Supervisors hearing on the Rent Board Election

Electing the Rent Board will hold them accountable to the people and voters of San Francisco

There has been longtime discuission over electing the Rent Board as is done in other cities. This is an issue which the voters should get to decided.

Even though landlords make up just a tiny percentage of the population of San Francisco, they make up 40% of the Rent Board.

Some of the city's biggest landlords are on the Rent Board; one, Neveo Mosser, was recently sued by the City Attorney for violations of the rent law's provisions prohibiting the practice of "musical rooms" in SRO hotels. The Rent Board is responsible for regulating landlords, but it is the biggest landlords who are regulating themselves.

68% of appeals decided by the Rent Board are decided in favor of landlords.

The system of 2 landlords, 2 tenants and 1 homeowner has built in conflict of interest. Landlords routinely approve regulations which will directly benefit them financially.

The system of 2 landlords, 2 tenants and 1 homeowner realistically means that 1 personóthe homeowneródetermines Rent Board policy. Routinely tenant reps vote for tenants, landlord reps vote for landlords and the homeowner gets to decide.

The homeowner overwhelmingly sides with the landlords. The homeowner representative (not just the current) has much more in interest with the landlords than with tenants. The homeowner more easily relates to the landlord's experiences of making repairs than with the tenant's experience of living in shoddy conditions. Landlord complaints of the costs of replacing a heating system, or painting or roof repairs are easily related to by the homeowner. Tenant complaints of slumlords or incompetent landlords are not related to.

The homeowner's housing experience is miles from the tenant's" during the dot-com years when tenants were faced with soaring rents and an epidemic of evictions, when tenants were fearing for their homes, the homeowner was experiencing declining housing costs via lower interest rates and soaring equity values in their home. The dot-com years were a nightmare for tenants but a dream for homeowners.

Housing is San Francisco's top problem. The Rent Board must be more aggressive and outspoken and take leadership on this issue. During the dot-com housing crisis, the Rent Board was silent as evictions and rents quadrupledóno hearings were held on the housing crisis, no recommendations were made to the Board of Supervisors on how the crisis could be alleviated. The Human Rights Commission, for example, held hearings on the epidemic of Ellis Evictions; the Rent Board held no such hearings.

The Rent Board simply refuses to investigate allegations of wrongful evictions but expedites rent increases. In 2002 it held 4,925 hearings on rent increase petitions filed by landlordsóbut 0 (zero) hearings on wrongful eviction petitions filed by tenants.

Apartments where tenants have been evicted under Ellis or "owner move in" if re-rented can only be re-rented at the same rent the evicted tenant was paying. This is pursuant to a 1998 law passed by the Board of Supervisors. The Rent Board has done nothing to enforce this law, neither investigating complaints or even doing something as simple as maintaining a list of these apartments which have rent restrictions.

When abuses of these limits on re-rentals following evictions are found, tenant groups have not been able to get the Rent Board to investigate or refer to the City Attorney for civil action. Instead tenants and tenant groups must take their complaints to the District Attorney for more onerous criminal action.

Capital improvement rent increases are routinely certified for excessive amounts and in violation of the rent ordinance provisions designed to protect tenants. Tenants at Lombard Place received a $6.2 million passthrough for work done to correct long-standing housing code violations (work ordered done by Department of Building Inspection)óeven though the rent law says a landlord's "deferred maintenance" is a defense against capital improvements.

The law also says landlords must have receipts for all work done. Nonetheless, the Rent Board ordered these same Lombard tenants to pay the full $6.2 million despite the landlord only being able to provide receipts for just $500,000 of the work. The Rent Board ignored tenants' complaints about this, even when the tenants showed the Rent Board that the landlord had reported to the Department of Building Inspection that the work cost just $1.2 million.

The Rent Board ignores court decisions which are pro tenant: Despite court rulings that landlords can not arbitrarily take away garages, parking spaces, storage or laundry rooms, the Rent Board adopted regulations enabling landlords to take these "services" away and continues to allow this practice even as the courts disallow it.

In 1995, just after voters passed a law extending rent control to over 50,000 2-4 unit buildings, the Rent Board sought to implement the will of the voters by giving these landlords the right to one last unlimited rent increase. The Board had to be stopped by a lawsuit.

Landlords can go back 20 years to collect rent increasesótenants can only go back 3 years to collect on illegal rent increases. This is pursuant to a Rent Board regulation limiting how much of an illegal rent increases can be recovered by tenantsóon the simple rationale that illegal rent increase awards were "too high." This regulation lets landlords give tenants illegal rent increases knowing that there is no penalty for doing so and the worst case is the landlord just has to pay back 2 years of itóif there's 10 years of illegal rent , the landlord gets to keep 80% of the illegal increase!

The Rent Board hears appeals of Administrative Law Judge decisions. Appeals are overwhelmingly decided in favor of landlords: 68% of appeals are decided in favor of landlords. Just last month the Board ruled, on appeal, that landlords could give rent increases via an oral noticeódespite state law prohibiting such oral notices.

On appeals, the Rent Board will arbitrarily reduce awards to tenants on "decrease of services" petitions where the Administrative Law Judge will reduce a tenant's rent pending repairs by the landlord or similar issues. the Rent Board never arbitrarily reduces a landlord's rent increase.

Santa Monica and Berkeley both elect their Rent Boards; most other non-elected Rent Boards in California have more tenant seats than landlord seats; no other Board relies on just one homeowner to cast deciding votes