Some 70 tech companies are currently registered in the Mission District and increasingly, all are facing the same challenges that residents and other businesses have long blamed on tech – high rents and increasing wealth inequality. “Rent and staff cost a lot more in San Francisco than they do anywhere else,” said Zach Berke of Exygy, a digital services agency focused...
In a market where e-commerce has usurped traditional retail and research suggests consumers go out for experiences rather than to shop, some Mission businesses are finding success in offering what can’t be ordered at the click of a button. Steve Fox opened his San-Francisco-themed indoor mini-golf course Urban Putt in 2014, with exactly that in mind. His plan had never been...
According to reports from the San Francisco Chronicle, a landlord notorious for using both legal and illegal means to evict long-term tenants in properties she acquired in San Francisco and Los Angeles has been fined $2.4 million by a San Francisco judge: The judge’s tentative decision also voids pending evictions, including at 1135-1139 Guerrero St., where Kihagi is in the...
Renters want better protections from landlords who say they’re going to exercise their legal right to occupy a unit and then turn around and rent the unit to a new tenant at a higher cost. Owner move-in evictions are legal, but tenants say landlords often circumvent the restrictions in place that are supposed to keep them from being used to...
Voters seem to have a bit of a love-hate relationship with tech – at least that’s what Curbed has found when comparing a recent survey of voters (commissioned by the pro-development Rise SF) that found most blame both the tech industry and the city for housing costs, and a 2015 survey (commissioned by a mayoral aide) that found most voters...
It is impossible to quantify the exchanges and relationships that have formed in the spaces that artist Todd Brown has created and curated in the Mission for nearly two decades. He’s been heavily involved in the Mission Arts & Performance Project, known as MAPP, which started in 2003 when Brown saw a need to connect local artists living within blocks from...
San Francisco’s renters are giving the city top marks – in everything except affordability, of course, where they give it the equivalent of blowing a raspberry. That’s according to a renter satisfaction survey from Apartment List. Interestingly, the other thing renters in the survey were particularly unhappy with is the quality of schools. Also surprising: Respondents were more or less...
A nine-bedroom home on Dolores Street near 16th Street is for rent for $18,000 a month, possibly as an “Airbnb Cash Cow” or a tech incubator. The broker, Bill Harkins, said any master tenant who chooses to pursue the rental as an Airbnb short term rental rather than a family home or a home for several roommates would have to follow...
San Francisco Supervisors today approved legislation that requires short term rental platforms like Airbnb to list only rentals that have undergone the required registration process with the city. The legislation places the onus on Airbnb, HomeAway and other hosting platforms to make sure hosts who want to rent out part of their homes to visitors have gotten a business license...
A proposal that would hold home sharing platforms like Airbnb responsible for listing units not registered with the city moved one step closer to approval on Thursday when it secured a recommendation from a Board of Supervisors committee. “This is not about changing the existing law. It’s simply about making sure that this law that has been in effect, that...
Once on the brink of eviction from a below-market-rate rental that had been their home for 11 years, Brenda and Luis Palacios and their three children were finally able to purchase their home at the Tiffany Gardens apartment complex in La Lengua. An exceptionally complicated situation involving a city agency, a nonprofit, and a homeowner’s association was resolved because the sale, as it...
Update: The story has been updated to reflect German Maldonado’s bankruptcy filings. The property manager who was accused of stealing his tenants’ rent last summer has been found guilty and must pay a total of $780,000 to his nine former tenants for negligence, emotional distress, and loss of rent, among other charges. German Maldonado “has caused a lot of harm, and he...
Landlords hoping to change recently passed tenant protections failed Tuesday night to convince the San Francisco Rent Board that the law should only apply to new leases. The new ordinance, part of a package of tenant protections introduced by Supervisor Jane Kim, allows tenants to add roommates up to the legal occupancy limit regardless of their lease terms. Landlords would...
The upcoming November election is shaping up to be one of the most controversial in recent years. A new housing bond, a moratorium in the Mission, and short-term rental regulations are on the ballot to address the city’s worsening housing crisis, albeit it in very different ways and drawing varied reactions. Tech firms and private developers have spent millions to...
Despite concerns that the neighborhood diner might be shutting its doors as early as this month, Boogaloos will be staying open through December, but faces an uncertain future after that. “For sure we’re not leaving in September,” said co-owner Carolyn Blair Brandeis. “We’ll be staying open at least through Christmas, that’s our plan.” Blair Brandeis said the uncertainty is due to recent...
