think it's probably the best approach to deal with these cases because it's really difficult to know without really knowing the individual circumstances of each case whether a waiver is appropriate. so, with that in mind, i ask you today for your supposed and i look forward to a substantive discussion at the board. thank you. >> supervisor breed? >>supervisor london breed: thank you, i want to thank supervisor campos for bringing this legislation forward. i wholeheartedly agree that we need to increase the payment landlords make to tennants who are evicted by the ellis act. that will help them stay on their feet and help them stay in san francisco which we know is not easy. in the vast

majority of cases, the evicting landlords can easily afford higher payments. by exercising the ellis act they reap significant rewards. i say typically because as with anything else there are exceptions. over the last week i have heard from many eld leer and african american people in my district and throughout our city what this legislation could mean to them. i think what's important to remember what african american families have dealt with a number of years. with the community with no reservation and no reasonable conventions. they left a thriving working community crippled. the families that managed to hang on to their properties were the lucky ones. many of the people who

comprised san francisco's once strong working class african american families bought their homes as investment to use their home as retirement at a time when there weren't 401 k plans and other benefits that fortunately we have the ability to enjoy as members of board of supervisors. most don't have plans 401 k plans. for these people to stay in san francisco as seniors, they will need a large reserve. but as written i'm concerned this legislation threatens their ability to stay. there are middle class african americans who own property and live in the city. we pay a lot of lip service to that and when the time comes to legislation that could negatively impact this community we move on in the interest to listening to interest groups who push the halls of city hall to

discourage other policy makers from making those decisions. many whom are on section 8. the residential they receive is not enough to allow them to maintain the property. when they do sell the property, the value will be depressed and in many cases sometimes owners have borrowed against the property for years to keep themselves afloat. so they have a limited amount of equity on the property whose value is suppressed. and since the owners charge more rent and what tennants have been paying in rent and what market rate would be enormous, the relocation payment required under this law will consume a huge portion of the sales price of the property and even larger portion of the owners actually equity if not all of it and jeopardize these elderly working class

people's retierments and savings. i think these folks deserve to stay and live in san francisco and seniors or reap a dollar amount from their properties if they choose to use this for retirement. they are aren't speculators and wealthy landlords. this is all they have. they are home owners elderly and it is their income and retirement. in the city of redevelopment they have already taken away african american homes and now it seems for the few who are able to hang on to build a modest nest egg, the city is coming back to take that away too. are we comfortable in pushing out one group to improve things for another. have we learned anything from our

history. i appreciate the hardship amendment that supervisor campos offered in committee but it still requires a homeowner to go through an extensive appeals process. we are talking about retirees going through health issues and they can't navigate and they can't afford to hire an attorney which the process often requires. i know this bassecause it's happening in my neighborhood and they talk to me about notices they have received and things they have to deal with demand some cases no assistance to help them navigate the system in the city where we add layer on top of layer on top of layer of bureaucratic requirement and we wonder why we are losing a thriving african american population. i feel passionately that we need to provide some protection, some certainty for this very

narrow group. vulnerable home owners. i'm offering a very specific amendment that says if the home owner is 55 years of age or older, has owned a building for more than 20 years or longer, does not own any other building anti-the -- and the building is 4 units or smaller, then the owner would pay the tenant relocation amount. note i'm not suggesting we do anything currently in the law in these cases. just merely that we exempt the most vulnerable from the new stricter laws that would have a negative impact on them. the owner who meets these very specific circumstances would still be responsible for paying anywhere potentially between $4500 and up to $15,000 to each of their tennants. the african american community in this city can still believe that their government has some compassion for them. to give you a season of how targeted

this is. let's look at the ellis act eviction date of last year. according to the rent board 186 department were issued notices from march 2013 to february 2014. they toned -- owned the building for 18 months before using the ellis act. my amendment requires that there is 20 years of ownership and in many cases these families have owned these homes for 50-60 years. how many speculators are going to hold on to a property for more than 20 years. that is not likely. they don't. the people who have owned buildings this long are older individuals and families who have been a part of san francisco for decades who have fought to stay here and we

should help stay in their retirement years. of 186 notices, there should be handful of these. i fully support this legislation and i believe we need to protect those involved. colleagues, i ask for your support and similar sthee -- sympathy for what i believe to accomplish as someone who feels responsibility for constituents in san francisco and not the lobbyist but the actual people who don't have time, resources to come to city hall themselves and lobby and advocate for the things we are supposed to be doing here in city hall. i ask for your support. thank you. >> thank you supervisor breed. supervisor breed has made a

motion. second? >> supervisor cohn, supervisor yee. >>supervisor norman yee: thank you. i want to thank supervisor campos for bringing this legislation to our attention. as we know there is a crisis in san francisco. i also want to thank supervisor breed for her passion around these issues in terms of those that may actually get hurt from legislation. as we all know with any situation with any group of people, there are usually bad apples and there are also good apples. so, part of and i really appreciate the hardship adjustment piece that is built into language. what i would like to do is add some language to the harsher adjustment piece because what supervisor breed may have

pointed out in terms of some cases, there are other instances where people have situations that are not included. so by adding this sentence into this legislation it would hopefully take into consideration other people that we have not thought about yet that might have hardship pieces. it could be that for instance a family that's in living in 2-unit housing for a while and it was rented to one 1 person and all of a sudden the parents who live here would love to have their kids take care of them and they want to be able to allow for their child to move into

unit. those are different situations. by allowing for some language that is more general and flexible then we can take it case by case by a consideration. so the language i want to put in there is in gh after it says hardship request. i would like to add "as such a hearing shall consider all relevant factors including the number of units in the building and any evidence submitted regarding the landlord's age, ownership of any other buildings, income expenses, other assets, debts, health and health share cost"

that's the sentence i would like to include into legislation. i guess this is an amendment i'm asking for. >> just for clarity my understanding is what you propose in the amendment is identical to what supervisor breed has provided for her amendment. is that just for hers? >> i'm not real specific. the hardship adjustment request is made that people would have to consider these factors when they make the determination whether it's a hardship or not. >> again, i will just state for colleagues and you can discuss this. i believe supervisor yee is lending his support to a portion of supervisor breed's language

page 4 starting at line 14-18. with that, why don't we go to supervisor campos? >>supervisor david campos: thank you, mr. president. what i understand that supervisor yee is saying that he would take my existing legislation and add the language that was that portion of the language that he noted from supervisor breed's lakes. i don't -- legislation. i don't know the right procedure for that but if it's a motion, i would second that motion and i would support that approach. i this i the suggestion that supervisor yee has strikes the balance between the very legitimate concerns that supervisor breed has articulated and provides a little bit more clarity in terms of how the hardship

exemption would clarify. i would be supportive. >> one way to handle this is for us to divide the question and vote for the portion of supervisor breed and then supervisor yee. or vote up or down. i will ask the attorney to make a suggestion on this. >> what i understand the situation. supervisor breed has amended a document with two types of amendment. supervisor breed announced that the meeting she was seeking to amend to add the exception for senior small property owners and supervisor yee seeks to amend to add factored oris -- factors to

the hardship already existing in breed's legislation. they are separate amendments but both in the document. >> madam clerk? how would you like to proceed? city clerk: mr. president when a measure under debate that includes points connected, you can take the items, those sections of supervisor breed amendments which are not controversial and take those as a whole and come back to the section that includes supervisor yee and campos second. >> what? [ laughter ] city clerk: the section of supervisor breed's amendment which are non-controversial can be taken first paragraph by paragraph. and then we can come back and hear the

section of supervisor breed's item that includes supervisor yee and supervisor campos. >> okay. let me try to restate that. supervisor breed has offered two separate amendments which seems to be support by many of us at the board and one that probably requires a little bit more discussion. i would suggestion we cast two separate votes for that and divide that motion to amend if that makes sense. why don't we continue the discussion on the amendments as they have been proposed by supervisor breed and yee. supervisor kim? >>supervisor jane kim: i think i'm prepared to support that motion. to consider when deciding hardship that it's okay to consider these additional factors. i guess i had two questions. one i think is for the scenario that

supervisor yee has brought up is actually one that i was wondering on if you owned a 2-unit building and wanted to bring one back to the family but reside in the other unit, i think that's the scenario that i was hearing. is owner move in a possibility if you lived in one of the units but want a family member to move into second unit which is you would not have to use the ellis act eviction. i'm not sure if that covers. the rent board is here. >> ms. wolf? thank you. >> wolf, director of the rent board. you are correct. the owner operated just cause eviction. the landlord can evict to live there. they can evict for a family member to live in the unit if they already live in the building or will move in

simultaneously >>supervisor jane kim: if in a 2-unit building and the homeowner lives in the unit and they have a child they would like to move into a second unit where they have a tenant they can choose to use an owner move in eviction instead of the ellis act and this would not apply. >> it would not be in is to use the ellis under that fact. >>supervisor jane kim: i'm happy to support the factors. i'm curious, supervisor yee, if that satisfies your concern. >>supervisor norman yee: it's just an example. it's not only ones i have heard in the past. my point really is and supervisor breed thank you for having that language in there. i didn't realize it was identical. i'm supporting supervisor breed's language.

my point is we can't ever give every case scenario and that's something we might not have thought of that might come up will be important for these factors to come into play when making decisions about hardship. >>supervisor jane kim: thank you supervisor and my next question is for supervisor breed. i'm happy to hold my question. is that okay? so i hear the scenario on elderly landlords with four or less units depending on the sale of the building for their retirement. i don't see how anything in the legislation would prevent that landlord from selling the building. they would not have to ellis act in order to sell. so i guess i'm trying to better understand the circumstances that you articulated earlier. if i was an elderly landlord

of the building with 4 units or less and depended on the sale of that building for my requirement, i can still sell it without ellis act and sell it is to any real estate company. i don't know of any property owners without the ellis act in tend to sell the building and there are legal fees involved in the ellis act, a couple of those landlords can afford that anyway and go forward with the sale. i just want to understand if there is specific scenarios that you heard that counter to what i understand as what typically occurs. >>supervisor london breed: some of the situations like one in particular in terms of the value of the property or how much the family would anticipate receiving, they were asked -- they were told

they would get a higher value if there was no one in the building. no. 1, no. 2, the challenges they face from liens on their property from additional loans they took out on the property. they took out more equity. they sell the building and did the ellis act and whoever they worked with from the real estate industry and walked away with not a lot of money from this scenario, many of these cases are in my district in particular and some of these cases are from people who experienced that even before i became supervisor. i can point to some cases that would be familiar with people, but i don't feel comfortable using individual names, some of them have been in the paper. there has been a lot of challenges particularly in my district as

it relates to african american home owners. this is their only property. these are people that do not own other buildings other places. he is the don't have the ellis act but the advice is they can get more for their buck. when you charge someone less than $1,000 for 40 years, these families are walking away with almost nothing. i don't think we are about a city that would penalize the rich and not recognize the people who work as janitors and everyday folks who worked really hard to purchase their properties and are faced with these kinds of additional layers of bureaucratic requirement. so, this is what i'm really trying to go after. i understand your comments about what you don't

need to do, but in some cases, this is a step that they are taking in order to try and maximize the benefits of selling the property that these folks are taking. >>supervisor jane kim: i will make a couple comments in response to that. i don't know if this is a question that ms. wolf can answer, but my understanding that to ellis act evict in 99 percent of the cases you are required to hire an attorney and pay legal fees in order to do that. so i'm curious in a case ellis act eviction cases have you ever seen a property owner ellis act evict without an attorney? >> i have seen many property oranges unsuccessfully evict through ellis act with an attorney, we encourage people to seek legal advice and it's well worth it in terms of the

return to be able to successfully effectuate an ellis act eviction. >>supervisor jane kim: i'm sympathetic to the situation but this is a case where a speculate or is asking the property owner to evict so they don't have to go through ellis act themselves and they are offering more money so they can speculate on the property. this is still a gain for the speculators. whoever is doing the ellis act is for the next property owner who wants to speculate on the property. that's where i'm landing on this situation. it doesn't seem to, i understand that the property owner could get slightly more money for that property but it's because someone is asking them to ellis act evict so they will be willing to pay more value for that. what we are trying to prevent is speculation. this would merely encourage

property owners to ellis act evict from the sale of the property. >> supervise wiener? >>supervisor scott weiner: thank you. i support this legislation. hardly a week goes by where i don't learn about another ellis act eviction property happening in my district. so i know it's happening elsewhere. far more than not those that are evicted are often seniors. it's just absolutely heartbreaking. and so i think the time has come to increase the relocation benefit. i remember back in 2006 thereabouts when prop h was

on the ballot to increase ellis act eviction and it was increase to 5200 and now looking back that it's not very much. i do support the legislation. i also i supported the amendments and i have an additional amendment to offer. this is along the lines of what the issue that i brought up in committee which i was not resolved in committee and i think is a real issue. that is what assets are these smaller landlords are taken into account in determining hardship. right now under the rent ordinance when a tenant claims hardship basically only includes their household income and i believe bank accounts if i'm not mistaken. it excludes non-liquid assets and retirement accounts. we

don't expect tennants to somehow have to pay out of their 401k or have to sell their car or other liquid assets. that's not included in the application and i agree with that. it's totally appropriate. however when you look for landlords seeking hardship because there are some scenarios where a landlord can seek financial hardship it is a much more extensive list of assets. it includes in addition to the income of the landlord and also includes retirement funds so that the list out whether their 401k or pension. their clothing, their furnishings and jewelry, any art and other personal property. a landlord, i understand from ms. wolf

that it's clear from what the rent board would do today or the future, but, the idea that we would say to someone frankly to hooument someone and i'm shocked that this will be in the legislation. i would stipulate in subsection b to add the following to excluding the retirement act and non-liquid assess only subject to the displacement if a primary residence to the

landlord and the only property by the owner. so in other words the landlord does not have to list any retirement accounts or non-liquid assets and would have to include real property, but not if they only own one small building that they live in, they would not have to include that building, but if they own more than one building, then the real estate is fair game. as supervisor kim mentioned you will sell the building, but if you are livingston -- living in the building it's a different situation. that's the amendment i'm proposed and i want to mention that and distribute it and put it in the amendment. i am supporting this legislation. i think increasing the relocation benefit is long over due. >> thank you, supervisor

wiener has made a motion. seconded by supervisor breed. supervisor breed? >> >>supervisor london breed: i have a few comments. if we are concerned about speculators, we should come up with legislation against speculators. what i believe supervisor campos in doing so is trying to resolve an issue in san francisco. i support the intent, i support what he's trying to accomplish in this legislation. and the problem is that there is not a one size fits all in many cases which is why i'm proposing what i'm proposing why supervisor yee or wiener is making a suggestion, it's not about