Developments in Development: Reverse

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With two anti-displacement measures now facing high-level pushback, the San Francisco Supervisors must feel positively Sisyphean.

London Breed is in the nation’s capital trying to resuscitate a neighborhood preference law that would reserve 40 percent of new affordable units for those who live nearby. The federal Housing and Urban Development folks feel that would lead to segregation; Breed and others say no, that’s the whole point, we’re trying to do the exact opposite, actually, by finding ways to keep low-income people of color in the city. 

And this week a San Francisco Superior Court judge overturned a popular ordinance championed by Supervisor David Campos that would have banned landlords from evicting teachers during the school year. Kids in San Francisco schools already have such protections, but the San Francisco Apartment Association and landlord lawyer Andrew Zacks argued that the new protections (educators and childcare workers were all included, plus it covered all no-fault evictions, not just owner move-ins) go against state law.

It’s not clear to me which state law that is exactly. According to Socketsite, Judge Ronald E. Quidachay wrote in his decision that the legislation “enters the fully-occupied field of the timing of landlord-tenant transactions” and that this “is a matter of statewide concern not amenable to local variations.”

Meanwhile, reports continue to trickle in that rents are cooling off a little. Curbed cites one report that put the Big Apple back on top of the nation’s most expensive cities (though others disagree).

The Chronicle reports two recent studies have shown that rents are either flattening out or not rising as quickly. Stories of this kind always mention increased supply as part of the reason for the softening. But here’s part of the reason why they’re not exactly dropping either:

“Some owners are reluctant to lower their rent because they upgraded the property in anticipation of rising rents, or the unit is rent-controlled and they don’t want to lock themselves into a lower rent.”

In a conversation about the cost of rental housing, there’s always room for a little talk about short-term rentals. Los Angeles is now grappling with Airbnb, too — having cottoned on to the fact that landlords who own apartments can make way more money on the short-term rental market than on the long-term one. One study indicates a landlord can make a year’s long-term rental income in 60 days if they Airbnb their unit.

Airbnb pulled out their own in-house study saying no no, it takes way longer than that to make Airbnb more attractive than a long-term lease. To me that just says nobody can dispute anymore that the service disrupts the long-term rental market (instead of the hotel industry), we’re just down to arguing about how many nights it takes an Airbnb unit to out-earn a leased one. 

Architectural Addendum: I’m shocked and a little offended that the US Bank building at 22nd and Mission streets ranked a paltry 18th on this map of San Francisco’s 19 ugliest buildings. You’re telling me people think this mildewy cinderblock is more attractive than the San Francisco Marriot Marquis? More handsome than One Rincon Hill? And yet uglier than the Salesforce tower? Good thing I didn’t become an architect.