save the bay, and shark stewards. so, utilizing both surf rider and department of the environment volunteer teams, prior to the official launch, 40 cigarette butt cans like the one you see here were installed along ocean beach as well as on commercial corridors in the sunset and richmond districts. special thanks to the volunteer teams and our lead, ken, who is pictured here, for contributing over 50 hours of time for the receptacle installations. specifically the cans were first installed in the parking lot atlantic ocean beach, as well as the promenade, and along high foot traffic areas such as geary, balboa, irving, after a couple months into the pilot, a few additional cans were installed as part of a corridor walk by supervisor sandra fewer and public works, additional cans were added and requested on

judah, in front of pittsburgh pub and trouble coffee. the 40 receptacles were paid for by public works. additional funds were provided by supervisor katy tang to conduct education, provide signage and materials and to pay for pocket ash trays. we developed a color coding system to group the collection rates by either green for low, yellow for medium, and red for high. as expected, the high number of butts collected are where folks tend to linger longer in front of bars and restaurants, such as ireland 32, abby tavern, underdogs, always high collection cans. so far in ten months since the launch, we have collected and counted every butt and we, 100,000 butts we have so far. this is a huge success. this means that smokers made the choice and took the action

100,000 times to place their butt in the right place. and i want to thank the public works ambassadors for diligence counting every butt and sending along the data. we are averaging 10,000 butts per month, so every butt really does count. so, although this is a big butt number, how do we really know we are making a difference in reducing litter? once again, our volunteer teams from surf rider and department of the environment conducted litter scans. in four locations before and after the pilot, and we are seeing a real decrease in litter with an average close to 60%. the results of the litter scans correlate with the system of low to high ranked collection cans. for example, where we see the highest reduction of litter, the highest number of butts collected. so, it's one thing to launch the program and install receptacles, another to get smokers to be

responsible and use the cans. so how did we do it? education is a crucial component in changing behavior as we all know. i developed scripts and surveys and outreach materials, to educate residents and businesses that cigarette butts are instead plastic and toxic to the environment. i hired a team of folks that can conduct education in both english, cantonese and mandarin, and a decal with the tag line every butt welcome here and encouraging smokers to dispose of their butts. and smokers were happy to receive a pocket ash tray. if they are not, we hear one, oh, i need one for my brother, sister, parent who smokes. i was giving a presentation with a group of students that have a focus on marine debris this semester and i started the conversation by asking how many

of you know someone who smokes, every student raised their hand and the second question, how many do you know someone who smokes who tosses their butts into the neighborhood. every student raises their hand. we all see the problem, so educating not only the smoker but the friends and families. i'm now going to turn it over to shelly erickson with surf rider. >> hello, everybody. thank you so much for having me here today, i'm shelly from the surf rider foundation. surf rider is an international non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world's oceans, waves and beaches through the powerful activist network. we here in san francisco are an all volunteer chapter, and we have a lot of programs aimed at ending plastic pollution and protecting our eroding coastlines. as part of that, we host three beach clean-ups every month at

baker and ocean beach, and i lead the program called "hold on to your butt," what we are all here to talk about today to address the problem of cigarette butt litter. i started the san francisco part of this program in 2015, and we have been collecting butts and recycling them. all roads lead to the ocean and so we took our clean-up off the beaches and headed into nearly every neighborhood in san francisco, so we have been in the richmond, the sunset, in north beach, the mission, in the castro, my district, thank you. supervisor sheehy for your support with putting up the big cans, a big plug for that. but we bring our big clear butt around to show everybody the naked truth that cigarette butts are the number one most littered item snefr where. we have from 8 to 20 volunteers that are clean-up, and we net thousands and thousands of butts every single time. so, obviously we can't do it

alone as a volunteer group and i just have to say thank you so much to the board of supervisors, to supervisor fewer and tang and all of you here for really taking, taking the time and the passion and the effort to help us out. and obviously we also could not do it without department of public works, having the sidewalk ambassadors to empty the cans is so instrumental in helping this program along and most importantly, department of the environment and particularly sunshine has been so instrumental connecting us with the right people and the passion and drive to bring this program to where we are today. and luckily we are not alone. cities all over the country and in fact all over the world are taking -- taking up the torch, i guess, and providing infrastructure and education for smokers so that we don't have to have this cigarette litter problem anymore. with that, i'll turn it over to

jeremy. thank you so much. >> good morning, chair sheehy and supervisor ronen and fewer. my name is jeremy spitz. i want to thank sunshine and shelly for all their work on this pilot program. public works is really excited to be a partner in this project. we feel it's been a resounding success. ashcans help keep litter off the streets. as sunshine mentioned, cigarette butts make up 53% of all litter. small size make them difficult to pick up and labor intensive for the staff. our primary role is to empty the cans. that work falls to our community corridor ambassadors. it puts under employed and unemployed people to work sweeping up litter from sidewalks, cleaning tree basin, and helping to troubleshoot

graffiti, broken sidewalks and other problems along the city's commercial corridors. ambassadors help empty the cans, report damage or vandalism and keep practice of the number of butts collected. an example of one of their walking sheets where they actually tally all the numbers collected. the data is important because we can make adjustments to the program and relocate cans that are not being utilized. for example, 25th and geary, only picked up three butts in a month, or i think that's a week, right? a week. so, we will probably relocate that one. the program has also had a personal impact on our ambassadors as well. one is here today, waiting outside and will speak during public comment, it had a personal impact on her behavior with cigarette butts. and director nuru has committed to support the project.

116 corridor routes throughout the city. and we will support ashcans on any one of them. thanks again, sunshine will now come back up and wrap up our presentation. thank you. >> so, we are, next step, we are close to launching an ad campaign to further our message utilizing newspaper racks with the image you see here. our hope is to move some of the medium collection cans to high collection cans. we are discussing options of creating guidelines that we could use for events and temporary sites like construction sites to deal with cigarette butt litter. we are generating more interest and getting requests all the time from community organizations, japan town community benefit district and

north beach neighbors are in the cue to receive more receptacles. and pocket ash trays in the tenderloin. and we realize as we have shown today, the more chance we have to educate folks, the more butts we can get off the streets. so, thank you for listening, and thank you for keeping s.f. butt-free. >> thank you very much. colleagues, any questions? no, ok. thank you, colleagues, before we head to public comment, i wanted to give ashley summers a chance to come up. supervisor tang and ashley have been great partners of this and i would like to invite her to give comments about their office work, the work that the office is doing and also the vision for expansion moving forward. >> good morning, thank you. i know we all know that clean streets are something that all of our constituents talk about

all the time. in 2017 report done by surf rider, more than 6,000 butts were collected on 19th avenue alone in less than two hours. we know litter is a behavioral issue. there are manual, it persists. we can keep up or try to stop it from happening. when the office looked at solutions to butt litter, we brainstormed about you none were the root cause. banning cigarettes, proposed to do that, unfortunately, failed in committee earlier this month. we hope that our state leaders will continue to push efforts like these, studies have shown cigarette filters do not make them less harmful to smokers and are filled with toxic chemicals that are in the environment and

the oceans. working closely with s.f. surf rider, the fee pays for the program, so integrate it into the work. working with environment, public works and supervisor fewer and the team, implymented a six-month pilot of 40 cans in district 4 and district 1. and they trained them how to empty the cans and armed them with pocket ash trays. additional, led by sunshine, outreach efforts with surf rider. supervisor tang and i went on a walk with outreach team, not only talking with smokers and not embarrassing or alienating them, and merchants were also given pocket ash trays to hand out to smokers. announced the pilot in june of

2017, ocean beach with supervisor fewer and we concluded it in december of last year, and we saw 60% reduction in cigarette butt litter in pilot areas. we believe an expansion of this pilot and dedicated coordination between public works and s.f. environment could shift the norm for how smokers dispose of their butts and divert millions from the sewers and oceans. we would like to thank everyone who worked with us over the last year on this program, including nuru, gordon, spitz, sunshine, shelly, supervisor fewer and her team, environment now team, and michelle from surf rider who is picking up butts every day. we are looking forward to supporting the efforts throughout the sunset and hopefully in many other neighborhoods in san francisco and supporting surf rider and s.f. environment to hold on to their butts. thank you. >> thank you very much, ashley. with that, i would like to open it up for public comment.

any members of the public that would like to speak on this item? please come forward. ok, that's great. >> hi, any people who would like to speak on public comment, please come on up. and you have two minutes. thanks. >> hi, hello, everyone, i'm jenny zow. we were particularly interested in changing the cigarette butt littering behaviors at a local chinese bakery. all the smokers get pushed off to the side of the donut shop by other businesses. this created a major smoking hot spot. the community of smokers are chinese only immigrants, and

worried about outsiders, we broke in. they saw i was an american girl embracing my chinese culture. i spoke with them in cantonese. i built a relationship with them, and ash trays and dispose of the cigarette butts. every morning from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. hanging out with the community. once i established myself as somebody their friend and monitoring disposal habits, they started adapting behaviors. properly placing the cigarette butts in the cans more and more. and then slowly i started removing myself from the community a little at a time. i would walk away, do some business outreach and glance across the street to keep an eye on them. without them knowing what i was doing, started as five minutes, to 15, 30, and 45 minutes. what i found, they had adapted their behavior without my constantly having to be there to keep an eye on them. i eventually removed myself

entirely, and examined the site for cigarette butts. we found within a month, we had reduced the litter in the major smoking hot spot by 40%. learned with community-based outreach we can change the behavior of even the most stubborn litterers. and it was cleaner, so people felt more comfort and, the owner of donut time was so happy that he requested a more permanent installation of cigarette butt disposal unit. something he thought initially was not going to help the problem. >> thank you. thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello, my name is michelle, i've lived on 21st and teraval almost 60 years. as a surf rider volunteer, and thanks to pops, over the course of the last year we were able to install seven canisters. i have personally emptied and

counted each butt deposited. the cans have prevented 10,499 butts from disintegrating into the precious san francisco community streets and ocean. every week each can gets more butts. and this is through word of mouth mostly, like events such as tabling at mccoffin movie night at the work. on a daily basis, individual smokers are spying the cans and making the decision to use them. i get so much positive feedback from the business owners and from citizens when they see me emptying these cans. i've been told they are a brilliant idea and people are supportive of seeing them everywhere. the feedback keeps me putting my sneakers on every sunday morning to get out there and empty the recycling containers. my vision for butts what s.f. did for dog waste. when i was a kid, picking up the dog waste on parks and streets was not a habit.

now most dog walkers would not imagine living the mess behind. i believe most smokers will recycle given the easy, convenient social option that the recycling cans provide. thank you for your time. >> thank you, thank you for your volunteerism. next speaker, please. >> good morning, everyone. i work for d.p.w. as an ambassador. location i work is irving, so before sunshine, i came maybe like a week after i started working. irving street has a million and 1 cigarette butts and i have to sweep it from every corner to between every car, there are cigarette butts and i think that the program is good because there's a lot of people that are noticing and i do the outreach, a lot of them where people are using the ash tray and i'm a smoker myself. so the program came, sunshine explained it to me, the importance of the cigarette butts are as far as the ocean.

before i did not know the education-wise of it. i'm one of the ones that would be driving down the street, flicking out the window, now i know the education-wise of it, i don't do it anymore, the toxic of the ocean and fish we do eat, every tiny piece of plastic is in the fish that we eat that we can't see. that's what i learned off sunshine. [please stand by]. .

>> 100 cans does not do it justice. we need not hundreds more of these, we need thousands, and we need outreach. we need to go upstream. we need to convince smokers that what they're doing is a really bad habit, and hopefully they'll see what is doing see

highlights, we have the ability to service those cans, so we will be putting them in those areas. >> supervisor ronen: is that automatically or do i need to apply? >> we want to sort of control and have these cans registered,

right, so we have accountability and that it's part of the official program. so we would -- so as a resident or business owner, we can send you the on-line link, and then, you would be in the pipeline to get ten in the team link and install it. >> supervisor ronen: okay. >> supervisor fewer: actually, i think what is needed to a plan to expand and deepen. i think that i would love to see an expansion plan that would be citywide. >> great. >> supervisor fewer: all right, what are the resources we would need? we would need education, also. we can't always rely on volunteers to be doing it, so for the city to really adopt this officially, then i think i am looking for an expansion plan for the city and county of san francisco and also an idea of where they might go all over. as we heard it's not just so many of them, we need a lot of them. and i think they're so

inconspicuous in a way. they're not sitting in a sidewalk or anything, there's on a pole. so i would love to see an expansion plan with actually resources and a budget attached to it, and each department, how much -- who -- where it would live, sort of, this program, and also to pay for the ambassadors, everything, and education. so let's do a budget for hopefully expand this to the whole city and county of san francisco, but then, also having a budget attached to it. >> great. i was hoping you would say that. first, we're ready to go. we learned a lot of lessons from the pilot. we had a plan before we implemented the pilot, and even before the pilot, we had a pilot at san francisco state. so we would love to show you that and do our best at providing and, you know, calculating out what we need, what resources we need, and who

owns it to make this happen. >> supervisor fewer: do you have a preliminary budget right now? >> well -- i -- we have estimates on, you know, what we've -- what outreach materials cost, what the cans cost. so if we look at how many can -- we could give -- we could give an estimate, actually. >> supervisor fewer: oh, great, would you stop by my office on your way out and speak with chael sea in my office who's staffing the budget. >> yeah. that would be great. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. comments, colleagues? >>. >> supervisor sheehy: i just want to thank you, supervisor fewer for bringing this forward. i think they're working on a pilot in my district, which i find it very interesting and hope that it goes forward positively. i do want to thank the ad slvoy of everyone that brought this forward. >> supervisor fewer: the volunteerism is incredible.

thank you so much. so i just want to thank everyone for making this happen, but especially to our presenters, everyone who's been making this such a good project and such a feel good project. actually, i think the success of the project is really, we can just say thank you to all the volunteers and everyone who's dedicated to saving our oceans and our environment. so i would love to see this budget to expand it citywide. i think it's time. we've done these corridors, we see the results are very positive, so thank you very much. and then, i'd like to make a motion to file this hearing. >> supervisor sheehy: without objection, the hearing is filed. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. thanks, all. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you. so madam clerk, item number four. [agenda item read] >> supervisor sheehy: i'll

wait, give people a chance to kind of -- sure. so this hearing is on the impact on the health and welfare of tenants residing in a large and speculative rental units. we're looking to have as complete disclosure of issues affecting city's rent controlled tenants. many conversations with tenants have revealed an erosion of deep rent controlled housing stock since a number of buildings have been taken over by a number of companies. this has affected the rental market, and the management companies conduct has been -- is the basis of this hearing. a variety and a mix of legal, illegal and disputable legal

means have been confirmed and stated by tenants. many of the rhencontroled tenants have voluntarily decided that they have had to leave after the ongoing harassment of the property management. specifically at a property in my district, at 1064 delores, the tenants have suffered a litany of construction projects, unnoticed water shutoffs, electric power shutoffs, and rent increases. only five long-term tenants remain. the building manager is responsible for 23 other different properties, and both types charges for basic repairs to individual units have occurred that have increased -- which have not increased the cost of maintenance and capital improvement. instead, the owner and management have -- have passed these through to the tenants which have made them less affordable. living in these units has

create emotional and financial disturbances, and this type of harassment has caused people to -- to -- to leave, to escape the -- the -- the harassment. some of the issues we've seen are nonemergent apartment entries, days of water service interruptions, days of electric service interruptions, ongoing construction projects, 51 consecutive days without available fire escape, 43 days of a suspension of the garage parking due to crux cruxes -- due to construction, net rent increase of 25% over that period. so the tenants in this particular building pay between 1500 and 2500. their rent is being raised to 4300 -- between 4300 and 5,000 a month. so before we start, i do want to give a particular nod to supervisor fewer, who's

bringing legislation to address some of these abuses that will be heard on friday, i think, at rules, at 10:30. it is nice when we are able to identify a problem. at least some of the solution's already in the works, so i do want to commend her for her work. and so to begin the hearing, we have brad hearn for the housing rights committee and then two of his tenants, landra amino and mina tenka, and do you have a presentation that you'd like to make? >> good morning.

fren . >> good morning. my name is landra tonka. i am a disabled tenant who's lived in my current rent controlled unit for 22 years. i'm part of the veritas tenants

committee and a volunteer of with tenant's rights hearing committee in san francisco. thank you to supervisor she havy for calling this, and thank you for hosting us. i'll layout some broad themes about things endured by tenants, brad and amina will follow with additional details. these issues have been compiled from various sf housing agencies, and the rent board and tenants and tenant advocates. tenants being forced to deal with this take up a large portion of their time and precious time. as we discuss these issues, it's important to state up front that we see a severe lack of enforcement of existing tenants' rights. renters in sf do not have

adequate resource to enforce the laws, large landlords skirt the laws that protect tenants, and many tenants can't afford to hire lawyers to help protect them. furthermore most attorneys are unwilling to take such cases due to not being equipped to going up against large housing entities. tenant issues and violations have become backlogged while tenants suffer loss of protections. tenants are impacted by very real and serious threats to their health, safety and well-being by speculative landlord behaviors. these impacts include failing to adequately protect the health and safety of tenants including disabled tenants, the elderly, babies and young children including multiple

reports of suspected lead poisoning, displacing tenants due to upscaling, turning apartment buildings with near full tenancy into assembly line construction sites for extensive periods, prolonging the completion of such projects due to mismanagement while tenants suffer under detrimental health conditions and various violations of their tenant rights. informing tenants they will be compensated for displacement and associated moving costs according to agreed upon terms and failing to compensate them accordingly or in a timely fashion. violating the sf rhenordinance and california state civil codes and disrupting various housing services, requiring tenants to sign away their tenants' rights in order to

have reasonable rights regarding this be tenancy be met. violating tenants right to provide sigh by various means, and a lack of professional sponsor any to letters and verbal requests from tenants regarding a wide range of tenancy needs, concerns, and violations. we are also gravely concerned about the increasing erosion of sf's limited rent control housing stock by corporate real estate entities. and you will hear more about that in our presentation. we need to create new laws to protect renters and adjust existing laws in order to clarify, uphold and protect existing tenants rights to health, safety and well-being. our suggested response is a combination of holding these problematic actors accountable

and preventing their unlawful and harmful business practices from continuing. at the end of our presentation, you'll hear some ideas on policy recommendations. thank you. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you. >> thank you, landra. my name is brad hearn with the housing rights committee in san francisco. in your packet, you should have a copy of the slide show and a brief on veritas investments in particular. if not, i'll give it to the clerk. there they are. okay. so i'm going to start our slide show, and amina and i will take you through this. so landra gave an overview of our themes today. this presentation was conceived and created by the veritas tenant campaign, myself and other tenants who are involved. veritas is featured in this presentation, but they're not

the focus. we're also concerned about the practices of other companies. the major themes that we're outlining for you today is first the exploitation and violation of sf's rent ordinance, in particular, harassment of sections 39.10(b). number two, the hazardus construction practices that tenants are experiencing and the impacts on their public health and safety and the erosion of sf affordable housing stock through the loss of units through conversion to corporate housing. first just some preliminary findings. back in the fall of last year, housing rights committee conducted an initial kind of survey or focus group with about 75 veritas tenants. the full result are in your packets. just a couple results on this

slide showing tenants great concern with the safety and health of their living environment. nearly half of participants reporting three day notices to pay for quit that seemed unwasu unwarranted, baseless or fair. and the third point, tenants universally claiming 100% of experience severe habitability issues in their units. the first major section on the weakening of rent control in sf's rent ordinance, this is a snapshot of a security and exchange commission loan document that i can share with you. this is an analysis of the s.e.c. analyzed one of the loans that veritas took out in order to buy a portfolio of buildings. not their entire stock in san francisco which numbers between 250 and 300, but this represents a set. so what we're seeing here is

the enormous rent increase that occurs from a deeply stablized rent controlled unit to a market rate unit, and you can see on the third line there, the nonrenovated deeply stablized units are the rent controlled units. >> supervisor sheehy: and what is the basis for this? is this a loan pass through? >> sure. we'll be getting into that. it's a combination of -- pass throughs are a major component, yet. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you. >> but in addition to that, it also reflected that tenants are being displaced from their units. there's atrition of the rent controlled housing stock, so this also reflected that many of these documents as the loan documents in your packet shows were nearly fully occupied when they were bought, 97 to 100 is occupied, and then to see this kind of aggressive rent increase, because of

significant pass throughs or tenants were constructively evicted, or self-evicted. the speculator model, key features that we're observing, an investment vehicle like veritas investments partering with large companies, this is actually from a rent board petition for an operating and maintenance pass through for a veritas building showing kind of the intricate financial arrangements that they're utilizing group. another key player in this are banks who are going to lend cash, in particular, jpmorgan chase and goldman sachs. landlords like veritas use an l.l.c. for every single

building. this comes up in particular with some of the ellis act evictions that you'll be hearing about later. further on this, this is also a snapshot from a standard and poor analysis of a veritas loan. this entire analysis is in your packet and it shows first the breadth of neighborhoods that are being affected by this, from knob hill to the richmond, and on the very last column, that all of these buildings are affordable rents. they were below market. we've seen buildings with units that are occupied with long-term tenants are described and perceived as investment opportunities where superior returns can be achieved. and here, we have an example of a green tree notice for the -- what we call the aggressive bundling of pass through charges. companies like this have entire department and staff devoted just to pass throughs or they

outsource it to third parties. there's a particular company in san francisco that specializes just in preparing the documentation of pass throughs. so what you see here is for our rent controlled tenants. this tenant has lived in their unit for, i believe, eight years and received all at once general bond, including banked general bond pass throughs from previous years, a water bond pass through, a proposed operating and maintenance pass through, which is what supervisor fewer's legislation is helping to address, and proposed capital improvement pass through for a total rent increase of 16%, which for a rent controlled tenant is definitely not what they expect. we're also seeing -- we've learned that at least moser, veritas and baumo utilize the

same software. the issuing of three day notices is automated, and the system sends it out and tells the green tree staff that this notice should be posted on a tenant's door. again, with the ellis act, buying an occupied rental building and purchasing a rental building for the purpose of vacating the he lit act. >> supervisor sheehy: so what do they do with the buildings after they ellis act them? they don't rerent, right? >> well, attempts you'll hear

from are concerned about the building sitting empty for maybe a period of time and then being brought back onto the market at much higher rents or being converted to condos. >> supervisor sheehy: okay. thank you. >> i'm going to turn it to -- >> supervisor sheehy: so part of the strategy is to have an abandoned building for a period of time until everybody forgets. is that what you're describing? 'cause they're supposed to wait ten years. >> sure. there's certainly been a priri in vacant units. companies like veritas, we haven't seen that, but we wanted to mention it because the ellis act is used for a variety of reasons. okay. amina's going to take over with the second section now on public health and safety. >> hello. my name is amino rubio, and i'm

a veritas tenant for 23 years. veritas performs extensive construction and demolition to their 250 buildings across san francisco. the following examples are common occurrences at veritas properties, and we are concerned with those practices persist under large other corporate landlords as well. on the photo on the left we see sewage in a bathtub cited by the department of building inspection for the notice of violation and left unaddressed for at least six months. while the tenant fought eviction to stay in his home. in the middle photo, it shows a mouse on a larger -- on a larger infestation caused by demolition in a veritas building. [inaudible] >> this, this is a mouse.

it happened in my unit as construction was undergoing, and it made its way into my apartment. >> supervisor sheehy: you got through security with that? no, i'm joking. >> yes, i did. >> supervisor sheehy: i'm joking. >> so the middle photo shows another mouse, which was a larger part of an infestation caused by demolition in a veritas unit below union. and in construction, we always see mice. on the photo on the right shows an amount of a hazardous debris moved from the building to clear -- it's a clear indication that it is tommic. veritas -- toxic. veritas' internal policy it does not disclose environmental policy to tenants. here on the left, demolition above the unit caused a huge

crack in the tenant's bathroom ceiling while the tenant was showering. this occurred last month. the tenant reports receiving a three hour notice to move herself and her disabled son out of the unit which was very traumatic. there on the bottom middle, construction caused a huge hole in the laundry room ceiling of a building, and a broken water pipe is sticking out of the wall of the building which disrupted water service for the at the pointants. in the next photo, demolition above the laundry ceiling caused the building to collapse which are next to pipes and could have caused an explosion. this results in disruptions to natural light, privacy, with tenants reporting many days and weeks that no workers were

present. in my own building, i can say there have been many ongoing occurrences with demolition and construction. it not only affects long-term tenants but it also affected market rate rentals as well. i can say when i made veritas aware of some issues when there was construction going on, there was paint chips and saw dust, once i made them aware, i was illegally locked out of my apartment while still paying rent. thank you very much for hearing us and for the opportunity today. >> thank you, amina. this is our last section. here we have two shots of housing in a veritas building, looking very different from the units you just saw. >> that's short-term corporate housing, as well. >> go ahead. >> it's short-term corporate housing, which means these

people are paying sometimes even higher than market rents permonth and are not, you know, staying in our city and contributing to the community here as much. >> yes, yeah. this is a review taken from a zeus living website. this is a website that veritas works with to do the short-term rental that was furnished. we're seeing this practice in multiple buildings. there at the bottom is a picture of the listing for the unit, and the month they rent them out for 4290 for a 400 square foot studio. and as of today, the office of short-term rentals has no permits on file for the building to be doing short-term

rentals. and -- and in this slide, umm, a photo of around 21 and mission, a veritas property with several storefronts sitting empty. you can see the distinctive rent sf now sign, which is green tree veritas, and i believe we'll have representatives from mission business association here today maybe perhaps to speak, if they made it in time. they were coming from another meeting. and on the bottom is a map showing the proliveration of the veritas explosion in the city. >> there was a reason sf weekly article two about how these businesses left empty like this is causing problems for other businesses in the surrounding area and really changing the landscape of the communities in

a negative way. >> so on policy recommendations, we're asking to support supervisor fewer's pass through legislation, urge the city attorney's office to investigate veritas investments and other speculative actors for violations of the rent ordinance and a harassment provision, section 37.1(b), amend san francisco health codes, require environmental health testing and disclose these results to tenants, all the tenants in the building undergoing renovation and demolition. create construction monitoring program within the department of building inspection, restrict conversions of rent controlled units under short-term units to short-term corporate housing, ellis act reform to form a mandatory

staff initiated discretionary review that would provide tenants, landlords, neighbors and advocates an opportunity to create a record to allow for better tracking of our city's affordable housing stock. protect our long-term tenant commercial tenants who face displacement while vacant storefronts persist. and i would also add that all market rate renters that come into the building are made aware of the issues that are happening that have faced the long-term tenants, so they can make decision whether they want to move into a construction zone or not. thank you. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you. >> thank you very much. >> i'd just like to add something quickly. >> supervisor sheehy: no clapping, please. >> i just wanted to add something quickly, which is that we're seeing a part of large institution right lane real estate speculators and investors partnering with smaller companies in san francisco that are on the rise, and there's this kind of

pattern of behavior even though we've only mentioned a few companies here, we're seeing people kind of look to that model because it's giving them, you know, great returns on their investment, and they are engaging in similar behaviors. and also, this large-scale construction that they seem to engage in is part of i think of a way of doing business that really doesn't work and is part of the problem because they are trying to do too many things at once. they took at all those homes in different buildings all over the city at construction sites, and they have these huge construction programs going on but there isn't enough over sight by the management about what's going on in each building 'cause they're just trying to do everything from the top down. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you. >> i'd like to add one more thing there. sorry. and when they do this demolition and construction, we have older buildings. it puts a lot of stress on the building entirely, on the whole

building. so i would like to see construction limited in some way or stopped or give us a break. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you. do any of my colleagues have any questions for the presenters. i was going to ask some questions of some of the city departments that are here, but if you have questions before i do that? so i do see -- are you... >> we'd just like to submit some additional materials after the hearing's over, after the hearing's over. >> clerk: you can submit it to me. >> okay. thank you. >> supervisor sheehy: okay. do we have -- i saw someone get up. >> supervisor fewer: i just have one question that is, so have these tenants -- have you been hearing that tenants have been seeing any benefits from

paying these rent increases? i notice that these rent increases that we have on our thing from green tree, these are all bond pass throughs. if we seen the tenant seeing any upgrades, meaning an upgrade in living? >> i can tell you, one capital improvement project that they did was to rip out all the windows in our entire building and replace them with exactly the same kind of windows. during that time, tenants suffered health and safety problems and all kinds of violations to their rights just to have windows exactly the same as they were before, and mine actually have latches and locks that are not as nice as the ones that are there before. again it's kind of this assembly line, we're just going to do this whole thing. it seems to me -- from my view so that they can claim they've

done a capital improvement, but it isn't necessarily all the time. i'm guessing sometimes it is, but i'm thinking it's not all the time, too. >> supervisor fewer: and do they pass through the costs to the tenants? >> yes. i just got a capital improvements pass through last week, actually. >> supervisor fewer: so when you get that, do they ever reach out to you to work collaboratively with you? >> the only thing that has been mentioned in the notice to me it says if you have financial hardship, we can work with you to get help with that at the rent board. but this is still going to be a hardship for people who aren't going to be eligible for that, too because it's such a large increase. a lot of these pass throughs come at once, too. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. >> in our building, we've had a paint coat change, we've had carpet, we've had lighting. i don't believe that these are

making my life better. i don't believe that the security cameras are making my life better, which are just installed. they're not just installed for security, they're installed to watch the tenants, they're installed to make sure the tenants are living in their units so many days peryear, and if we're not, then that evidence is used in court to evict tenants. so i don't think the things they're doing are beneficial. they have made repairs in the units, but the repairs also are done poorly, more than once, twice, and then have to be redone. and those repairs, when they're brought to the management's attention, we have to bring the date, the name of the company, and what was done. and then they can finally rhea ses in their minds okay yes, we have to do this differently. i've gotten to know my resident manager, all the construction workers, and i don't have my friends over because i'm afraid of them waking up to the staff that they're not aware of.

every single day, somebody's coming into our space. >> supervisor fewer: so these capital improvements are pass through to the tenants, but beforehand, tenants really don't have a say into whether or not they want these capital improvements done. >> that's correct. >> supervisor fewer: okay. >> i actually asked they did not in my building because i have disabilities, and the nature and scope of the construction was going to affect my health. i said why can't you come in and do mine separately not on this assembly line system, and they refused. >> i'm sorry. we're not part of the conversation, what we would like or not like. >> supervisor fewer: just assessed. >> that's correct. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. >> supervisor sheehy: okay. thank you. so i did have questions for departments. do we have department of building inspection here -- or which departments do we have? i know planning. [inaudible] >> supervisor sheehy: rent board. okay. maybe we can start with the department of building

inspections. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> hi. good morning, supervisors. my name is matt luten. i'm housing inspector, and i am representing department of building inspection today. i would like to apologize. i had 30 minutes notice of this hearing? so if there are questions, i'm happy to answer them specifically. >> supervisor fewer: sure, there are questions. >> supervisor sheehy: yeah, please. >> supervisor fewer: hello, meat. so good to see you. >> nice to see you. >> supervisor fewer: so i just want to know when an owner acquires a new building, what are the things that they have to do to bring it up to code? so when there's a transfer of ownership, does it require them to build -- to start to put everything up to code, what -- and what is sort of the enforcement mechanism around that? >> sure. i would say that the building is always required to be up to code. it doesn't -- the standard doesn't change when shall

did-when it changes hands, so it's always required to be up to code. oftentimes, when a building does change hands, through title searches, prospective buyers will find that there are outstanding notices of violations, where the violations were just never corrected. and orders of abatement were issued which arelenes against the property that are just sitting there, waiting to be addressed. and in those cases, they are -- they are part of the process, i guess, of buying, that they will bring it up to code -- to address those violations in the notices of violation. >> supervisor fewer: so -- so then -- so you -- we could then kind of consider any investment in the property above what is required by code. would you say