years of association with the art institute. we have a wonderfully talented faculty and staff that have contributed many members to the san francisco art commission, and the current president is a member of our faculty. from our smallest building on chesnutt's street to our larger buildings or even our competitors. tuesday has lumped in with every at institution is a problem for us -- to see us slump in which every institution is a problem for us. i will walk through a request

for an even more limited amendment than that already offered by supervisor wiener. for one of two institutions older than us in the city. that is because of the last decade, the san francisco art institute discovered it is attracting younger and younger students, never having faced this problem before. we have sought to provide for approximately 10% of our students, representing a portion of our first tier class, housing that was under our supervision, or in some cases graduate students so that their parents and sometimes the students themselves will feel more comfortable coming to san francisco during the housing market during the first year. frankly, none of the upper class, much less the graduate

students, would even consider the housing. and we never tried to impose it upon them because housing at the san francisco art institute is not a housing center. it is a way to accommodate and to attract students who find being in san francisco and at the art institute appealing. i believe on a close review, you will find many of the proposals and amendments made by supervisor kim address our proposal, which would go back retroactively to those we have on file for more than 20 years with the institutional master plan that complies with all city codes. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am a second generation san

franciscan, born and raised here, and growing up in an sro market. i am an owner operator of an sro hotel. sro hotel owners have provided housing to the most vulnerable and tapas population. we are designated as unsubsidized, for-profit operators. but incremental restrictions that the city have -- has been imposing on these providers makes it increasingly difficult for us to survive. sro should have a seat at the table. i am against this ordinance because it is ill-conceived, does not have any input from the affected constituents. the people pushing this legislation do not have all of the facts in front of them to make a proper decision on whether this legislation is even necessary. it is being proposed to protect

-- my question is, is this legislation being proposed to protect new developers of student housing because it is scared of competition? i believe this legislation discriminates against sro operators. there should be more development instead of more discreet -- more restrictions on us. >> i will call a couple of other names. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am the president of the independent hotel owners and operators of the homeowners' association. it is about 146 sro hotels, approximately 8000 units. i am here to ask you to rule against this proposed ordinance. or you can take the words sro,

or any language pertaining to sro from this ordinance. there has been no evidence of illegal conversion of sro units for student housing. secondly, there has not been any evidence that has existing tenants being evicted out of sro buildings to convert to student housing. there has been no evidence that new housing has been created for students since 2010. if developers really want to build housing, why can't they just build housing for the overall good of the city and add to the stock? why are we trying to narrow it down to just student housing? let's encourage the student

developers who create housing for everybody so that we do not have these kinds of shortages everywhere. the other question that has not really been answered is, what happens to a student who is underage. how are they supposed to find housing if a school does not help them, or if they're not under the umbrella of the school, basically? this is a question that should be answered because there are a lot of students that are coming year -- that are coming here and there young students. i'm hoping the commission is not encouraging that 16 and 17-year- olds should be running around and looking for housing in the city. there are a lot of other things that have already been said.

i will not get into that. the report says that only 14% of the units are vacant, but i can tell you that approximately 25% to 30% are vacant. that is almost 5000 units in san francisco. why can't we read these out to whomever we choose? this ordinance really needs to be looked at again. thank you. >> members of the commission, i am the policy manager at the turn a community developed -- chinatown community development center. chinatown is a principal housing stock.

we're very concerned about preserving the housing. for existing residence and for future low-income seniors and families. i think the testimony today underscores the need for this legislation. i think the testimony in terms of expansion of universities and the expansion of the student population, and their demand for housing, not necessarily in the neighborhood in terms of the downtown core area, where there is a plan for building that housing in serving that increased need. moreover, we have heard from the testimony from before is that -- is how many potentially making units there are in the housing stock. there's a lot of interest on the part of our owners to convert to student housing. for that reason, it seems to me that the legislation and the staff report is timely. we are under constant change.

and the fact that we have not seen massive numbers of units being converted, and up to this point is -- it is beside the point because what we're talking about is the future. we're looking at expanded demand and units that economically, there is an extraordinary upside, an incentive to convert those two student housing. for that reason, we are appreciative of supervisor wiener's legislation and its introduction in the legislation. and we are concerned about the amendments that supervisor kim has introduced. we think in many ways that legislation, as currently drafted, will incentivize to prospectively allow owners to take the market -- take a housing of the market for two years and then convert to student housing. it is very troubling.

the process does not prevent abandonment. it regulated after the fact. if we have abandoned units, that causes a negative impact in the community. we should not incentivize that process with the hope that owners prospectively will go through the cu process. the only thing we're going to do with these units that are banned in is convert them to students -- that are abandoned its converts into student housing. we are very concerned about this legislation. we appreciate the staff report and we think this is planning for the future and anticipating a threat to our existing housing stock. thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm jennifer and 90 director of the coalition -- and i am

director of the coalition for freedom. my concern is how this will affect housing that is affordable for the very destitutes -- most destitute san franciscans. we have seen huge upsurge is in the numbers of folks that are experiencing homelessness. and oftentimes, the only housing that they can access is in a single room occupancy hotel, whether they are elderly disabled person or a family with children. this is the option that is available to them. we have about a nine-month wait to get into a family shelter right now. we have over half the people trying to get shelters -- get into shelters as single adults being turned away right now. dekema amendment, as written, we believe would seriously

jeopardize the housing stock as available. -- of the kamin amendment, as written, we believe would seriously jeopardize the housing stock as available. we think it would keep hotels intentionally vacant. we have experiences where people are trying to get housing and cannot get housing in sro's and will spend a very long time being turned away at hotel after hotel that they go to. the idea of having vacancies can only point to one thing. there is real estate speculation going on. and the comments from the previous speaker, i think the case has been made before you that there is increased need for student housing that sro owners would really like to convert. and even some of the sro owners are wanting to get rid of rent control altogether. all of these indicators are pointing to that we are, indeed, at a critical moment. the conversion is a real threat

if converted to a student housing. we are currently working with supervisor kim's office to address our concerns are around this amendment and keep this thing from happening. thank you so much. quite good afternoon, commissioners. sarah short with the housing rights commission of san francisco. we are concerned with the preservation of our existing rent-controlled stock. and we have considerations about what this legislation would do in regards to that. we understand and appreciate what we have heard today, that students are having a very difficult time in this market, just as all of us renters are in considering the market. and yet, unlike one per cent -- what one person said about this potentially discriminating

against it is, actually see this as a privilege of one class over another in the rental market. and why it would not be city policy to do something like that. that also needs to be a concern, why we would have separate housing for students when we are all competing in the same pool. sro housing in particular, as you have heard from jenny free market, is of concern because it is the housing of last resort. it is the most affordable housing we have other than the subsidized housing. and we have to be even more, i think, watchful of what happens with the housing stock. that is exactly the reason why we have the sro residential hotel conversion ordinance. and otherwise, that is why we have rent-controlled, to protect the affordable housing that we do have considering our current foreign -- current market factors.

we are also concerned about the kim amendment. we think it is basically to broad. there are ways that it could be used as an end run, both around the vote -- the sro hotel conversion, and the housing -- at least, in the spirit of both of those. we will be working with those involved for good language that titan's this up. what least -- that titans' this up -- tightens this up. what we have seen is we do have some vacant or underutilized hotels that we have been told is a problem and it it would be better to convert them to

student housing. we are just not there yet. if the sro housing gets can girded to student housing, it should never -- gets converted to student housing, it should never lose the rent control protection. we should never lose the rent- controlled that these building have. thank you very much. >> linda chapman. i beg you not to be confused by these issues. units are empty because property owners want them to be empty, very often. when i first became involved in this issue in the late 1970's, it was cccd that called me and i asked you to listen to them today. they called me because we were having a problem with apartments already on nob hill and it was pointed out that there were vast numbers are residential hotels

on nob hill, which was true. so we protected them. to do what the kim amendment says, number one, incentivizes holding units off the market. we had a luxury area of nob hill on jones street and apartment buildings were kept off the market for six or seven years in hopes that they would be able to tear them down and build something else and so on. our mission had a huge problem at that time, i remember. i have already mentioned to you the residential motel on nob hill, the two residential hotels on nob hill, the one that you as a body allowed to be changed for tourists used in exchange for the other one that kept -- was kept naked for the process that's easy cd -- that's cccd was describing.

things do not work out well in that case. what they're talking about in this kim amendment, in effect, is taking units that are rent- controlled that are empty out of the rent control market and converted to student housing. the issue before was tourism. it was not student housing. and it came more to the forefront when the art academy began acquiring buildings. let them acquire buildings that are not residential hotels and use them as student housing. let them build new student housing. or by other commercial space -- or let them by other commercial space. turn those interested in housing. i think some of the hotel owners may be confused thinking that they will not be allowed to rent to students. of course, they can rent to students. students can rent hotel rooms or

apartments or anything like that. the issue is taking them off the market, taking them out from under rent control, giving them to the institutions where they could say, you can live here for a year and then you have to get out because you are not under our program anymore and under rent control and nobody else can live here. the students are no more disadvantage than anyone else, then new workers, immigrants, older people who have been in those units before. i beg you not to do what dekema amendment is suggesting. a -- the camera amendment is suggesting. -- the kim amendment is suggesting. >> i am the assistant director of student life at the san francisco art institute. as mr. singer mentioned, it is a small school with a small housing program, which seeks only to house our younger, incoming first-year students to

help with their transfer -- transition into san francisco and our rental market. in our efforts to do so in the last eight years, we have never acquired additional property or displaced in the residence. although we do not operate our housing program as a revenue measure, our ability to provide affordable, safe housing is critical to the ability to acquire quality students. the loss of this is a considerable disadvantage compared to our larger, for- profit universities. >> thank you. any additional public comment? >> i appreciate that we are having a continuance. this is a sticky issue. we have to wander through dealing with vulture institutions, and at the same time, not harm the legitimate institutions like the san francisco art institute.

and deal with sro's, and deal with the loss of apartments by being taken off the market. this is really sticky, but we were forced into this because we have [unintelligible] institution. one of the things i'm concerned with is that every single amendment has to be excruciatingly worry -- worded. because buildings drive through loopholes. adjacent to a secondary institutions so long as they have not -- have owned it for a number of years, that is a huge potential loophole. that could be all of downtown that could be adjacent. one of the defects that we have is that as an apartment, the

enforcement and holding the fee to the fire on the institutional master plan has been a hit in the planning department. at times, there has been an attempt to regulate this, but you have institutions that do not really feel they have any responsibilities to comply. i'm glad we have the time. thank you very much to supervisor kim and supervisor wiener for the continuance. those of us that are struggling will do our best. some of us are looking for every "or" in the legislation because if you give people an opportunity to say they do not

have to comply -- institution does not have and keep up with on a regular, six-month basis their institutional master plan, they should not be given the benefit of the doubt. as long as the institution keeps acquiring site, then it can never be done. it gets delayed for several years because they keep acquiring new sites and the cannot develop any more. thank you very much. >> i will be very brief. i think we all agree that some

ng is the most affordable in san francisco for sale and rental right now. any ordinands that removes existing housing should be prohibited altogether. we believe that student housing should be released. new housing -- new offices for residential or whatever, but not residential housing. we think you should not provide incentives to convert residential housing to student housing because of the profitability of student housing.

they rented by the bed and virtually doubled their profits. that profit has to be taken away. and the adjacent building, does that mean the institution owns one building adjacent to the institution and then another one and another one? does that mean that they are all adjacent to the institution? in a large area it could be huge. that has to be clarified. and another issue is that i have a grandson that attend berkeley. he is in a dorm now, but he is moving out and that seems to be

the norm. incoming freshmen have to stay in student housing, but when they get older, by choice they move on. the shortage is about 40,000 to 50,000 units shortage. what does that mean? they should be allowed to compete with all of the others. are they trying to provide 40,000 in student housing? that sounds a little ridiculous to me. the most important thing to me that residential housing should be prohibited from converting to certain housing. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners.

our firm represents the university of san francisco. i am here with the -- with usf to support supervisor wiener's amendment. these exceptions are not only reasonable, they are fair. when usf build housing for faculty, staff, and students, as it did with loyola village, it should be able to use that housing to serve any portion of the university community in the future. as to the third limited exception, as mentioned by supervisor wiener, as i understand it, the intent is directly adjacent to sharing a lot line in this context. we would support an amendment to make that clarification if the zoning administrator things that is necessary. i would also like to reiterate that clarification made by

supervisor wiener that the 10- year time frame would apply. it would have to be in the ownership for the 10 years prior to the effective date of this ordinance. it would not be a provision that could be used in the future, moving forward. and i would like to emphasize that should usf apply for any of the limited exceptions in the future, it would be for an existing site. the land use committee and the planning department supports the proposed exception. we respectfully request that you also recommend with limited exception consistent with the planning department's recommendation. thank you. >> any additional public comment? commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: an excellent discussion and i am supportive of the continuance

that has been proposed. i have some comments. i think we all agree that the real key incentive in this whole legislation will be for institutions to try to provide new housing to meet the needs that are out there. because otherwise, it is just the same amount of housing. and it is true that there are a number of students looking for housing, and whether the number be 40,000 or if 20,000, it is quite clear there are a lot. i remember the days in the late '60s and early 1970's when i was a student and rent was hired by those standards at that time, too. -- ranch was high by those standards at that time, too. -- rent was high by the standards at that time, too. as far s