SF Apartment : November 2017

THE NEWS

Change Afoot

These new laws will help cut the red tape and encourage more affordable housing, including shelter for the growing number of homeless in California,” Governor Brown said in a statement.

Senate Bill 2, by Sen. Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, adds a permanent funding source for affordable housing through a $75 fee on recorded documents, estimated to generate $250 to $300 million per year. SB 3, by Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, will add a $4 billion housing bond to the ballot for voters on the November 2018 ballot. SB 35, by Sen. Scott Winer, D-San Francisco, allows developers to bypass certain parts of the review process to move new development more quickly through the permit process. SB 166, by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, requires local governments to identify development sites for unmet housing needs for all income levels. It also restricts cities and counties from reducing zoning densities.

SB 167, by Skinner, Assembly Bill 678, by Assemblymember Raul Bocanegra, D-Los Angeles, and AB 1521 by Assemblymember Tom Daly, D-Anaheim, strengthens the Housing Accountability Act, making it harder for cities, counties, and communities to kill housing projects, homeless shelters, and emergency shelters.

SB 540, by Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, will streamline the approval process to spur housing construction by having cities identify where housing needs to be built and adopting specific, up-front plans and conducting all necessary environmental reviews and public engagement. Proposals must have 30% of all units sold or rented to moderate-income households, 15% sold or rented to low-income households, and 5% sold or rented to very low-income households; 10% of market-rate projects must be set aside for low-income households.

AB 72, by Assemblymembers David Chiu, D-San Francisco, and Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles, gives state housing officials authority to report violations to the attorney general if jurisdictions are violating housing plans or state law. AB
73, by Chiu, incentivizes local governments to designate “housing sustainability districts” and complete upfront zoning and environmental reviews and reward them when they permit housing on infill sites around public transportation.

AB 571, by Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, broadens California’s low-income tax credit program, which contributes to low-income housing development and farmworker housing. AB 879, by Assemblyman Tim Grayson, D-Concord, updates the state’s housing element law, seeking to reduce the time between receiving approval for housing development and pulling permits to begin construction.

AB 1505, by Assemblymember Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, allows cities and counties to designate at least 15% of market-rate housing to low- or moderate-income people. AB 1521, by Bloom and Chiu, strengthens state law that requires public notification when low-income housing protections expire.

Recology Recycling Update

Items that can now be recycled in the blue bin include plastic bags (preferably contained within a plastic bag), bubble wrap and plastic wrap (should be grouped in a plastic bag), juice boxes, milk cartons without plastic spouts, paper coffee cups and their lids, bottle caps, spray cans, clean pizza boxes (greasy ones in compost), empty and dry paint cans, and fabric and non-reusable clothing of all kinds (as long as the fabric and clothing are clean and packaged in a clear bag).

Note: milk cartons without plastic spouts and all waxy cardboard can still be composted, but Recology prefers them to be recycled.

For more information, visit sfrecycles.org. To download and print Recology guidelines for your buildings, visit sfenvironment.org.

Teacher Housing Project

The San Francisco school board voted unanimously to work with Mayor Ed Lee’s Office of Housing and Development to construct 150 units on a former school site in the Outer Sunset. The units are planned to house teachers and teacher’s aides. The project should take three to four years to complete.

Teachers would qualify for the units based on household income. The rent would be about $3,100/month for teachers for a two-bedroom apartment (less for teacher’s aides), which is approximately $1,000 less than the city average.

The goal of the project is to help the city retain its teachers. While other districts are considering similar projects—such as Alameda, Oakland and Newark—San Francisco is the first district to come this far. Due to federal law, the city can’t limit the length of or end tenancies, even if a teacher switches careers.

According to Kate Hurley, deputy director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Development, “We are fully aware that this won’t be perfect; there won’t be 100% teacher retention for the long term. But we want to try something...if it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.”

2018 SFAA Lease Update

The SFAA lease committee is getting together to review and make updates to the current lease. If there are any existing or new lease items you’d like the committee to consider, email Maria Shea at [email protected].

High-Efficiency Toilet Rebate

Due to an overwhelming response, funding for the Save Our Water High Efficiency Toilet Program has expired. The Department of Water Resources is no longer accepting new applications. If you’ve already submitted an application, expect delays.

The program was launched to provide rebates for replacing toilets in California single-family residences in response to the statewide drought.

Yat-Pang Au Executive of the Year

Multifamily Executive Magazine has named Yat-Pang Au, founder and CEO of Veritas Investments, as Executive of the Year.

Au founded Veritas Investments in 2007, and within a year, the company had already doubled in size. The company, once based in Au’s home, is now the largest multifamily operator in San Francisco. Veritas employs 200 people and has more than 5,000 units in 200 buildings.

Au was born in San Francisco, the oldest of five children. His parents immigrated to the Bay Area from Hong Kong to attend college. Au started his professional career in engineering and then got an MBA from Harvard Business School after deciding engineering wasn’t for him. He bought his first property, a six-unit building, in 2003, and he acquired a few more by 2007. Because Au owned his buildings and his company had very little overhead, he got through the recession. His big break came in 2011 when one of San Francisco’s biggest landlords sold him a large chunk of his company’s portfolio. That year, Veritas closed on a $500 million acquisition of five portfolios of more than 2,000 units (prior, the company controlled fewer than 100 units).

Au is hoping to soon grow his company beyond the greater San Francisco Bay Area. He says his company’s mission is to “transform real estate into desirable communities for people to live and work while creating exceptional values for our residents, employees, and investors, and in that order. If you make your customers happy, your staff happy, investors will ultimately be happy.”

The above content was sourced from Multifamily Executive Magazine.

SFAA September Member Meeting

The September 18th SFAA member meeting was held at the Jewish Community Center in Kanbar Hall. The meeting began with the monthly Legal Q & A, moderated by Dave Wasserman of Wasserman & Stern, followed by a welcome from Eric Andresen, SFAA Board President. Andresen also addressed updates to the local fire legislation and the new state bed bug ordinance. The meeting was sponsored by Craig Berendt of Berendt Properties.

The meeting then moved on to “Talking Tech,” a panel on the latest industry technology. Alexandria Pollock of Buildinglink.com, Hatef Moghimi of iManageRent, Cassandra Joachim of Intellirent, and John Cranston of SYNCrew, Inc. sat on the panel. The group stayed after the panel was finished to take member questions.

For handouts and videos from the member meeting and more information on the legislative updates, go to www.sfaa.org.