San Francisco’s mayoral race has become charged in a very Bay Area way in an epic battle between progressives and moderates. This New Yorker article says the fractious contest will define the future of the left and will serve as a litmus test for the way it is thinking as a collective.
No matter what your ideology may be, whoever inherits the final 18 months of the late Mayor Ed Lee’s second term will have to tackle housing issues and shape policies that are consequential to rental property owners in a strong-Mayor town.
We wanted to put a pulse on where our industry partners stand, and the report card is in. The San Francisco Association of Realtors, Small Property Owners of SF and the San Francisco Apartment Association all endorse lifetime renter and moderate Board of Supervisors President London Breed. Breed is both pro-tenant and pro-developer who believes the affordability crisis is driven primarily by a lack of housing supply.
“The housing crisis has grown visibly worse recently, but it is — at its core — the result of decades of bad housing policy in San Francisco and the Bay Area.” ~ London Breed
This sentiment and balanced approach seems to resonate well with owner advocacy groups, who are also in agreement in opposing Mark Leno or Jane Kim. Predictably, all are in unison by opposing Proposition F, dubbed the “No eviction without representation Act of 2018,” which would establish a City-run and funded program to provide free legal representation for all tenants in the city who are facing eviction, regardless of the underlying cause.
Sitting Superior Court Judges Andrew Y.S. Cheng, Curtis E.A. Karnow, Cynthia Ming-mei Lee, and Jeffrey S. Ross are viewed to be more moderate than the progressive candidates vying for the bench and so anyone tethered to the rental housing industry may be advised to leave all enough alone.
We’ve noted before that the fraternity of rental property owners and the professionals who service them can band together to defeat repeal efforts of the Costa-Hawkins Rental Act, and in the same spirit, urge you to get out to the polls on Tuesday to assert your voice.
Even as we continue to keep an eye on the big picture and follow legislative/regulatory changes and the influencers that shape policy, you can count on Bornstein Law to handle the more mundane legal issues and landlord-tenant disputes that arise in your rental business. Contact us for informed advice.
