S.F. condo bills take wrong tack

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved two bills this week that take aim at The City's notoriously contentious process for converting rental units to individually owned homes.

The bills are both from Supervisor Chris Daly. One would require owners and real estate agents to notify prospective purchasers if a renter was evicted before the building was put up for sale. The other would require the Planning Commission to hold a hearing every time a building of two or more units is proposed for conversion from apartments to individual condominiums.

Currently, the commission only holds hearings on condo conversions for buildings of five or more units. Buyers currently are notified of evictions when the purchase is in escrow.

The indications have been that Mayor Gavin Newsom will likely veto at least one of these two measures. The director of the Mayor's Office of Housing, Matthew Franklin, told The Examiner that Newsom intends to reject the legislation on Planning Commission involvement.

We think Newsom should veto both of them.

The Planning Commission legislation clearly would be a disaster.

It would put the commissioners in the position of policing the relationship between landlords and tenants, a function that is not within the commission's purview and for which its members are not necessarily qualified. Furthermore, the commission just doesn't have time for this. The Planning Department and the commission have enough trouble completing long-term plans. The last thing the Planning Commission needs is more work that sidetracks it from guiding the big picture of San Francisco 's physical development.

The other measure, to require disclosure of evictions, appears somewhat less onerous. Buyers already are notified in the escrow process, so what is the problem? But turn that question around: If disclosure already is required, what is the point? At the least, there appears to be no public benefit to changing when buyers are notified, so there's no compelling reason to add this new requirement to the process.

It's important to note that in a time when we hear so much about families and others fleeing San Francisco because of the high cost of living here, many of the people involved in buying buildings through tenancies-in-common and trying to convert their apartments to condominiums are demonstrating that they are desperate to stay here. City Hall should bend over backward to accommodate people who want to live in San Francisco for the long term and who go to Herculean efforts to do so.

The answer to San Francisco 's housing problems is not to merely restrict what can be done with existing units. Despite improving the number of housing units now in line for construction, The City's biggest housing problem remains supply. San Franciscans should stop arguing over a limited number of TICs and condo conversions and instead encourage the building of more housing, particularly units for purchase or rent at reasonable prices.