Commemorate Historic Buildings
Do you own property in the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District? If so, commemorate your building’s historic status and improve the neighborhood with a historic building plaque.
Now that the Uptown Historic District is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the community is working to make the neighborhood more attractive and visually interesting for both residents and visitors. To this end, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic is trying to get historic plaques on as many buildings as possible, so that people walking through the community will appreciate its history. The clinic is offering an exciting incentive to Uptown Tenderloin historic building owners: it will manage the entire historic plaque project for you. Owners just need to pay for each individual solid bronze building plaque at the cost of $259.50 per plaque, which is a bulk discounted rate, and approve the text on their plaques.
The THC will handle all of the following logistics for you: coordinating with San Francisco City Planning Department officials to ensure that historic preservation requirements are fulfilled; helping to determine plaque location with preapproval from city officials to ensure that historic preservation requirements are fulfilled; creating a mock-up plaque design with your building’s text, with recommended plaque location on the building façade, presented to each owner for review and sign-off; handling all logistics with the plaque vendor; and, finally, coordinating delivery and installation of the building plaque.
This exciting project celebrates the remarkable architectural history of the Uptown Tenderloin, potentially raises property values and builds a positive neighborhood identity. If you are interested in participating, please contact Project Manager Sarah Wilson via email at sarahw@thclinic.org or phone Executive Director Randy Shaw at 415-771-9850. If you are unclear as to whether or not your building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places (nearly all older buildings are listed), please contact Wilson and she can confirm your building’s historic status.
Checks should be made payable to Uptown Tenderloin, Inc. in the amount of $259.50 per plaque. Orders need to be received soon to secure the bulk discounted rate. Mail checks to: Sarah Wilson, Uptown Tenderloin, Inc., 126 Hyde St., San Francisco, CA 94102.
This plaque project is funded by the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development, and has the support of the North of Market Community Benefits District and other neighborhood groups.
Avalos Legislation Vetoed
Legislation, sponsored by Supervisor John Avalos, extending just-cause evictions to post-1979 buildings was recently passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Luckily, Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed the legislation, and Avalos does not have enough votes for an override. If the Avalos measure had passed, the eviction restrictions that pre-1979 construction is subjected to would be extended to newer buildings, which were largely built for homeownership. Many homeowners rented out these units under the belief that they could always get their homes back in a timely and inexpensive manner when they needed them. However, had the Avalos legislation passed, homeowners who want to move back into their units could have suddenly found themselves in a challenging situation that could have taken months of time and thousands of dollars to resolve.
Legislative Challenge To Costa-Hawkins Anticipated
Local governments have announced they will look to the California Legislature to make clear that the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act does not preempt their local inclusionary housing programs. Their actions come on the heels of the California Supreme Court’s quick decision to deny review of Palmer v. City of Los Angeles, a case that addressed the validity of a Los Angeles ordinance that imposes affordability requirements on residential and mixed-use projects of more than 10 dwelling units per lot in an area known as Central City West. The plaintiff—Geoffrey Palmer—sought to build a mixed-use development in Central City West and sued to prevent the city from applying the ordinance.
Over 150 jurisdictions in California, including San Francisco, have some form of inclusionary zoning law. Local governments and tenant advocates see the Palmer decision and the refusal of the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s decision as an assault on affordable housing programs. These groups have vowed to come to Sacramento to change the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act to allow inclusionary housing programs in new construction. The challenge for property rights advocates is to protect the current state of the law as it relates to inclusionary housing programs and, possibly more important, prevent any amendments to any sections of Costa-Hawkins that would dilute the current state of the law that requires vacancy decontrol and exempts new construction from any rent control laws.
CAA’s Board recently approved the establishment of a task force to provide guidance and recommendations to deal with the inclusionary housing issues that were central in the Palmer case. Given the speed with which the California Supreme Court upheld the lower court decision and the actions of various cities to pass resolutions requesting that the Legislature amend Costa-Hawkins, the task force is moving forward with equal swiftness. Stay tuned to this column for further details.
Split Roll Proposals
The California Teachers Association has filed two split roll initiatives. A split roll would change Proposition 13 to tax business property differently than residential property. The first of the new proposals asks that commercial real estate be taxed and periodically reassessed at fair-market value instead of the current format established under Proposition 13 more than 30 years ago. The second calls for a more than 50% increase in commercial property taxes. Each would need to garner 700,000 signatures by next spring in order to be included on the November 2010 ballot. Both of the CTA’s measures have political “sweeteners” thrown in, like doubling the homeowners property tax exemption, doubling the renters tax exemption, and increasing the types of agricultural properties that are not subject to the commercial assessment.
If any of the initiatives do make it to the ballot, they may not have the support needed to pass. A recent poll conducted by the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles Times found that just 30% of respondents would support changes to Prop. 13, even if those changes only applied to commercial properties.
Those poll results are good news for Rental Housing Against Higher Taxes, an anti-tax project launched to battle the various proposals to tax the apartment and rental housing industry. The new project is a coalition of rental property owners, managers, and residents throughout California who oppose unreasonable and ill-conceived higher taxes.
Although this is the beginning of the official process, the coalition is already taking actions to prepare for the battle, such as meeting with those responsible for writing the ballot analysis, analyzing the economics of the measures, formulating an opposition campaign and fundraising. The coalition believes these split roll measures seek ways to allow California state government to continue spending taxpayer dollars without addressing issues of overspending.
New Legal Rights for Evictees
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed into law a bill that gives low-income people fighting eviction greater access to legal counsel. The program is the first in the nation to recognize a right to representation in certain civil cases (public defenders are already provided for criminal cases) and provide it for people fighting eviction, loss of child custody, domestic abuse or neglect of the elderly or disabled. The pilot project, which won bipartisan endorsement in the State Assembly, will be financed by a $10 increase in court fees for prevailing parties. Despite the funding, some analysts worry that the program could swell state court dockets and eat up resources better spent on other needs of the poor.
Groups receiving the money will be chosen by the Judicial Council, and the pilot program will be reevaluated to determine whether it should be continued beyond its 2017 funding guarantee. An estimated 4 million people seek to represent themselves in California in civil matters each year, the state Judicial Council estimates, not because they want to but because they can’t afford to hire a lawyer.