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 have millions -- they already have their thousands of units. you were not addressing the unit with them. if you do pass this, you will make a lot of other schools suffer as a result. students will have a difficult time coming to the city.

the other point is that it is unrealistic for schools and developers to replace the current needs of students. you have to allocate a space for 20,000 students for housing and it is just an unrealistic expectation. you've got to realize that the reality is a huge number. students are low income individuals. they are either at 0 in come, or very little they are low-income individuals. and i have been a resident of san francisco for 22 years. i am the father of four.

the endearing thing about this city with all of its issues and problems is its openness to individuals. the way i see it is that if you bring this on and you're starting to profile groups and individuals. we need to think about who this ordinance is really impacting >> thank you. i will call a couple more names. >> my name is cindy ochoa and diane the school director for ec san francisco and we are in intensive language program. there are many of us in san francisco, as you may know, many of us are centered in the

downtown area and we'll bring in students for as little as two weeks for as long as a year, 18 months. students are coming here to learn english, and joyce san francisco, and they have many goals. and there is one goal that they all have, and that is to be proficient in the english language, which has now become a basic necessity for operating in international work place. it is not like, oh, i will learn french and i will learn english. english is first. this is the reality. our students come from as many as 30 different countries. some of them are on scholarship from their governments. we need to be able to house them on the day they arrive. we cannot say, come on in and we will give you a list of places to go and look. that is just not an option. we work with a large network of

student counseling agencies all over the world and students come to them for advice on where to go to pursue their studies the company i work for has 15 schools and fight -- in five english-speaking countries. being able to have a lease on a few rooms, not a whole building, but on a few rooms in some of these buildings in downtown san francisco makes us able to say to our partners, yes, you can send a student. we will have a place for him or her to stay. a reasonably priced place for the duration of their studies here. i would also like to point out

that we are a new business. our company, which is a european-based company invested in san francisco. we opened our doors to years ago and we have granted 11,000 square feet and we have hired 20 people. i think i figured based on our students several thousand. we wanted to be able to continue to use a small part of the stock that is here on a regular basis. thank you. >> thank you, commissioners. in the late 1970's there was a rash of presidential hotels being converted to tourist lodgings. during the 1980's, but in 1985 and in 1987, i got the board of supervisors to make amendments to strengthen the law and then

we spent about a year of revisions for sweeping revisions. not one minute of that time did anyone suggest there was a problem with the students occupying sro's. never. we have had students come in and talk about 580 kurri street. nobody said a word. nobody said we had to pass a law to stop this. i think what's the owners find curious is there is evidence of tourist areas.

that is why i suggested that the conditional use the approach makes the most sense because then if a hotel has long-term tenants, the planning commission would say, no, you cannot do it. but we do have a market supply problem. bill out to the hotels that only rent every three weeks. it probably has not had a

permanent resident in about 20 years. hopefully we can get a solution and we can all agree we see you next time. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am against this proposal, or ordinance for student housing. we have our own property rights and we live in a democratic country. we must not be restricted for housing students or any other demographic for affordable houses.

you cannot restrict sro from doing their business. hotels have high vacancy rate as we speak. you cannot restrict the use of our buildings. we are housing homeless people coming in jails or penitentiaries. we serve the city in so many ways. please, do not have this ordinance. thank you. >> commissioners, i am jim cost. -- jim haas. i have appeared before you many times over the years with regard to student housing. we need to take into account the realities and the needs of the educational institutions, in particular the relationship between the developer and the institute. the fact that smaller

institutions may need to share of building amongst themselves, the fact that some institutions may need to have faculty honors or staff live with the students, and that students are not there 12 months out of the year, but often only nine months. i want to emphasize again the aspect of the legal relationships. the existing relationship talks about owned, operated, or otherwise controlled. if you go out and talk to some of these institutions, they do not want to own the building. many of them do not want to operate the building and higher

maintenance people. and at some do not even want to collect the rent. in fact, one administrator told me they have not signed an agreement if the agreement ended up being an obligation on their balance sheet. that is why the legislation that supervisor wiener has in the amendment that he is supporting would allow a range of legal of rationed -- legal relationships that would accommodate the various institutions. there may be some concern that this will open things up and all kinds of hanky-panky will occur over the student unions. but let me remind you that under the legislation, in order to get the subsidy, the institution first of all, has to amend their master plan. and if they do not have a current one on file, but cannot participate in the program. secondly, there has to be a

restriction on the deed to the property, which required -- requires reports and other things to be given. at the same time, demand for student housing is such that i cannot imagine it would be removed from the student housing market, even if the institution went away. i urge you to move this forward and include the language that has been suggested. and hopefully we can get the thing finished. president fong: thank you. come on up, sir. >> mr. president and members of

the commission, i'm george williams and speaking on the behalf of the action coalition. our executive director is out of town. as you recall, this started some years ago. and while it has taken a long time and we are pro the distressed from the lake, i think we have benefited because it has given the opportunity to assess how the incentives for the news to the house and will work in an actuality. we have a developer that is well along in the entitlement process building one of these buildings and has been negotiating with the educational institutions. the mayor's office of housing has taken a closer look to be sure if the housing projects falls out, the inclusionary

housing will be provided in that new unit or the field will be paid. and we have determined a 20-year master these if it did not already own it. that seems rather inhibiting on the part of many institutions. we have hopefully strained all of that outlook with supervisor wiener and we are very grateful for his assistance and mary rodgers and the mayor's office of housing has worked out a process that we think is very workable. and the staff report, pieces of it are in attachments and some are in the attachments about the housing action coalition letter.

i have pulled all of those together into one coherent listing. i think you can see the process. and everybody is more satisfied now that we have a workable program. we have not been involved and concerned with what happens in the existing stock. we have focused on the construction of the new student housing thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is john singer. i am a member of the san francisco art institute, a nonprofit educational institute, the third oldest in the city and now more than 140 years. we have 800