>> good morning, everyone. welcome to the san francisco budget & finance committee for march 4, 2015, and should say the budget subcommittee i'm mark

farrell joined by supervisor tang and commissioner eric mar as well as supervisor christensen and i believe we're going to be joined by supervisor campos i want to thank clerk linda wong and jessie larson and bill dillon madam clerk, any announcements? >> yes. mr. chair silence all electronic devices. completed speaker cards and documents to be included should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon today will appear on the march 10 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated thank you madam clerk call item one. >> a hearing on the planning department capability to exposure the short-term rental owners and the financial resources for an effective reenforcement. >> colleagues a hearing request i submitted a few weeks ago along with supervisor christensen to discuss our

planning department short-term rental owners with the financial resources necessary for the effective enforcement taking effect here in san francisco we passed the law last year one of the key issues the success of the law would lie with enforcement reports in the media you i've received e-mails if constituents personal appointments are not only backing up but in a state of the backlog people want to register but make sure the city we're prepared to enforce the merits of law i'm a strong supporter of home sharing i think the intent of the hearing to be more creative and creative less bureaucracy within the confines of the law and make sure the staff is staffed to make sure you're our residents comply with the board

of supervisors and also discuss the potential changes if necessary to the mr. cranshaw law to help where enforcement and good actors trying to comply we have emily rogers and scott sanchez as well as amanda from the tax collectors office to answer any questions and present on this issue but first, i i'm going to turn it over to supervisor christensen she has opening remarks >> only i'd like to add i appreciate supervisor farrell bringing this to budget & finance committee we ought to make sure our bureaucracy has the wherewith all to get an update on the fledging home sharing regulations and our

office is doing to help. >> thank you, supervisor. >> colleagues questions or comments at this time i know that supervisor campos has been on top of issue and vehicleal voice at the board of supervisors will be joining us at a certain up to this point in time i want to turn it over to the planning department to present materials on where we are look forward to the discussion. >> thank you commissioner pearlman and supervisor christensen for asking us here to talk about this important issue we've got twa a number of staff to we are any questions on the topic i'm emry rogers for the planning department joined by sanchez zoning administrator and tom our chief administrator office and chris manager of the

enforcement program and audrey of the enforcement plan today, we're here at your request to talk about the short-term rental process described the new law the process for rental some statistics on highway registration is proceeding and provide an assessment on who is working and what could work better also traditionally short-term rental unit have been completely illegal in san francisco prior to the recent changes in allow only commercial like helts or bid and breakfast are eligible for renting commotion for less than thirty days it passes the board and signed by the mayor on october 27th became effective on february 1st of this year when the law was proposed reviewed by the planning

commission the planning commission prioritized 3 goals to preserve the existing housing the suffice most affordable housing it is needed now more than ever the assembly speaker said the last housing in san francisco is the number one treat to our economy and way of life this is felt in san francisco number 2 protect the neighborhood character the people that live and work in san francisco combined with the built character to produce the city we love the rewards are resident and draws visitor to the city and 3 create a registering regulatory law within the bond if housing and neighborhood character could be preserved it be would reasonable to allow short-term rentals the commission felt comfortable

permitting the use not to reduce the housing only if the limit would be enforced with the policy goals in mind i'm going to turn it over to mr. scott sanchez to discuss the implementation to date. >> thank you, supervisors for having us here scott sanchez zoning administrator begin with a few of the basic requirement for the short-term rental regulatory first, they are the resident at 345ur9 unit and below 345ur9sdz units allow are eligible for the program they have to have a business registration certificate evidence of liability insurance no violations on the protein and only one that can be registered not a city requirement any tenants insure their legal use for short-term rental now the

process for the legislation the completion of the applicant on website since january they must meet the requirement and complete the application and retain the form by the tax collectors i appreciate their help with this item and also once that has been received they can make on appointment for registration with the planning department we'll be xefrpts with drop in that appointment no appointment needed a drop in time on march 18 in the early afternoon details available on the website at this time they will submit the application and the $50 relocation fee with the staff after we have received a complete application we'll give a notice to the property owner that is required by the

ordinance after receiving the application the register is required to post that advertising it and follow-up by sending any list to the planning department by e-mail for our records and renew the certificate every 2 years now, some registration statistics where we are with the program that is help to understand the contacted apprentice the number not certainty that maybe listed in the city so awhile i can certainly detail the data we've collected so far some ambiguity about the numbers the short-term rental statistics we have as opposed to business last friday total applications one hundred

and 59 are certificates issued 60 scheduled appointment beginning this week 2. and 54 people that didn't show 28 and will submitted applications not eligible based on ours initial review 22 and 134i789d placards missing materials 25 scheduled appointment to thirty calls per day and the number of subjectivities to tenants 2 and to owners 58 you know while certainly you could say the issuance of 50 certificates are great that would be the case but not the case there are many more the best submitted it 6 thousand listing available on the large hosting platform what he know about the number it over

represents the number of units actually available in the city they maybe listed multiple times by bedrooms or 4 bedrooms could be listed three or four times ones for the entire unit and once for a bedroom and probably overstates the number of units to an the market we know that some of the listing may not be legalized not month to month the registration we know this is a new ordinance we're implementing now as emry stated a violation so for years so we've been enforcing this for several years from our experience the cases there is no primary resident not eligible for the program and of the applications we've seen so for 10 percent seem to meet the legalization requirement

also some of the listing we've seen people may not step forward to legalize the program because of the terms of their lease does not allow it that's one of the requirement we innovative the property owner now to outreach since december we accept an it possible web page and the host we've worked with members of the press and on that covered the process and our director made announcements of the commission hearing and made regular postings and posted on facebook those materials provide detailed information and element requirements for the definition and the details had a is and not allowed in the ordinance how to apply and all documents it at the time of registration currently on march 18 from 4 to

7:00 p.m. hopefully that will be successful and continue that in the future some of the items we're working about the application process we believe that appointment for in person applications both applicant from an in take and a face to face meeting learning about the program we believe that the face to face interactions help to get rid of the 23r5u7b9 applications being filed some of the barriers that lie ahead difficulty in determining the unit that are in violation of the ordinance and listing that are on those websites often don't contain enough information about the unit such as the location to initiate a compliance seeing no

regulatory number not all the information in order to pursue on that unit also difficulty we described before in determining the number one number of hosted versus non-hosts we have 90 days non-hosted and year round hoftdz this is a new and untested progress weaknesses have to be imposed and currently staffing 3 hundred positions for engrossment of application and turning towards the enforcements the commission planning commission has been supportive of the program to insure the enforcement of the 3wuk9 hamburgers over the last couple of weeks for the authority of 3 additional positions not funded additional positions allow the enforcement to more effectively take in the applications we've

received adequacy of the application process applications with sufficient documents to establish retainedcy may show the applicant does not occupy the unit and this is a great concern and the housing staff will be impacted some budgetary resources that help no doubt as we move forward with enforcement we'll be calling upon the city attorney so the costs associated with the enforcement costs will be helpful and appointment for scheduling software for appointments online until the department of building inspection moves forward with the tracking system there are capacities in the software we're not as yet at the space of the

place we can implement that. >> and that may help to produce effects the 50 directing fee will cover the full costs if we get 6 thousand unit is probably only enough to cover two positions that we already have 3 positions funded we're looking for 3 more 0 positions we did want to have that fee on this lower end to encourage people to apply a balance to find out how the costs of the program a can be covered technology without the hosting platform we can't implement the requirements relate to the number of nights or the unit of certificates and again, this will be - in order to implement those requirements it requires a

subpoena if data can't be gotten the cooperative efforts we may seek funding there are companies that may offer programming to assist and used by other agencies so that's my portion. >> thank you mr. sanchez with that lets step back into the policy realm what is working about the law the law seeks to enable folks to participate in short-term rental awhile protecting the housing stock the city law sees no harm in seeing the home sharing it can help the residents meet the high costs of living as well as we can protect that housing protection of existing housing it the derivative of our enforcement efforts some

loopholes that facilitate misuse broader and more short-term rental frequency the allowance for hosting rental to occur 365 and the only stating restraining order safeguard it impossible the host is not fellowship present during the rental there is a way that people could a use the law and it's allowances for further hosting would the that diminishing our hosting or the city versus the home sharer they could become partners one option if they started to share both data valentine's day the law-abiding hosts and those operating outs e

outside the host will be parent and stop the curtailing the listing that should be assessable for housing for san franciscans the remember our principle goal is preserving the housing i want to talk about specific changes to the law that will help facilitate the enforcement of the compliance as written the loopholes maybe diminishing our housing resources when we can at least afford the law we want to share the responsibility of the law this could be done first penalties for hosting platforms that list unregistered unit we've heard the self-policing markets let's insure the city and home sharing can follow the law and posting platforms should two and number 2 real data it can hem keep housing available

this data can be gotten in a number of ways a a requirement that platforms share data or b hosting platforms can voluntarily cooperative and provide complete data or c looking at the glaenz of software now the safe graduate for year-round rentals is a limit on the number of days for hosted and non-hosted unit make sure that the housing is available all year and lastly the true stent of the issue and until we understand the perimeters and how it is the decision makers may want to cap the offer all limits allowed on the remedyingy in conclusion san francisco is often are on the

leading edge to allow short-term rentals in a manner that protects people rankling in a leadership position we want to look at the law we thank commissioner mccarthy and supervisor christensen for calling for this and thank you to the committee. >> thank you, ms. rogers i'm going to turn it over to supervisor campos in a second i have a few questions to follow up on the comments perhaps those are in line where mr. brown about the details that the appointment process so for we certainly read in the newspapers i got an e-mail from a constituent she was told there were 6 thousand people making appointments it is circle to the statistics to date from is making restraining order

prospective in if 6 thousand opted being rented that figure is probably wrong who up and down only one hundred and 59 applications and it seems to me a little bit be a uptake a whuts our general sense you know to date again, we're a month into it whether or not we think we're going to have all people that are trying to rent their units most of them are trying to you know attempt to apply for the permit and comply that the law we're going to struggle with the resources we pitted into booking the registrations and so on and so forth so we're not deploying the resources that are enforcing it as we have disagreements we have a 6 to 5 vote those who

supported it want it enforced we expect that this is certainly a budget committee as we head into budget season this month in eastern it we need to take a hard will look at it. >> thank you, supervisors i'd love to report to you a backlog of 6 thousand applications and how we process those unfortunately, that is not the case that's been dedicating and not enough time to progressing the applications that we have received and our responded we're with frustrated by the fact that when we had you numerous hearings on the matter there was hundreds if not thousands of people saying they're supportive of the legislation but the first most of the ordinance beingful in place we recorded we had a couple of hundred of people that called making the applications and certainly we don't know the ex