From the President
by Eric Andresen
Can you believe another year is drawing to a close with 2004 almost behind us? What a year—one of the best years of the last decade for property owners. San Francisco property owners have won several local and statewide fights and have had a significant impact on many, many housing issues.
Perhaps our most successful local victory can be seen in our defeat of the tenant community’s attempt to change the makeup of the San Francisco Rent Board. With Ted Gullickson and Randy Shaw leading the charge, the proposal to change the makeup of the board to reflect the percentage of tenants to owners in the city would have dramatically, if not fatally, changed the rental housing industry in San Francisco. Fortunately, a large majority of the members of the Board of Supervisors saw this measure for what it was and killed it before it landed on the mayor’s desk.
Of course, we will take victories wherever we can win them, since they are few and far between. Our defeat of Supervisor Chris Daly’s Demolition Ordinance is just such an example. The Superior Court threw out the measure, because the signature-gathering petition to place it on the ballot lacked some required disclosure language. Although tenant groups are promising to bring the measure back and force an incredibly expensive special election, we did defeat it for the time being.
The Gonzalez Amendments to the Rent Ordinance reared its ugly head again this year, too. Thanks, however, to the common sense of Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Jake McGoldrick, the proposal was again set aside—this time in order to review the legal ramifications and the potential expense of defending a promised landlord-sponsored lawsuit. We have made it clear that we will sue any measure that has not been carefully and thoroughly reviewed or that even remotely infringes on ownership rights. Our message appears to have finally gotten through.
We can count numerous successes at the state level that have led to tremendous results, too. Earlier this year—seems a long time ago now—Assemblyman Joe Nation attempted to force us into creating nonsmoking units in our buildings. We stopped that pretty quickly. We also halted an attempt to amend the Costa-Hawkins Act. Then we headed off legislation that would have placed properties on a near-permanent blacklist had there been evidence of a methamphetamine lab operating on-site. We also succeeded in defeating a bill that would have made it illegal for us to update personal information about our tenants.
Time and again, the California Apartment Association’s (CAA) conscientious efforts assured many successes, including the sunset of the 60-Day Eviction Notice Law in January 2006. We also secured significant, pro-landlord amendments to the Sue Your Boss Law before it was passed on to the governor. CAA has dramatically elevated its status as a lobbying organization through its active participation in several business coalitions, including playing a leading role in the Stop Shakedown Lawsuits Proposition on the November ballot. All in all, CAA has had a tremendous year—we were successful in defeating every single piece of legislation we targeted. We are now poised to take advantage of our new status in the years to come.
All of us should be extremely proud of our efforts and successes this past year. We have waited a long time to see the pendulum swing in our direction again. With your continued efforts and support, we can say we have only just begun. Our future is looking better now than it has for many, many years. Congratulations SFAA and CAA. Keep up the good work!
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of SFAA or the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. Eric Andresen is the current president of SFAA, the vice president of CAA, a past president of PPMA and the original author of the PPMA Residential Tenancy Agreement. Eric owns and operates both West Coast Property Management and West Coast Property Maintenance Companies. He can be reached at eric@wcpm.com. Copyright © 2004 by the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.