A short time in the future in a galaxy very similar to our own, where housing is the hottest commodity on the market, everyone is scrambling to hold on to or get in on the good stuff.
Exhibit A: Corporate landlords want a slice of the Airbnb pie, reports the Wall Street Journal. Some of the nation’s biggest property management firms, with hundreds of thousands of units to their name, have started meeting with Airbnb reps to work out how landlords might charge their tenants a portion of what they earn with the practice. In the search for what Airbnb calls a “win-win-win for everyone involved,” a landlord might officially allow renters to use their home for short-term rentals, in exchange for a fee.
On the opposite end of that spectrum, Supervisors Jane Kim and Aaron Peskin are pushing hard to expand affordable housing and rent control (to many those are two sides of the same coin). Kim introduced a charter amendment for the 2016 ballot this week that would require developers to increase the number of affordable units in on site affordable housing to 25 percent of the units from 12 percent.
Meanwhile, Peskin is trying to see whether extending rent control to newer properties (it currently only applies to buildings constructed before 1979) is feasible. He has called on the City Attorney to see how that could work and said there might be a proposal on the table next year. More on both of these items at the Examiner.
In less far-reaching news, the long-anticipated park at 17th and Folsom is moving forward after years of planning. You can see a layout and specific features at Socketsite, as well as a few details about the affordable housing development slated for the other half of that parking lot. What’s not totally clear is how this will affect the flooding and sewage backflow that plague the area every time heavy rains fall – plans have been suggested and pulled multiple times to install a big basin underneath that site to absorb some of the stormwater that flows down to this natural bowl in the city’s topography. At a recent meeting, the Public Utilities Commission said that idea was still on the table.
Capp Street between 21st and 22nd streets could get 20 units of housing, according to plans filed for the site. In a little twist of modern zeitgeist, the project as it’s currently drafted would include zero parking – instead, it could get a row of bike lockers. SocketSite reports this and other details, and notes that the project may be getting a redesign anyway since those lockers aren’t a code-required active use.
Finally, ending on a lighter note, if you need a little music and beer in your life, check out Amnesia – after a two-week closure for renovations, the bar has reopened with an updated look. Capp Street Crap has the most important details, including that the bathroom doors now lock.