are not being squeezed out. those are the duelled roles of this legislation. -- dual roles of this legislation. it provides incentives for creating student housing. we already have the incentives of exemption. and also create exemptions -- open space requirements. the legislation does allow conversion of student housing back to more general housing with approval from the zoning administrator. in land use, before we were sent back to the commission, and the reason we were sent back, the committee adopted several amendments. the legislation contains eight near categorical ban on

conversion. the amendments allow extremely limited exceptions. one is for housing that was built by the proposed secondary educational institution that will operate and control the senate housing. the second is property that is either a convent, monastery, or other religious order. it is already not the general housing. properties that are on a lot directly adjacent to the post- secondary educational institutions. they will -- educational institutions will not be able to purchase in the future and hold for the purpose of conversion. these three exemptions are extremely limited and will still

keep almost totally in talk to the ban on conversion to student housing. there are some other amendments that were placed into legislation. i will not go into all of them. some of them are quite minor. making sure that when we define what kind of housing contractual relationship between educational institution and operator or property owner qualifies. we want to make sure we are being flexible and not trying to micromanage the relationships. there are a couple of others as well, which are common sense. i am supportive of them.

i know that we will be hearing the matter and continuing it at the request of supervisor kim. i am supportive of the continuance because i do not want this to go back to land use and we have an amendment make and it has to come back to the commission again. it is appropriate for the commission to handle everything being proposed. i know that supervisor kim has been working with folks in the community as well as with the department on a potential amendment. i look forward to seeing what that amendment is. i think the goal of all of us is to make sure we're protecting our housing stock. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> we have someone from supervisor kim office.

>> apologized -- apologies from supervisor kim, who could not be here. she is in the rules committee right now. she would have loved to discuss this item with you. we presented to you to be included in your packet a potential amendment that would allow the conversion for residential buildings that are vacant or under occupy. 20% or less of the rooms that have been occupy for two years. we introduce that amendment because we have a rather large amount of vacant buildings. they create concerns from our residents. they create concerns from the all of our constituent groups. we introduced them to start a conversation and we are here today -- we want to see what

would be needed, where could we go past a complete ban to convert residential housing to student housing? maybe the answer is there is no way we should allow conversion, but this is our way to have that conversation with members of the planning commission and with the general public. we totally subscribe and support the goal the legislation, protecting our housing stock, our existing tenants. in no way were the amendments targeting our existing tenant or our rent-controlled housing stock. we have been in conversation with housing advocates, educational institutions, and we look forward to continuing those conversations.

that is why we are here today asking for the continuance. we look forward to the hearing today and all the folks that have come out. gets a solution that works for t+ ideally. coming together and having this conversation with everybody. we look forward to working with the planning department on that solution. i am here and available for any questions. >> i would like to thank both of them for joining us today. i will continue my presentation to discuss five issues. the first issue is the demand for student housing. there has been a 25% jump in college enrollment since 2000.

student housing at rents are 10 to 20% higher than a normal rents. the demand appears quite high. the national increase in students looking for housing is amplified by our own prices and the city. the executive director for the san francisco housing action coalition estimates that we have 14 post secondary institutions serving 120,000 students. if we imagine that some of them already have a housing with their parents, providing housing for a third of those am looking at the amount of housing, provided, we have a 40,000 beds shortfall. demand is high, rents are higher, and vacancies are lower than traditional higher. the academy of arts is the most discussed institution with the housing crunch, but they are not alone. the san francisco art institute

states that are not able to lease most of the units. let's look at some of our existing policies about housing. student housing by definition is housing owned or leased by the institution. converting -- house and converted is removed from the open market and would be restricted to only those affiliated with the institution. the proposals would allow institutions already exempted from the requirement to satisfy their demand for housing. here is the dramatic policy. thank you. i am not going to read these to you, but you can see it from the

overhead that preserving our existing housing stock with emphasis on the most affordable units is the city's policy. the concern is further amplified when it comes to rental units. we are a city of renters and the larger properties are likely to be attractive for these institutions. city policy also speaks to residential hotels. as affordable housing for low- income, elderly, disabled, and single person households. sros have long been valued. according to a report commissioned by the san francisco human services agency, san francisco is unable to meet existing resident demand for affordable housing. many of the most a vulnerable populations are often at risk

for homelessness. sros account for a substantial portion of our affordable housing stock. sros provide more housing for low-income people and all the city's public housing developments. the general plan -- in response to this, the city adopted residential hotel ordinance, which protects existing residential hotels. this ordinance requires 1to 1 replacement. under this ordinance, one-to-one replacement is only required if the unit is lost a tourist hotel. the loss of units to housing uses was not anticipated when the ordinance was created asros . that change in -- anticipating

future stress is difficult and the proposed amendment will certainly result in a loss of affordablenot only will the unie revamped, but the units will be students only. i will explain a related issue whether the changes would remove many of the existing protections, like and control. let's look at some of our sros. if you are interested in who lives in sros, there is a reports available from the human services agency. i would like to cover more about the buildings. there vacancy rates. -- their vacancy rates. 411 privately owned sros, this report a vacancy rate of

14%. 11 of these buildings self report that they're completely vacant. this represents less than 2% a of allsro units. a third of the units are in 130 buildings and a report zero vacancies. monthly rents range widely. from $195 to nearly $3,000. the average reported rent may not best reflect what the rents are because of the height and rents are unusual and did not represent typical rates. over two-thirds of the hotels surveyed had a monthly rates below $601. less than 10% had over $1,000. we talked about new incentives

for building new housing. let's review some of the incentives. we have the ordinance which relieves the inclusion very requirement. this commission recommended lowering the open space requirement. since your actions, supervisor wiener has proposed to exempt staff and housing from certain to districts. these are solid incentives. let's look at one of the proposals regarding the vacant and underutilized housing. as written, the amendments could encourage owners to vacate buildings in the hopes of attracting educational institutions. this may increase vacancies. given the anticipated grants, owners may expect to recoup their losses from leaving an sro

vacant. as for our underutilization, the proposal would define this as 20% or less occupy. this would be proven by an affidavit of the building's owner that the application. since the building's owner is testifying to the past occupancy, this would be difficult to confirm. if the proposal to move forward, perhaps the building owner should be required to register the building prior to application. the main intent of for proposal is to target a few sros in the tenderloin. there -- the recommended avenues and this report included providing funding assistance for the acquisition and rehab of buildings in disrepair, providing mills act tax relief

to assist in maintenance and upkeep, allowing conversion, but requiring replacement of any lost units, increasing funding for it and adopting the use of exclusionary housing fund through the existing small site acquisition and rehab program. use of the vacant building organs to encourage a return of vacant buildings to active use -- ordinance to encourage a return of vacant buildings to active use. i will conclude with the department's recommendation. we're recommending approval of modification. the proposed ordinance is

consistent with this 2010 ordinance. this approach offers significant incentives and prohibits the conversion of existing housing to ensure that new student housing is built. this continues to be art primary crux of the recommendations. we are fine-tuning these recommendations to include some limited conversions. sros would be the only form of housing or we would recommend that conversions continue. our recommendation would be to allow conversion via conditional use authorizations. this is the same requirement for replacement of units converted to a tourist use. now we are recommending it be applicable to student housing. increasing incentives for the

production of student housing. today, we are supporting the exemptions of this use from the requirements. in conversation with the mayor's office of housing, the mayor's office of housing would like a few modifications. they felt there was a need to shift the definition of what is to get housing. we support their recommendation. the primary emphasis is that it should not be about insuring that low-income students occupy at least 35% of the building, which is the current requirement, but the city ensure that petraeus didn't have any income occupy the units -- true students of any income occupy the units. if the unions return to residential use, the required fees would be collected. -- there are specific modifications included in your report. further conversations may have

stated they would be comfortable with either a five-year lease for a five-year contract to ensure they could monitor this. there are some important unresolved issues that we are still working on with the city attorney. there are policy issues related to whether the amendments would courage eviction and whether this may lead to loss of rent control units. we are working with relevant city departments to find ways to address these policy issues. we do not have the amendments drafted today. change in the amendments so they can apply more nearly only to conversions that would not require a certificate of occupancy under the building code. permitting conversions is an eviction occurred after the effective date of the ordinance. the amendments -- amending the city's rent ordinance to address

these issues. all of these potential solutions, however, would require further research and consideration. commissioners, i have some additional comments we have received since the package was repaired -- prepared. i gave you a hard copy of those. this morning, i presented the same information to the sro task force. there was concern at that meeting expressed about the accuracy of these self reported vacancies. there were questions about how real is the local demand for steel and housing. in response to those questions, staff from the department of building inspection and from the human services agency bove reported a lot of contact and interest from universities who were seeking assistance. the group also asked for more data and information about why there were all these reported

vacancies. that concludes my report. >> thank you. we may have questions for you later. i do have a number of speaker cards. >> if we have questions for the supervisor -- >> ok. >> i do not know if you plan to stay for the whole time. we were going to have public comment first. supervisor wiener: i will stay as long as i can. >> just a suggestion -- i do not have any real issues with your amendments. in terms of the requirement to have an institution on a piece of property for a number of years before building something on the adjacent site, i would

like to get your thoughts. perhaps that institution should have that property, and not just have it sit there. they could buy a piece of property. let's say there's a building on it. they would continue to use it, or whatever, without an educational purpose. supervisor wiener: this is going to apply to a limited pool. it is a onetime thing, 10 years after the effective date. you will not have future situations where they will buy untenable sit vacant for 10 years. -- they will buy it and it will sit vacant for 10 years.

we do not want to prevent them from being able to do it, but i do understand your point. that is something that we will look at it to make sure we do not create clear incentives. >> thank you. commissioner antonini: thank you for your amendments. i have a question. it sounds like all three of your amendments deal with properties that are owned by a the institution at the present time. what i am asking is, would these be allowed by a rights, or would they have to be by conditional use? supervisor wiener: as of right. there has been some mixing and confusion. in terms of -- supervisor kim

has a particular amendment that she is considering bringing. i am waiting to see how that shapes up. that would require cu, and that amendment is very distinct from the amendments and i am proposing. there will be a lot of continued dialogue about supervisor kim's possible proposal. i look forward to participating in that dialogue. commissioner antonini: i was only speaking about yours. thank you. >> we will go to public comment. i will call a few cards at the time. if you will about -- if you want to line up on the right hand side of the ram. -- room. [reading names]

>> good afternoon, commissioners. i am an sro owner. i only heard about this ordinance recently. i have not had time to review the ordinance or the ramifications. there is even a task force that was set up by the city. even they were not informed of the proposal until recently. the ordinance was written without any input from anyone in the community. even though the ordinance has a profound impact on sro hotels. i believe this is unfair and unnecessary. the ordinance is telling private property owners that they cannot sell their property to a legitimate third party. even though the new owners have to follow existing laws are related to useage.

i am not sure why this is an issue. there are no facts supporting this hypothesis. sros are extremely difficult to operate. contrary to popular opinion, they're not 100% occupy and many have high vacancy rates. we should be able to rent to students or student institutions. sros should be able to rent their rams to anyone who pays rent -- rooms to anyone who pays rent. it is almost discriminatory. what class of citizens will we be excluding next? there needs to be more discussion and fine-tuning of this ordinance. as this ordinance stands, we are

against it. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. thank you for hearing us. i'm a first generation hotelier in san francisco. i would like to talk to you about the struggles of running a hotel with the current restrictions. i have some different opinions on rent control. i love this city and we provide affordable housing through sros. but that is done by private dollars. another restriction is only going to make it more difficult to upgrade these buildings and have the stigma of being a slum. sometimes the word gentrification is not liked. rest until hotel tenants -- the

new tenants bear the cost of increases in water, gas, electric. all those things that are increased year after year. we only get 60% of cpi. many landlords do not extend. i am not speaking on apartments, i am speaking about sros. there are some units that are not affordable to the general population. the large amount of people who are relocated to san francisco. i also like to point out that if a school -- if another school

has broken the rules, how can that be a burden to be given to us? by the next generation will be restricted from using our hotels come from providing student housing. in a direct manner or a least manner. these property rights are being infringed upon. we're taking a different stance on citizenship of students. they are also citizens of san francisco. they spend dollars in our city. i think people have forgotten. affordable housing is provided already. thank you. >> good afternoon. commissioners, passing this ordinance will negatively impact thousands of students by preventing schools from making master leases, you prevent

schools from providing accommodations for students. you're setting up a dangerous precedent by expecting students to find their own accommodations. we are in the business of providing housing and it is a constant battle to find housing. it is untenable for out of towners to be able to take this on, especially young people. some schools have been providing a service for over 30 years. they bring millions of dollars into the city. the one at school -- the one nonprofit school you are trying to address this issue with, they do not care. brt have their thousands of units. they