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I Have Read Prop F

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Re: I Have Read Prop F

#31
I saw some campaign propaganda today.

One side of the flier has a guy named Aaron Peskin imploring me to vote yes on Prop F and Prop I. Prop F is the mess thoughtfully critiqued in this write-up, Prop I is a moratorium on building new market-rate housing. Oh, and he's on the "more affordable rent" campaign platform, because if you want to make rent more affordable, clearly the best way is by preventing construction of market-rate housing. It's like SF voters are brain-dead.

The flip side of the flier derided another candidate. If the point of the flier was to make me aware of which candidate to not to vote for, mission accomplished.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#32
post #31

I saw some campaign propaganda today. One side of the flier has a guy named Aaron Peskin imploring me to vote yes on Prop F and Prop I. Prop F is the mess thoughtfully critiqued in this write-up, Prop I is a moratorium on building new market-rate housing. Oh, and he's on the "more affordable rent" campaign platform, because if you want to make rent more affordable, clearly the best way is by preventing construction o…

Prop I is just a moratorium in the mission right? Doesn't really matter, I think it's a bad idea as well.

However, I think you may find that voters are far more opposed to prop I than prop F. My guess is that if someone supports I, they will almost certainly support F, but not the other way around. Time will tell, though.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#33
post #20

AirBnB needs to step up and suggest what it thinks are some of the right ways to handle this. The fact is, many/most leases and HOAs forbid short term rentals, and for good reasons. As well, many areas are zoned non-commercial, again for good reasons. But people certainly should have some degree of autonomy when it comes to their personal property. The question is, what is it? What I never understood is why short ter…

> But people certainly should have some degree of autonomy when it comes to their personal property. The question is, what is it?

That is why we elect people. To answer these kinds of hard questions.

> What I never understood is why short term rental regulations aren't modeled more closely off BnB laws than hotel laws.

Part of the whole kerfuffle is because AirBnB was encouraging people to break the laws that actually existed.

For example, if I buy a house in an area zoned "residential", I don't expect to have someone next to me running different people in an out every week as part of AirBnB. If you want to do that you should have to be zoned "commercial", thanks. Then, we'll get to discuss this at the next council meeting when you ask for a zoning exemption. If it's your hunting lodge, probably nobody is going to object. If it's right next to the elementary school, people are probably going to complain. etc.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#34
post #12

I Have Read this Medium Post. The author makes a great case against Prop F, prop F seems like a totally shitty law and isn't going to fix the housing problem. It sounds like that isn't what the law is about anyway, but there is a great way to fix the housing problem. The argument he seems to allude to in his notes, is that people seem to choose sides based on their sentiment surrounding the current resedential/housin…

Of course, California also interferes with the market to discourage selling real estate. Proposition 13 disconnected property tax rates from the value of the property (by capping the increase in assessed value at 2% per year, far below the increase in actual market value). Which created a massive incentive to hold real estate as long as possible without selling, since the only time the tax rate can reset to being bas…

This is true but in most cases it doesn't matter because your next best alternative is not changed. If you have owned a home for 10 years and want to buy a new home in another area, you will still want to sell your home. If you just moved to CA and want to own a home, you will still want to buy despite prop 13.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#35
post #11
post #7

Wow: This is where it’s clear the authors overreached and created a toxic spill waiting to happen. If the City finds you did indeed host someone or assisted someone else as such, even for one night, then the City can take action against you. But then it gets absolutely bonkers. If you didn’t host anyone, or it was just your Aunt Rose visiting for the weekend, then your cranky neighbor can still sue you anyway, and th…

It's a bit overblown. Civil lawsuits cost money to prosecute, so they're unlikely to be pursued unless there's a good chance of winning.

You don't have to have a good chance of winning to make money - most civil lawsuits are settled out of court.

You can be guaranteed that that there will be lawyers taking up cases (possibly on contingency) for the most frivolous of claims and offering to settle for a few grand (much less than it would cost to defend the case).

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#36
The Sharebetter campaign website mentioned is totally biased, it's true, and it does seem likely that hotel interests are in no small part behind Yes on F. And I have no doubt F contains (perhaps really bad!) flaws.

But this Medium post is also rife with misleading statements and hyperbole, and therefore hypocritical in light of the author's "here's the facts" tone (not a huge surprise since the author earns income from Airbnb, but still annoying):

> (Imagine if we were living under the “MySpace Law” of 2006, eh?)

Hyperbole and strawman; who is calling it the "Airbnb Law"?

> to assist anyone to offer (emphasized twice) > What does “assist” mean? Cleaning a house before guests arrive? Proofreading someone’s listing? Helping a family member find temporary housing? Nobody knows because it’s undefined in the text, even in the lengthy Definitions section. The judge will decide what it means.

Clearly this is referring to the marketplaces and holding them accountable. If I can figure that out, any judge can.

> But wait, there’s more! How do you feel about criminal penalties? ... Six months? (in jail)

The author is a "long-time SF resident" and pretending that an SF judge would want to jail somebody over renting out on Airbnb illegally?

> If you host someone in a room in your home for less than 30 days, you best not miss a quarterly report of dates and durations. You’ll be violating the new law.

If it's a paid rental. That's the whole point of the law! In order to regulate the short-term rentals, the city needs you to report your rentals. And remember, up until this year it was completely illegal to rent for less than 30 days.

> Why are in-laws banned, even for one night per year? Nobody knows.

The reason Prop F bans in-laws that they are a hot-button issue, generally speaking, to do with the legality of the construction of the units and the connection thereof with new rent-controlled housing units (IE the city may be willing to bless your unpermitted in-law, if you rent it out under rent control).

ps. did anybody else get "Aw snap!" opening the post in Chrome?

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#37
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you say you are anti-airbnb? Just curious if it's their business practices, renters themselves, or what. I've only had positive experiences with airbnb.

This is a (slightly updated) repost of an earlier response of mine on this topic. Everyone has an opinion about airbnb. Here's my big worry. San Francisco's population of children has plummeted in my lifetime (I grew up in SF in the 70s). In this time, I think it has gone from about 22% to a current rate of 14% or so. I guess it's just important to me that SF continue to be a place people are from, rather than a plac…

I'm curious what you think of all the young people who move into the city after college and become roommates with one another. I've lived with people who make $50,000 per year, and with people who make 2 or 3 times that much. Because studios and one-bedrooms have become so expensive, we've started renting spaces with anywhere from 2 to 6 bedrooms. Having 6 adults who can afford to collectively pay $9000+ a month bidding against you has got to be almost as much fun as bidding against someone who's going to Airbnb the extra rooms, but at the end of the day, we all need somewhere to live.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#38
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why a strangely sound election strategy is to just vote no on every proposition. Most of them have heavy corporate sponsorship and are written to deceive the public.

I don't know why this guy is being downvoted. I've heard the exact same thing from many friends of mine who have or still do live in SF: just vote no on all of them, and force the city to do it's job by legislating the usual way.

Downvotes on HN are... strange and capricious. Things that are downvoted for no apparent reason do tend to get voted back up, though.

(I wish there was a meta.n.y.c where we could discuss things like this. Alas.)

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#39
post #36

The Sharebetter campaign website mentioned is totally biased, it's true, and it does seem likely that hotel interests are in no small part behind Yes on F. And I have no doubt F contains (perhaps really bad!) flaws. But this Medium post is also rife with misleading statements and hyperbole, and therefore hypocritical in light of the author's "here's the facts" tone (not a huge surprise since the author earns income f…

> The author is a "long-time SF resident" and pretending that an SF judge would want to jail somebody over renting out on Airbnb illegally?

It seems like giving judges that power because "they obviously won't use it" has gotten us into a lot of trouble in the past.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#40
post #39
post #36

The Sharebetter campaign website mentioned is totally biased, it's true, and it does seem likely that hotel interests are in no small part behind Yes on F. And I have no doubt F contains (perhaps really bad!) flaws. But this Medium post is also rife with misleading statements and hyperbole, and therefore hypocritical in light of the author's "here's the facts" tone (not a huge surprise since the author earns income f…

> The author is a "long-time SF resident" and pretending that an SF judge would want to jail somebody over renting out on Airbnb illegally? It seems like giving judges that power because "they obviously won't use it" has gotten us into a lot of trouble in the past.

For sure. My point is the author's hyperbole doesn't elevate the conversation, but rather the opposite.
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