Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Land Use And Transportation Committee 20240713

Each member is allowed two minutes to speak. Comments to speak are available via phone by calling 888 2045984. The access code 3501008. Then press pound and press pound again. Dial one and 0 to be added to the queue to speak. While waiting the system will be silent. It will notify you when you are in line and waiting. All callers remain on mute until their line is open. Everyone must account for timely days between life coverage and streaming. Call from a quiet place. Speak clearly and slowly and turndown your television or radio. You may submit Public Comment by emailing me. If you submit Public Comment it will be included in the legislative file. Written comments may be sent through the u. S. Postal service to city hall. Thank you, ms. Major the let me thank our backup house staff brent and john and all of the folks from the Clerks Office for doing the incredible work that you have been doing since the shelterinplace and Virtual Meeting started at the board of supervisors. Madam clerk, could you please read the first item. Item 1. Ordinance amending the planning code to create the occupancy residential use amending the code to clarify the existing law regarding enforceability and controls to conduct a study to analyze the impact of the units in the city and firm appropriate findings. Members of the public who wish to comment should calm 888 2045984 access code 3501008. Bless one and zero to line up to speak. Colleagues an supervisors. This is the seventh time it has been to the committee. It is a long road and very complicated. I am not the first supervisor to deal with intermediate length occupancy or corporate rental issues in San Francisco. It dates back to the 1980s and days of Karen Callanan and later at the end of the 1990s with supervisor mabel tang, and we were actually scheduled to have this hearing right when the covid19 crisis went into effect the last set of amendments were adopted on march 9th and as you will both recall, based in a large part on the comments of supervisor preston with regard to land use entitlement project that occurred at the board of supervisors last tuesday, i felt it important to bring this back and get it passed once and for all. I really want to thank my chief of staff who has done the hard policy lifting. We introduced this last year in october. It has been before the Planning Commission twice, and i just want to give you a brief recap. We have met with countless stakeholders from the tenants community, from the short term or the intermediate length Occupancy Committee that comes in a variety of different buckets. Here in short is what the legislation i will remind you although i know you are both familiar does. First, clarifying the law around the prohibition of corporate rentals in rent control Housing Stock with very specific tailored exemptions we have discussed that are subject to earlier amendments. As the legislative digest says, that was already part of chapter 37 of the administrative code but not as clear as it could have been. This will clarify that. We are creating the middle bucket of housing not covered by price controls but covered by tenant protections and creating conditional use process. That planning will have two years to approve up to 1,000 conditional uses for permitted ilos, intermediate length occupancy units based on the cry criteria the Planning Commission and stakeholders offered as guidelines previously adopted in amendments. We are directing the Controllers Office to direct what future controls we undertake as the board of supervisors to regulate and evaluate and monetize future ilo development. I want to thank a host of different organizations ranging from the tenants union, housing rights committee, the tenants association. San francisco apartments association. Senior disability action. Eviction defense, asian law caucus. Local two and representatives of the industry that have met with myself ranging from sander to zoos and any other number every sent entrants into the ilo field. We have also, as i think i joked at an earlier meeting, i dont think i have ever introduced in my 20 years one piece of legislation that has activated every single lobbyist in San Francisco, but i also want to thank them for their time and the suggestions that we have made in part as amendments in february and in march. Then finally, i probably should have started with this. I want to thank my cosponsors, supervisor preston and supervisor fewer who have both been fierce advocates around this issue and around tenant protections and affordable housing. Supervisor safai raised some very good questions about defi defining the 25 cap for less than 10 units. We have long since adopted those, and that is now very clear in the legislation. That will not be subject to Zoning Administrator interpretations and appeals of interpretations. Thank you, supervisor safai. As to buildings of 10 or more and Owner Operator to establish the ilo can do those and for buildings with more than 10 dwelling units, 20 of those units may be permitted as ilos until we deal with the results of the study up to 1,000 unit cap. We have heard from planning and the Planning Commission at several earlier hearings. I did ask Robert Collins from the rent board to be on the line in case we have any questions for him. Finally, i am aware that the San Francisco day school who we met with has expressed interest in some amendments. Because this has been kicking around so long, i do not want to entertain those amendments today because i do not want to kick this can further down the road. I am open to considering amendments and cleanup legislation in the months ahead. I do not want to be in a position to rerefer this to the Planning Commission or to further delay the legislation, but you have my word that we will certainly entertain be reasonable amendments to this, i think, quite important piece of legislation. With that i would like to turn it over to my colleagues for any questions. I am going to press on the chat to see if your name is on there. Supervisor would either of you preston like to add anything or have questions or comments . Thank you, and i do want to talk about the issue you just raised about the San Francisco head of School Michael walker was in touch with our office as well. That is here in district 5. They are looking at some faculty rental of two Small Properties they own right near the school. As you noted they had questions about application of the ordinance. Before i get into that, i want to recognize and thank you, chair peskin, for your work on this ordinance for really talking with such a broad range of stakeholders. I want to thank the bla for the report to lay a Strong Foundation to deal with as much data as we could in terms of shaping the proposal. This is extremely important. I will note. I talked on other issues in committee about my background working as tenant rights attorney for a long time. This issue in a different form has been around a long time looking at the effectively the conversion of a lot of property to different forms of corporate rentals with everyone banking their head against the wall how to tackle this. This is not a problem that is new in the last year or two years or since there was a new website to facilitate this. This is a longstanding issue, complicated to address, and i want to commend you for all of your work in, hopefully, being on the verge of bringing this home to law. I did want to ask around the issue with day school. I certainly do not want in any way to slow this down and fully respect the need and agree with the need to move this forward and if cleanup is necessary, i will do that separately. I am curious for the City Attorney or the chair to address when the situation, my understanding the situation is a rental by a school. To a faculty member, and i think there is a possibility that can be for less than a year if the person leaves employment, basically. They would then be able to use that unit for a different faculty member. That seems like a reasonable request from the school. I am not sure if that is prohibited. I have been trying to wrap my brain around whether that requires an amendment or not. I was curious to hear the City Attorneys view or chair peskin as the sponsor here whether you have any thoughts on the application. The schools are struggling to maintain teachers and wants to offer the units to those struggling to be in San Francisco. I am curious if either to chair peskin or to the deputy City Attorney pearson whether the ordinance would preclude that kind of rental. Thank you for that question. I will take a nonlawyers run at that. In many ways what you just said is akin to the provisions under chapter 37 of the administrative code as it relates to on site Property Managers who have units as a term of employment. Deputy City Attorney seemed to think that was also the case here, and i dont want this to be about one particular school. I will keep repeating the outfit that hired a lobbyist who has been calling all of us. My understanding it is very different when it is a term of employment as opposed to what is set forth here in the ilo ordinance. I will defer a real answer to competent council, ms. Pearson. Deputy City Attorney ann pearson. It would make it unlawful to use it as a nondent use. Nontent use is defined as renting to corporate entity or housing for ones employees or licensees or independent contractors. I do think that to the extent that the concern is raised if schools want to rent housing to their employees and to condition occupancy on continued employment as a teacher in the school, that it would be prohibited by the current draft. It makes exemptions, one of which pair peskin noted which was an exception which they are providing to the employees as condition of employment to assist with maintenance or management of the building. We have made that exception for those types of employees. To address the issue you have raised here, you could make a similar exception for the employees of schools who are providing housing for their teachers. Thank you. Through the chair, would such an amendment require this to go back to planning or delay in any way the proceeding or is that the type of amendment if we were to desire to do that we would be able to do here without delaying the process . That amendment would be to the administrative code. Would not require referral back to Planning Commission. It would not require a continuance. Would that be the language at section 37. 9f 3d 3 where in the d would be submitted where an organization with tax ex emstatus under 26 united code section 501 c3 or 4 providing access to unit for the mission to provide housing . I think that is where we would propose to add the language to address this. The language you could add would be or in furtherance of the primary mission of education by providing housing to teachers. That does not require referral and could be adopted today . Thats right. All right. Mr. Chair, just so we dont think it is about one school. I got a call from the representatives of the school that straddles mine and supervisor yees district. They have housing for teachers they were concerned would not bible to access under this ordinance. I favor that amendment as well to help out. I am sure there is more than just two educational institutions that would be providing housing for teachers to further the mission of education. Sounds good. Do you have any other comments . Actually not on that issue. If we are in agreement, can we ask the City Attorney to come up with language we could do between now and when this goes to the full board so we can addd adopt that. They may have dapted drafted something simple. I am happy to read the proposed language now. As chair peskin said on page 16 at line 21. Amendment to subsection cfd an organization with taxexempt status is providing access to provide housing, or in furtherance of the primary mission of education by providing housing to teachers. Now that i know this does not require a continuance or referal i am entirely happy to adopt those 10 words. Great. I make a motion to adopt those. Would you like Public Comment . Yes. I still have comments and questions before we do that. We will hold that motion subject to Public Comment. Supervisor safai, the floor is yours. I want to commend you and your team and the interested parties that helped you work on this. This probably dates back to your first time on the board of supervisors. It is years in the making. This is a monumental lift. I just want to commend you on that. I appreciates you incorporating the clarifying terms of dwelling units impacted. One question. It is silent on units of size one to three. I wanted you to talk about that so i understand it clearly. Hold on one moment and i will get the appropriate language. Basically, you can do ilos in one, two, three units. A four unit building would allow one ilo. Eight or nine units two allow two ilos. I just didnt see it. Maybe i have the outdated version. You inkorporated in one through three are okay . If you look at the fourth legislative digest, you will see that is set forth in the fourth legislative digest. I am looking for the exact spot. At the march 9, 2020 Land Use Committee hearing legislation amended to clarify the three buildings nine or fewer dwelling units. Ilo units not permitted. I said it reverse. Buildings three or fewer. Four and nine you can have 25 . That would be one in a four and two in an eight or nine. I apologize for my misstatement. Okay. Still not permitted in three or less . Correct. Okay. We had a few people that came that day that actually had two Unit Properties and they had spent money to incorporate those into their buildings, and i know we had an open conversation about that. What is it . Are you finalized in terms of your position in terms of three or less . That is our a. D. U. Policy which is very clear a. D. U. S we want to incentivize not for Short Term Rentals or for intermediate lent occupancy, permanent housing. That is Housing Stock that lends to longterm membership in a community. That was my thinking. I apologize more my earlier misstatement. I see that. I think is that right. I think that in many ways we have put legislation forward that says we want to encourage a. D. U. S. What i was saying for the ones that are i dont know how many there are. If there are a handful of people operating in that space i guess i had landed on the two or less. If they were operating are they going to be nonconforming, have to stop i wonder if there was consideration for that. After the effective date, 1a ilo occupancy ceases because they are intermediate length, the new tent would have to have a lease of a year or longer. Okay. And remember these are relative to the four to nine they are principally permitted. No conditional uses required. I got it. Thank you. Other than that i think we have done everything we can to make this a really great piece of legislation. I appreciate the amendment for the educational institution. Thank you. If you have no additional comments has we open this up to Public Comment . Seeing no objection, we will open this up for Public Comment. Are there any members of the public to testify on item one . Checking to see if there are callers in the queue. There are three callers. You have two minutes beginning now. Yes, i am andrew long. I am an owner occupier of a three unit building. I have a problem with this legislation. This is a solution looking for a problem. These intermediate tenant sees are not a problem at all. In the past i had tenants that requested sixmonth leases because of hard times, because they werent sure how long they were able to stay in the bay area after september 11th. I rented out places on six months to give flexibility and peace of mind rather than forcing a 12 police. Some stayed a long time and some didnt. Students only need a place nine months. You are creating a situation only offering on a 12 polic 12 r the lease. I dont see the point of the legislation with people offering something less than 12 police. 12 month 12 months. These are empty units. Regarding the this is going to cause fewer units to be offered actually. As far as noticing in advertisement and marketing. That is off putting to people. Rather than having in the advertising, loo look at the disclosure about rent control in the lease similar to ad1482 rather than in every marketing piece of information. That is it for my comment. You have not already done so press one and zero to be added to the call. Next caller, please. You have two minutes to speak starting now. Good afternoon. This is mike walker. Head of the San Francisco day school. I want to thank all of the supervisors and specifically supervisor peskin and preston. I am overjoyed that the amendment passed. I want you to know you just made a group of teachers very happy. I can go to the staff and offer apartments to two teachers. Had a statement prepared to thank you so much for your attention for what you just did for the city. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Walker. Next caller, please. Linda trap man. [ inaudible ] Short Term Rentals like a hotel. [ inaudible ] i am not sure how well you protected the rentals. [ inaudible ] when i went to washington, d. C. There were apartments for three or four months or Something Like that on that basis. You know, it is troubling. They are part of the building and instead of the lease for six months for Something Like that, what they do is make it impossible for people to come. I am not in a position to make good comments. I havent had a chance to discuss it. You know, i just want to make sure you dont grandfather in buildings in some way. If somebody is grandfathered in they had nothing as a right. The fact they rented the place and leased it doesnt mean they have an investment to use. [ inaudible ] thank you. I am allen mark. I have a two unit building and i live in one of the units and i do a rental in the other unit. This legislation the way i understand it is proposed would be a big detriment to people looking for hotter term housing short term housing. My primary tenants rent two to six months. They are doctors for Short Term Research studies or traveling nurses working at various hospitals or people divorcing where one of the parties needs to immediately move out of their house on a short term basis. People coming for surgery who need a short term two to three month recoupperation period. I am wondering where all of these people are going to go who dont want to stay in hotel rooms. Thank you very much. Thank you, caller. Do we have another caller . You have two minutes to speak starting now. This is gary briggs, a member of the San Francisco Apartment Association and also member of the San Francisco association of realtors. I am in opposition of this legislation for a lot of very good reasons, some of which have been discussed, others havent been. I live in an Owner Occupied building. We have a lot of people that are seeking rentals for short term, sometimes it is because they are looking to relocate, and they are only needing the rental for three months then monthtomonth, which we allow them to do. They can find more permanent housing. They are searching the neighborhoods they like best. We have traveling nurses. They only need a place for two or three months then their contract is extended. There are a lot of reasons that people seek Short Term Rentals, and it is a natural process. By denying this processor limiting the number of rentals, doesnt make sense. To make owners go through a c. U. To collect their rental units short term is more bureaucracy. That makes no sense. Why would you have owners go through that type of condition to try to get a unit so they can continue to do what they have be denning . I have been doing. I urge you to seek input and guidance from the San Francisco association of realtors and Apartment Association. In the current straight this is not something that they signed up on or have all of the. There are no more callers wishing to speak. Thank you to the members of public who testified on this item. I just want to offer to a number of the speakers some high level suggestions. One is that if you want to engage in the short term rental business and you qualify under chapter 41a of the administrative code, you can rent a unit out as a short term rental and people are welcome to do that under a piece of legislation that the board of supervisors passed and was then enacted into law. The broken leases and i say this as a small land lord my selfs there is nothing the required a landlord to go after a tenant who has moved out short of the term of his or her lease. Finally, i want be to say one of the things that is really important in this legislation is the fact that this differentiates between natural people ancho and and the core people. That is long overdue. In many cases these are not rented out by people. They are rented out by corporations, United Airlines who uses units as Revolving Doors for flight attendants instead of using a downtown class a hotel, i have watched buildings in my district that have been hollowed out that used to have a steady longterm community that now neighbors dont recognize neighbors any more. This has been exploited by a number of online platforms, many of which are actually from San Francisco as we speak. I appreciate the words from the San Francisco day School Supervisor safai made that motion earlier subject to Public Comment. We can take that without objection. Is that okay . No, i am sorry. We have to call the roll. Madam clerk please call the road on supervisor safais motion. Supervisor preston. Aye. Affisee. Aye. Supervisor peskin. Aye. Three ayes. On the item as amended can we send this to the full board with recommendations without objection . A roll call, please. On the motion as stated supervisor preston. Aye. Supervisor safai. Aye. Supervisor peskin. Aye. You have three ayes. Next item. Ordinance of the planning code in if urban mixed use district all office uses prohibited except a special Financial Service or medical Service Allowed as conditional use on the ground floor when primarily open to the general public on the client oriented basis. Members of public should call 888 2045984. Access code 3501008 and one and zero to speak. This item was brought to us by supervisor ronen. Her staff amy joins us now. I think is working on some amendments that might not be ripe for introduction today. The floor is yours. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. Legislative aid on support of supervisor ronen. This planning code amendments were to promote new housing and uses in the citys neighborhood specifically this legislation was permitted use on the upper floors and would allow neighborhoods serving offices on the ground floor. No change to any other uses including arts and Light Manufacturing as well as housing which continue to be permitted. The legislation was heard last week at Planning Commission. Several recommendations came out of Planning Commission, and on behalf of supervisor ronen i request today a one week continuance to consider the recommendations and to come back to you with amendments next week. Thank you. Are there any members of the public who would like to testify on item number two which we intend to continue for one week and will be subject to Public Comment next week as well . Is there anybody in the queue. We are checking for callers in the queue. Two callers. Press one and zero to be added. If you are on hold please continue to wait. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, supervisors. Corey smith on behalf of the San Francisco Housing Action coalition. This has been a topic when this has come up in previous discussions and hearings, and we just want to continue to reiterate our grandfathering for this piece of legislation. Having the rules throughout the process is critical to creating certainty and more uncertainty in the Development Process to add to the overall cost of building housing in a significant way. Specifically requesting a grandfathering clause for projects with this piece of legislation. Thank you. Is there another caller . You have two minutes to speak. Good afternoon. Representing the project sponsor for 200 harrison. 2300 harrison. We are asking for a grandfathering clause. We understand it is continued to allow revisions. We hope the grandfathering clause is one of them. We will hold comments today. We respectful lie ask for grandfathering so 2300 harrison can go through normal appeal processes. Instead of the legislation introduced after the first approval. We look forward to the next time this comes up and hope you will include a grandfathering clause. Thank you. Is there another caller . Hello, you have two minutes starting now. Thank you. Good afternoon, supervisors. I am amad principal of the associates architects. Offices in the umu district. I have been here for 15 years. Heard of this accidentally. I will leave most of it to next week. We have moders december 8,000 square foot building proposing adding 4,000 square feet of office. I am located there. I humbly as the previous caller said as well ask for you to make a provision for grandfathering projects submitted. We spent a year with the neighbors and negotiating with planning in preapplication with neighborhood associations and we spent a great deal of money on this. I really appreciate the sentiment behind this, but i love my neighborhood. I love the vibrancy in the daytime as well and i dont want to see it go away, but most important i would ask for a grandfathering clause even if you adopt this legislation, please give us the opportunity to continue with our project. Thank you very much. Next speaker. This is colin, senior advice adviser with the housing coalition. This is a project of importance 2300 harrison. I wont listing the many benefits. Two things. If the legislation is for the project the city would preserve offices legal nonconforming use and surface parking lot for many years to come. Is that intended . If the city rejected 3. 5 million fee at the time it is facing a budget blood bath . I believe the legislation would be approved with an amendment to allow grandfathering. In my 15 years of land use legislation i am not aware of a proposal affecting Housing Production didnt include one. I would commend supervisor peskin for the times he has incorporated grandfathering in earlier proposals. The principal is this. Not fair to change the rules when a project sponsor has for several years been in good faith followed the rules and done everything asked of them. The reasonable expectation of getting project approval. I would say that i dont think the sponsor is asking for special treatment of concessions rather requesting what is customary and part of the previous land use legislation before you. Thank you very much. Next caller. I am john. I am one of the sponsors of the project at 2455 harrison street. I agree with the other callers on the need for a grandfathering clause. This would adversely affect the project we have put the Financial Resources in since 2018. The change of the code would be unfair. I disagree with some of the statements or perceptions as it is currently written. As it was introduced by supervisor ronens office, she referred to the code allowing office use on the upper floors. As it stands it is only allowed on the second floor. I could go on and on. I will speak more next week. I certainly support the grandfathering clause. I think that it needs office space and there is a demand for it. To promote more housing we should look at increased height restrictions. That is all. Next caller. Two minutes. Thank you. Assistant director for the regional council. I want to make sure we express our support for the commissions recommendation to add a grandfathering clause to the current ordinance. I want to make sure that the commission is well aware the partners are in support of that amendment. I will save my comments for next week. Thank you. There are no further comments. Seeing no other members of the public for Public Comment. Public comment is closed. If there is no objection, colleagues, we will continue this item one week to next monday. Seeing no objection, that will be the order. We have to do a roll call. Madam clerk, please call the roll. Motion to continue to may 4th Committee Supervisor preston. Safai. Aye. Peskin. Aye. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you all. See you all tomorrow. And welcome to the regular hearing for thursday, april 30th, 2020. Before i begin, as has been the case for our remote hearin,