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By Dan Wilson and Emily Landes

Editor’s Note: SFAA’s long and varied history is relayed in two parts. The first part, covering the organization’s inception and ending at the start of rent control in San Francisco, was published in the January 2008 issue of this magazine. The second part, which covers the ballot battles of the 1980s and 90s and the organization’s recent past, begins below.

Since 1917, a group of rental property owners has led the fight in San Francisco to protect and defend owners’ rights. This is their story.

Ballot Battles
In 1986, voters ousted three anti-business California Supreme Court members: Rose Bird, Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin. This was good news to rental housing providers, who had been victimized by the court’s anti-business tone. But the first-place finish of San Francisco Supervisor Nancy Walker was viewed as detrimental to housing interests. Ultra-liberal activists announced plans for a comeback in district elections. In November, Art Agnos became mayor. In a warning to downtown interests, he said, “I’m not your friend.”

In 1988, Joe Bravo was elected president of SFAA and brought a new era of leadership to the organization. In September, President Bravo called a special meeting of the Board of Directors to discuss the future of the organization. The association decided to participate in the fight to defeat vacancy control at the polls.

In 1989, Phil Lee was hired as an interim executive director charged with modernizing the association’s office and procedures. Later in 1989, association members filled the supervisors’ chambers at City Hall as vacancy control was debated. Mayor Agnos failed to pull together enough votes to pass the legislation and it failed.

In 1991, the association hired former San Francisco Rent Board Commissioner and veteran organizer Ralph Payne as its executive director. The association led the fight to defeat vacancy control after the Board of Supervisors and the mayor ignored the will of the people and smugly imposed the controls amidst election-year politicking. In 30 days, double the required number of signatures was handed in to City Hall, triggering the Proposition M referendum. In April, SF Apartment Magazine Editor Matthew Sheridan was brought on board to help with the campaign. Association members raised money, walked precincts and made phone calls for five months. In November 1991, voters overturned vacancy control by a comfortable margin.

After winning the vacancy control battle, the association turned its energy towards the mayor’s race. The association was angry with Agnos’s inaccessibility
and his support of vacancy control. The Political Action Committee enthusiastically backed former Police Chief Frank Jordan, who was not only more accessible than
Agnos, but understood the concerns of property owners.

In one of the low points of the campaign, Agnos accused Jordan’s supporters of being racists and homophobes. The scare tactic backfired and Agnos suffered a humiliating defeat. The association hosted a victory celebration at the Fairmont Hotel. The new mayor-elect was the guest of honor at his first public appearance
after the election.

But it wasn’t all good news at the polls. In 1992, Proposition H was placed on the November ballot by tenant activists. This legislation called for the removal of the floor for annual allowable rent increases (formerly at 4%-7%). Although bitterly fought by the association, the proposition passed and in the coming years contributed substantially to the detrimental effects of long-term rent control.

In March 1993, the Board of Directors chose Janan New as SFAA’s new executive director. With a background in real estate, banking and politics, she brought a
fresh outlook to the association. When she came on board, membership in SFAA was at the 1,200 level.

In August 1993, Mayor Jordan appointed SFAA members Merrie Turner Lightner and Katherine Nash to serve as Rent Board commissioners. The fall election of that year saw the defeat of Propositions A and B. Opposed by the association, these bond measures had become the battleground for its demand that they contain passthrough provisions allowing all citizens, including tenants, to help shoulder the financial burden of civic improvements.

After six years in office as president, Joe Bravo stepped down and Tim Carrico was voted in as president at the December general membership meeting. With over 20 years of property management and real-estate experience, Carrico, a popular figure at City Hall and within the real-estate community, added a refreshing change to the leadership of the association.

In January of the following year, the association again found itself fighting some new legislation from City Hall. This time it was over owner move-in legislation. It was defeated in March 1994, when it was discovered that the tenant who had inspired the legislation had a higher net worth than the building owner.

In what seemed like strange bedfellows, the association combined forces with tenant groups to circulate a petition for a ballot measure to place the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection under a citizen commission. The movement quickly gathered enough signatures to qualify it for the November ballot and was eventually passed by the voters.

In May 1994, legislation to change the interest on security deposits was shockingly defeated by the Board of Supervisors. The proposal simply called for interest payments to be based on the bank’s passbook rate instead of the over-inflated 5%.

In November, after a fierce campaign, voters narrowly passed Proposition I, placing 2-4-unit owner-occupied buildings under the San Francisco Rent Ordinance. Stunned owners quickly realized their loss and started to organize a possible response. In the coming months, the membership at the association ballooned, reaching 1,500. The association quickly sponsored a class on the ins and outs of rent control for Prop. I owners.

In December, Merrie Turner Lightner, an experienced attorney and property manager, was elected president of the association. She brought to the presidency a wealth of knowledge from her management of the Lightner Property Group and her ongoing work as a Rent Board commissioner.

In August of 1995, the CAA successfully fought for the passage of the Costa-Hawkins bill. It mandated the gradual phasing out of certain rent control restrictions for single-family homes and condominiums, and phased out vacancy control in rent controlled communities.

Also in 1995, SFAA began work on a new strategic plan. One of the main goals of this plan was for the organization to offset some of its costs by getting grants from the city. In November, it qualified for its first grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the City and County of San Francisco. The HUD grant was designed to promote awareness of the hazards of lead-based paint to landlords. The city’s grant was for a coordinated partnership with tenant organizations known as the Code Enforcement Outreach Program, which is still going strong today.

That same month, Willie Brown was elected mayor of San Francisco. He reappointed Lightner to the Rent Board Commission and appointed SFAA Board Member and future President Neveo Mosser to it as well.

In April 1996,  a campaign committee was formed by owners, including many SFAA members, to reverse the effects of Proposition I at the ballot box. By June, owner move-in legislation resurfaced at the Board of Supervisors. An angry reaction from property owners throughout San Francisco followed, and by September the legislation died. Membership reached 1,800 by January 1997. During March, a coalition of owners began to circulate petitions
to qualify a ballot measure for the reversal of Proposition I.

During the summer and fall of 1997, rental property owners were faced with new measures limiting their rights by the Board of Supervisors. In August, legislation surfaced that prohibited apartment units from being rented to businesses or their employees and clients. By November 1997, SFAA reached a milestone of over 2,000 members. Unfortunately, even at these new heights, the organization could not get enough support to overturn Prop. I.

Today’s Successes and Challenges
The legacies of these ballot measures, particularly Prop. I, continue today, according to Executive Director New. She believes the entire political environment in the city would be different today if those small buildings had not come under the rent ordinance. “Before Prop. I, things were a lot friendlier and amicable between landlords and tenants,” she contends. Since Prop. I passed, New says she can’t even remember all the battles the organization has fought over who controls the right to occupy units in small buildings. “Anything you can possibly imagine got thrown in the mix,” she recalls, listing owner move-ins, relative move-ins, use of the Ellis Act, condo conversions and relocation fees as just a few examples. “It was a continual chess game around the 1-6-unit buildings.” These battles continue in some form to this day, with the organization taking an almost-constant defensive position against ballot measures and ordinances from the Board of Supervisors.

That’s why one of the organization’s goals has been to work toward taking a less entrenched position, says New, and offer its members some kind of compromise rather than a winner-take-all position. “These negotiations aren’t always quick and painless; in fact, they’re long, drawn out and painful, but we believe we’re at least bringing something back to our members,” she says. She adds that sometimes the organization’s biggest victories are the legislation that the members never see because the organization is able to quash it before it reaches the public.

Current President David Wasserman supports the SFAA’s newly amenable position; he believes it’s more effective to compromise, even if it means hearing complaints from some of the members about the abandonment of the organization’s formerly hard-line tactics. “In reality, this organization is successful because we know how to be political, which demands compromise,” he argues. “Our members need to know that if we automatically take a hard line, we lose respect and the ability to deliver on important issues.”

Continued member support is important because the organization’s leaders can only do so much without the backing of its membership. New believes many members are burned out, not only by the battles of the past, but by the constant onslaught of changes that have made the Rent Ordinance so complicated it seems like an almost Sisyphean task to take on. She says she has neither the financial resources nor the interest from members that she used to have when she first came on board.

Former President Marc Wilson believes that one reason for the burnout is that things have been relatively easy for owners in the last five years; he points to increasing rents and building prices and decreasing interest rates as a few examples. With that kind of exciting economic environment and a continuously more difficult political environment, he thinks many owners have a “why bother” attitude about local politics.

But New and others are hoping that the city is ready for a change and this year promises to be an exciting one, with elections in February, June and November. In June, SFAA will be supporting the Jarvis Taxpayers initiative, which, if passed, would begin the phase out of rent control throughout the state. In November, all the supervisors in the odd-numbered districts are up for reelection; New has hope that the election will bring some balance to the board.

Whatever the future may hold for SFAA, it is an organization that has always looked to and learned from its past. Fighting for the rights of property owners—whether they be Chinese San Franciscans fighting for the right to own property or small building owners fighting for the right to occupy their homes—has always been the organization’s focus. “It’s unbelievable that the association has been around for so long,” says former SFAA President Eric Andresen. “But, then again, rental housing has and always will be an integral part of San Francisco.”

 

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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of SFAA or SF Apartment Magazine. Emily Landes is the managing editor of SF Apartment Magazine and Rental Housing. Copyright © 2008 by SF Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.