Housing demolition in San Francisco has been exceedingly rare over the last decade-plus, averaging out to about 18 units per year since 2012. City planners credit this to what they recently called “some of the strongest demolition and tenant protection controls in the country.”
Those controls are now poised to become even stronger.
The city’s planning commission greenlit a tenant protection omnibus this week that aims to further discourage residential demolitions and require more from landlords and developers whose projects could displace existing tenants. The proposal, known as the tenant protection ordinance, is headed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for a final vote.
In classic San Francisco fashion, the proposal takes existing state law and enhances it. California’s Housing Crisis Act of 2019 already prohibits any net loss of rent-controlled or affordable apartments. If a redevelopment project requires the demolition of a property’s affordable or rent-controlled apartments, they are required to build at least as many units, with at least as many bedrooms.
If passed, San Francisco’s rules would require each of those replacement units to have the same number of full bathrooms, and at least 90 percent of the square footage. As with state law, the replacement units must remain as affordable as the originals.
The proposal also expands protection to more tenants.
State law only affords tenant protections to those who live in a unit when the property owner submits a development application. Tenant protections include rights such as the ability to remain in a property for up to 6 months prior to demolition, relocation benefits, first refusal on replacement units, and the right to return if property owner changes course and returns the original units to the rental market.
San Francisco’s new rules would expand those protections to tenants who have vacated the property due to a capital improvement project, have left the property within the last five years due to harassment or a non-compliant buyout, or tenants displaced within the last five years by an owner who decided to move back into the property and take it off the rental market.
Property owners would need to inform tenants of the protections, and tenants would also be granted a right of private action against a property owner or developer who violates requirements.
The proposal arrives against the backdrop of what many see as a looming upzoning in neighborhoods across the city.
Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan — aimed at making room for 82,000 state-mandated units by 2031 — is plodding through the approval process.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed SB 79, Sacramento’s marquee housing bill this session, which could upzone properties within a half-mile of transit stops as soon as next summer.
Where talks of rezoning increase, fears around displacement often follow.
Ahead of casting their votes, commissioners celebrated the proposal. Commissioner Derek Braun called it “a great day” and Commissioner Kathrin Moore said the ordinance represented “one of the most collaborative efforts I’ve seen in a long time.”
Commissioner Gilbert Williams said he welcomed the protections, but said his vote came “with a heavy heart.”
“There are a lot of vulnerable tenants out there, and it’s very unfortunate that we’re in this situation,” Williams said, referencing the proposed upzoning throughout the city. “Our residents deserve a lot better than what they’re being faced with here.”