lily's diary
Staterooms on a Sinking Ship
by Lily
November 28
My Republican friend, Harry, is still licking his wounds over the November election, when the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s left-wing slate won nearly every supervisor race, and most of the propositions. But Harry is a glass-half-full kind of guy, and he sent me an email reminding me that, at least, San Francisco voters didn’t give the nod to a George W. Bush Water Treatment Plant, or decriminalizing prostitution or the city’s takeover of PG&E. He also got some comfort from the success of the measure to support Junior ROTC in high school and the victory of two relatively nonideologue women on the school board (Rachel Norton and Jill Wynns).
All in all, however, it was a sad day for moderates—especially the property-owning kind. The easy passage of the “tenant harassment” measure made it clear that the city’s tenant advocates won’t be satisfied until we are all pushed to our limits. Don’t they understand that every measure punishing building owners is more motivation for condo or TIC conversion?
December 3
My pal Maggie and I always disagree over the role ex-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan played in our economic downturn. I’ve always liked the little guy so I give him the benefit of the doubt and blame the current mess on the excessive enthusiasm of Fannie and Freddie to secure all those loans to people who couldn’t afford them. Recently, however, I had to eat humble pie. There on page one of my breakfast newspaper was Greenspan saying that, yes, he had trusted the self-correcting power of the free market far too much. Before I had finished my coffee, Maggie had called to rub it in. Still, the idea of institutions issuing mortgages with only stated income makes me mad, and I balk at bailing them out. But no matter who or what is to blame, we can’t just let everything sink, especially when we find we have booked staterooms on the same ship.
December 14
The tenant in Apartment #1 has guns. Yes, Phil has been a member of the Pacific Rod and Gun Club for as long as he’s been with me, and that’s a lot of years. Now that he’s retired, he goes out to Lake Merced twice a week to shoot skeet. The neighbors across the street from the club would like to see it go (even though it was there a long time before they were). To make matters worse—for the neighbors, that is—the SFPD shooting range is next door to the gun club. That’s a lot of bang, bang.
On top of that, the PUC, which took over management of Lake Merced earlier this year, has drafted a master plan for the area. In it, you will find no place for the venerable club. In fact, the old clubhouse, built in the 1930s, is now designated for “ecological protection and restoration.” Having been out there for various events, I’d say that some of its members could use a little protection and restoration, too. The PUC plan has backing from all the big players in the public parks’ game: The Neighborhood Parks Council, SF Beautiful, Nature in the City, Audubon and the Sierra Club. It appears that the deck is loaded (no pun intended) against the riflemen. Ah, San Francisco, city of diversity and tolerance—so long as it doesn’t involve ROTC or guns.
December 22
Do you charge your tenants their portion of the city’s annual Rent Board fee? This year it is $29 per unit, which means each tenant can be billed one-half or $14.50. I don’t do it. It’s not that I’m so big hearted but, rather, that I don’t want to encourage my tenants to utilize a service they’re paying for. (“Hmm, look at this extra charge on my rent. I wonder what I get for that?”) I want my tenants to stay as far away from the Rent Board as possible. The mischief potential of a prickly tenant armed with 60 pages of city rules and regulations keeps me treating them like, well, prospective in-laws.
December 29
Landlords have been demonized so much that some tenants simply won’t cut you any slack. My neighbor, Lola, who has two flats further up the block, said she received a letter last week from a tenant legal association saying that she was engaging in an illegal criminal act by deliberately depriving tenants of hot water. Seems the pilot light blew out and, rather than calling Lola, the tenants assumed the worst (or smelled the opportunity for a possible rent decrease) and fled to seek legal remedy. Fortunately, PG&E wrote a letter in Lola’s defense saying that it was not unusual for a pilot light to go out. Case closed.
January 5
In spite of Alan Greenspan’s professed disillusionment with the free market (see above), sometimes you just have to stop and marvel at how it actually works (when it does work). My friend manages a large building in Pinole and tells me that most of her new tenants are coming from foreclosed homes. Considering the present economic situation, if failure to pay a home loan is the only default on a prospective tenant’s record, she is willing to look the other way. But, in spite of this new source of renters, her vacancy rate has stayed the same. That’s because those very same foreclosed single-family homes are now on the market at an affordable price. The tenants with good credit can now afford to buy one of these severely discounted properties, even if that might mean living on a block with brown lawns for a while.
January 12
I have a love-hate relationship with SF Planning and Urban Research Association. I’ve been a member for many years (at $65 for a basic membership), regularly read its excellent monthly magazine and occasionally attend its noontime lectures. But deep inside I question its view of our city’s future. Director Gabriel Metcalf writes eloquently about the new urbanism, arguing that greater density (changing current zoning to build higher) provides vastly more overall energy savings than more traditional measures like recycling and low-fuel cars. But I wonder if that’s what we want for San Francisco?
I read his figures about the growing threats of suburban sprawl and long car commutes and conjure up a picture of his ideal: we all live cheek by jowl in high-rise buildings, warm and happy, while traveling everywhere on a clean, reliable public transit. Then I think of the rezoning necessary to produce this vision—increasing height limits in areas with good transit (while eliminating requirements for additional parking spaces), an express bus line down the middle of Geary Boulevard, penalties for driving a car into town—and how our present untidy, but beloved, San Francisco neighborhoods would change. Ah, but there I go, withdrawing into nostalgia and skepticism again.
January 16
About three years ago, when my friend Virginia turned 70, she decided it was time to get professional management for her four-unit building. We had lunch yesterday at Westlake Joe’s, and I asked her how it was going. “The first company I went with was a disaster,” she said. Seems they made most of their profit showing and renting empty apartments so, all of a sudden, tenants were coming and going at a disheartening rate. Every time something went wrong they deducted a full professional fee for whomever did the work, be it a plumber, carpenter or electrician. They also took, as a matter of policy, a full month to replace a tenant, so at least one month’s rent was lost with each change. In two years, Virginia’s overall profits plummeted and she changed companies. “This new management firm works harder to keep good tenants and has a handyman on staff to make small repairs,” she said. She still makes far less profit than she did when she managed the building herself, but, as she told me, “Life is not an interminable affair and, besides, I want to start cruising.”
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the SF Apartment Magazine. “Lily’s Diary” is written by a long-time rental property owner who reserves the right to remain anonymous on the grounds that her tenants might gang up on her. Comments, corrections or ideas are welcome at lilysdiary@aol.com. Copyright © 2009 by Black Point Press. All rights reserved.