I realize your newspaper has chopped its staff to like four people and actual research may be just too much for you guys, but could you do maybe 15 minutes of fact checking? So I'm not going to do your job for you, but in short, the premise of your article is clueless bullshit.

"... legislation that would increase evictions and eliminate rental housing... "

First of all, moron, you **can't** convert buildings that have undergone an Ellis Act to condos. Any building that has been Ellised after April 4, 2005 is ineligible for condo conversion. So there's part 1... literally 3 minutes of Google could have taught you that.

Now, on to your claim that allowing TICs to convert to condo would eliminate rental housing. If a TIC owner wants to convert to condos, which the vast majority do, they need to establish owner occupancy. Having the TIC rented out to a tenant greatly disrupts and/or prohibits the conversion process entirely. As a result, TICs are very rarley rented out. If a unit is already a condo, on the other hand, there is no owner occupancy requirements. Hence, condo owners are much more willing and able to rent out, in turn increasing rental stock versus restricting it.

Try actually understanding the issues you write about beyond a basic tagline.

Tim, here's the disconnect:

"So Sup. Mark Farrell thinks the Board of Supervisors is ready to turn its back on the tenants movement and vote for legislation that would increase evictions, eliminate rental housing and undermine one of the most important pieces of tenant legislation to come out of City Hall in decades?"

Is there a tenants movement or a tenants stasis? To what extent have tenant activists educated new arrivals (1/2 of all tenancies last for 5 years) over recent years as to the importance of rent control?

I don't think that this legislation will increase evictions, at least not necessarily and at least not immediately. My understanding is that this allows those in the pool at this time to convert for a fee. It would set a precedent for blowing the cap in the future and that makes it a bad idea. But the measure contains none of that explicitly. This legislation is crap, but from what I understand, it will not increase evictions in and of itself.

"Yeah, it's a different Board of Supervisors. Five years ago, the 8 Washington project would never have been approved in its current form. Five years ago, Ed Lee wouldn't have been elected mayor."

What has changed over the past five years and why?

"If Farrell gets his way, and TIC owners can bypass the conversion lottery, tenant organizations will be furious."

It is not Farrell getting his way. It is a plan laid out to fuck San Francisco for progressives by corporate power to the extent that furious tenants organizations will be able to do little more than bleed on Farrell and the downtown players who play for keeps.

The city of San Francisco has made it a point for many years to limit the number of condo conversions -- for very good reason. Protecting existing rent-controlled housing is, and has to be, a major civic priority. Converting an apartment building into condos reduces the available rental housing stock.

You can't build new rent-controlled housing, because new construction is already exempt from rent control.

And converting apartments into condos is typically very lucrative.

After the city limited condo conversions, people discovered TICs, which can be a way for existing residents to buy their buildings (good for them, but again, turns rental into ownership housing) but has increasingly been a way for speculators and landlords to make money by getting rid of tenants.

The Ellis Act is one way, but often landlords who want to convert decide it's cheaper and easier to threaten Ellis then buy the tenants out; the tenants know they have to leave anyway, why not take some cash? That way the building is never Ellised legally -- but the effect is the same.

Less rent-controlled housing. Tenants forced to leave. Buildings turned into condos.

One of the few remaining checks on the less scrupulous types -- the ones who want to buy, clear out, and resell -- is the difficulty of getting TIC loans. You make it easier to convert to condos and you make it more attractive to eliminate rental housing.

That's why tenant groups have always opposed easing the condo conversion restrictions.

Rich people are boring. We do not want San Francisco to be boring. People who can afford to buy a TIC are rich.

D:2 Supervisor Mark Farrell is a willing (corporatist) tool for the establishment, and just as five years ago Ed Lee would surely not have ascended to the Mayor's office, without R C V (which must be r e p e a l e d ! !! !!!), Mark Farrell would simply have remained another American Conservative douchebag walking down California's streets!

How many D:2 Voters know that Mark Farrell has a residence in D:2, which he never, ever resides in? I have numerous sources in the little "enclave" of Jordan Park that willingly report he's never seen, nor witnessed walking about, nor mingling in the neighborhood!

Supervisor Mark Farrell regularly cast votes indicating a hostile disposition toward the residents of D:2 that are not of his "class", and regularly (predominantly) supports anti neighborhood, anti "people" legislation!

How many D:2 voters know that Supervisor Mark Farrell voted to WAIVE the creation of the STANDARD "environmental impact" report in advance of the AT&T U-Verse boxes (Dark Green, various points in D:2) now installed in D:2?

et cetera

Janet Reilly, 2014!!!

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Did that ignorant sucker Mark Farrell just call a bottom to the real estate collapse?