Condomania
The Board of Supes' land-use committee will consider a proposal to exempt a large group of TIC owners from the condo conversion lottery, and Rachel Gordon (who's normally pretty coherent) has written a surprisingly terrible article about it:
(to be fair, that's probably a copy-editing error, and should not be laid at Rachel's feet)
Amusingly, the yoga teacher cited above has become something of a poster child for the Poor Oppressed TIC Owner Movement. She was the star of Carol Lloyd's altogether better Surreal Estate article on the issue. Presumably, she is the public face of the TIC movement because she is a rare TIC owner whose unit was not the result of a speculation-fueled Ellis act cleansing of her building. At least not according to her public story. I leave it to the Tenants Unit and others to verify the benevolence of her tale. It's important to realize though, that even Ms. Kuehner, the poster child for the legislation, is crying not for a house, but for financial gain.
If the Dufty legislation passes, Kuehner will have a valuable home. If the legislation fails, she will have a slightly-less-valuable home. On the other hand, if the legislation passes, the expectation that this "one time offer" will come again will encourage speculative evictions and, ironically, raise the price of TICs.
The Tenants Union has a fact sheet on the issue, an expanded version of which is posted at Beyond Chron.
The mayor held a news conference in his office Tuesday that showcased a handful of people who would benefit from the plan. There wasn't a corporate CEO in sight. And that was intentional. Instead, there was a yoga teacher, a social worker and an actress.Ah, the shadowy Tenants Unit...
The yoga teacher, Sabine Kuehner, who owns a TIC in the Duboce Triangle area, has entered the condo-conversion lottery seven times, losing every time. She's trying again this year. While she's happy to no longer to be renting, she wants the financial security a condo could bring. "This is my retirement," she said.
The legislation is opposed by the Tenants Unit, which posted a fact sheet on its Web site that described the plan as an effort to change "the demographics of San Francisco to make it a city of wealthy and conservative homeowners."
(to be fair, that's probably a copy-editing error, and should not be laid at Rachel's feet)
Amusingly, the yoga teacher cited above has become something of a poster child for the Poor Oppressed TIC Owner Movement. She was the star of Carol Lloyd's altogether better Surreal Estate article on the issue. Presumably, she is the public face of the TIC movement because she is a rare TIC owner whose unit was not the result of a speculation-fueled Ellis act cleansing of her building. At least not according to her public story. I leave it to the Tenants Unit and others to verify the benevolence of her tale. It's important to realize though, that even Ms. Kuehner, the poster child for the legislation, is crying not for a house, but for financial gain.
If the Dufty legislation passes, Kuehner will have a valuable home. If the legislation fails, she will have a slightly-less-valuable home. On the other hand, if the legislation passes, the expectation that this "one time offer" will come again will encourage speculative evictions and, ironically, raise the price of TICs.
The Tenants Union has a fact sheet on the issue, an expanded version of which is posted at Beyond Chron.
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