”).  Potrero Hill residents and dues-paying members of the Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association deserve to be told the full story about any conflicts in how the fund is being managed.  Hopefully the association approached the creation of the fund in a manner consistent with ethical practices.

I receive the Booster’s monthly newsletters that highlight the most mundane of permit applications. How did the newsletter fail to mention  the sensitive negotiations with a developer on behalf of the community? How is this not worthy of disclosure?

According to the View’s story, a legal loophole has made the benefactors of the fund confidential.  Only those doling out the money or those receiving funds benefit from this secrecy.

Justin Hughes

Pennsylvania Street

 

Dear Editor,

I’m writing about the slant and tone of “Lack of Transparency Dogs Community Trust Fund,” an article about the Eastern Neighborhoods Public Benefits Trust Fund (ENPBTF) in last month’s View. The only entity targeting the fund for “dogging” was the View itself, with a sensationalist and derogatory headline, and the kind of dark and negative conclusion that tends to discourage the public from being informed and participating in community life. I hope to set the record straight in an area discussed in the article in which I played a part.

The article reported that the 18th and Rhode Island Permaculture Garden manager only found out about the fund at a meeting.  What occurred was far more intentional, dynamic and community-building.  The garden’s teachers/designers/managers made a presentation, which I helped arrange, at a monthly gathering of the Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association.  The day after the presentation, Keith Goldstein, a fund administrator, visited 18th and Rhode Island on his own initiative, and informed the garden team about the fund.

ENBPTF is mandated to help develop long-term benefits to the community, focusing on open space, education and the environment. Goldstein recognized that the 18th and Rhode Island Permaculture Garden had the potential to be a match: an educational demonstration site on a wide open, publicly accessible urban street corner in plain view of the neighborhood.

Eighteenth and Rhode Island had been managed on a shoestring by upcycling waste stream materials, utilizing volunteers and relying on small private donations. The Garden was awarded an ENPBTF grant to expand its operations and educational outreach. Its managers pledged to use monies entirely within the garden or to support similar projects within the eastern neighborhoods.

Everything about this ENBPTF grant was handled in a proactive, above-board, open, fair and appropriate manner.

David Glober

Carolina Street

 

Dear Editor,

I wanted to thank all of my friends in the neighborhood for showering me with flowers and cards, and stopping by for special visits in the front yard, as I recuperate from my recent fall.  All this wonderful support makes me want to work harder to improve Potrero Hill.

I broke my right femur, fractured my pelvis and punctured my hip socket.  These were repaired with an eight inch rod, two bolts in the hip joint and a pin.  With all this extra hardware in me, gone are the days of climbing ladders to paint houses or kicking up my heels dancing.

Keep up your friendly attitude, Potrero Hill.   The Hill is a wonderful place to live.

Babette Drefke

Kansas Street

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