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I Have Read Prop F

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Re: I Have Read Prop F

#141

Post by platinum1 »

luckydata wrote: post #54
Mz wrote: 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 would be incredibly bad if it was true, but it's not. The willingness to believe EVERYTHING a tech company shill will publish online by this community speaks very poorly of its character and intelligence.

It's right there in the proposed sec.41A.5(f)

If no violation has occurred and the complaint was dismissed, the "Interested Party" may sue, and if prevailing "shall be entitled to an award of actual damages, attorneys fees and costs and special damages of not less than $250 and not more than $1,000 per violation per day."

What part isn't true?

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#142

Post by smsm42 »

gkop wrote: post #133
owlmonkey wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow your train of thought on in-laws. Because they're small, they're unlikely to serve for 'hosted' rentals and more likely to be only short term rentable up to 90 days. e.g. when the existing renter in the in-law goes on vacation. So why does this proposition want to ban that use case entirely instead of just restrict it to 75 days?

There is recent legislation enabling the legalization of unpermitted in-laws and creation of new in-laws. Therefore short-term in-law rentals are disallowed by Prop F, idea being the new in-laws are hoped to contribute to regular (mostly rent-controlled I believe) housing. See http://hoodline.com/2015/09/supervisors-approve-in-law-legis... .

In-laws and regular rental apartments are quite different things, so if they hope that this would make a difference in the market I think they would be disappointed. If somebody has unused space that is not being rented or occupied already then converting it to a rentable unit would be a considerable expense, especially if one has to be ADA-compliant, etc. I doubt that a lot of people would go to that expense only to rent out the units well under market prices (otherwise, there's no point in rent-controlling them).

> idea being the new in-laws are hoped to contribute to regular (mostly rent-controlled I believe)

No, the idea is to increase specifically rent-controlled stock, with the preference of no new rental space at all over new rental space that is not rent-controlled. At least this is how it looks from the proposals.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#143

Post by gkop »

smsm42 wrote: post #142
gkop wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is recent legislation enabling the legalization of unpermitted in-laws and creation of new in-laws. Therefore short-term in-law rentals are disallowed by Prop F, idea being the new in-laws are hoped to contribute to regular (mostly rent-controlled I believe) housing. See http://hoodline.com/2015/09/supervisors-approve-in-law-legis... .

In-laws and regular rental apartments are quite different things, so if they hope that this would make a difference in the market I think they would be disappointed. If somebody has unused space that is not being rented or occupied already then converting it to a rentable unit would be a considerable expense, especially if one has to be ADA-compliant, etc. I doubt that a lot of people would go to that expense only to…

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. I don't support rent control either, but I suspect there is still money to be made building rent control in-laws in these boom times - and perhaps even more money to be made putting in-laws on Airbnb. Also re: ADA the point that the new in-laws are generally on the ground floor seems to me a plausible reason why ADA-compliance may be easier than otherwise.

I agree that's how it looks from proposals, I think you have articulated the politics in a helpful way.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#144

Post by [deleted] »

smsm42 wrote: post #140
gkop wrote: 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…

> who is calling it the "Airbnb Law"? I think a lot of people do, not only in SF. Same for Uber laws, etc. Of course, they don't call it exactly that, but the intent is clear. > Clearly this is referring to Judging laws by "clearly this is referring to" is rather risky proposition, unless you are one of the nine people who have the power to actually decide such questions (aka The Supreme Court). Because otherwise you…

[deleted]

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#145

Post by gkop »

smsm42 wrote: post #140
gkop wrote: 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…

> who is calling it the "Airbnb Law"? I think a lot of people do, not only in SF. Same for Uber laws, etc. Of course, they don't call it exactly that, but the intent is clear. > Clearly this is referring to Judging laws by "clearly this is referring to" is rather risky proposition, unless you are one of the nine people who have the power to actually decide such questions (aka The Supreme Court). Because otherwise you…

Thanks for the response! Your points are reasonable - in fact I fully agree with several - but I am afraid you misunderstood my meaning.

I am not arguing for or against the proposition - I just don't think the OP is a quality article around which to have this debate. It's a political scare piece.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#146

Post by steven2012 »

ubernostrum wrote: post #25
on_ wrote: 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 of course patently false, since the real estate market in CA has gone through the roof, and cities are flush with new property tax money at sky high valuations.

The house we bought was last bought at $150k, and we bought it for 10x this amount. The amount of turnover in real estate in our city in the Bay Area has reached a fevered pitch, so the cities are actually benefiting from more tax revenues.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#147

Post by steven2012 »

skuhn wrote: post #134
aidenn0 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you proposing abolishing property tax? Because nowhere in ubernostrom's post did he talk about city revenues, just about the perverse incentives to land-owners by Prop 13, and those will exist unless property tax is eliminated.

I didn't respond directly to ubernostrom, and my comment doesn't discuss whether prop 13 creates a perverse incentive for landowners in any respect (although: it does). I'm saying that if you tie your revenue stream (i.e. taxes) to something that is essentially fixed at 1970's levels, but you have to buy things with it in 2015 money, you are going to not have a good time. You can still keep property tax as part of yo…

Nothing is fixed to 1970s levels. Property taxes get reassessed when there's a sale on the property. How many properties in CA have not changed hands since 1970, ie more than 40 years? Probably none, since that's almost 2 generations of families.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#148

Post by steven2012 »

skuhn wrote: post #122
toast0 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to be a landlord in SF? Even if its not rent controlled, a bad tenant is going to be a nightmare to get rid of.

I'm sure that it isn't all smelling roses and cashing checks, but rental property in San Francisco is literally a license to print money for many landlords. Simply by virtue of having owned the property for several decades, you stand to make a significant amount of money from tenants. Consider someone who has owned a property since the 80's. This person might have paid $600,000 for something valued at double that amo…

Someone who owns a house from the 1980s, of which is likely very rare, is getting pretty close to retirement age, and would probably rather sell the house and move away than rent it out. And there will be a very willing buyer waiting to buy it, regardless of the property tax.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#149

Post by steven2012 »

rl3 wrote: post #111

Serious question: has subterranean housing ever been considered for SF? If you can't build out or up, may as well build under. Feasibility aside, the only problem I see is it'd create a literal underclass—as opposed to the proverbial one that exists now as a result of absurd rent prices.

It's either bedrock you'd have to drill through, or sand. I don't think it's a good place to have underground dwelling.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#150

Post by smsm42 »

gkop wrote: post #145
smsm42 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who is calling it the "Airbnb Law"? I think a lot of people do, not only in SF. Same for Uber laws, etc. Of course, they don't call it exactly that, but the intent is clear. > Clearly this is referring to Judging laws by "clearly this is referring to" is rather risky proposition, unless you are one of the nine people who have the power to actually decide such questions (aka The Supreme Court). Because otherwise you…

Thanks for the response! Your points are reasonable - in fact I fully agree with several - but I am afraid you misunderstood my meaning. I am not arguing for or against the proposition - I just don't think the OP is a quality article around which to have this debate. It's a political scare piece.

It is political, of course - which is only appropriate when discussing questions of policy. I disagree with it being "scare piece" - it describes a bad proposal, and it is appropriate to emphasize the potential dangers and problems, and the claims in the article I personally consider reasonably founded.

For example, private right to action is very scary - it generates immense amount of abuse for such things as ADA and Prop 65, most of which only reallocates money from businesses to slimy lawyers while contributing exactly nothing to the welfare of the intended beneficiaries. And to add one-way attorney fees shifting to that? This moves it from the "bad idea" territory to "these guys are completely insane, everybody, turn and run!" territory. This is practically begging for the law to be abused. I think with such starting point one has to work very hard to write a piece that would be scary enough.

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