Daly Champions Proposal to Help Skyline Tenants

by Jacqueline Tomco, 2008-02-26

Yesterday, Supervisor Chris Daly called on the Board’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee to approve a proposal that would require property owners to post tenants’ rights in writing during real estate sales transactions.

Under Daly’s proposal, owners must disclose this information to tenants, sub-tenants and roommates alike. And the committee, which includes Sophie Maxwell, Gerardo Sandoval and Jake McGoldrick, resolutely agreed to forward the proposal to the full Board of Supervisors for consideration.

Daly said two factors prompted the proposal: concerns from tenant groups in the City and an emerging trend of large tenant turnovers at the time of sale in medium- and large-sized apartment buildings.

“Tenants cannot be asked to move… leases cannot be materially changed…and sellers of the building (must) show tenants’ rights,” Daly said. “Things tend to be much more even when everyone is informed.”

With Daly in agreement, Maxwell, chair of the committee, said the proposal does not create any new laws or alter the city’s rent control law, but she said it emphasizes, “the sharing of information that already exists.”

More specifically, owners and sellers are required to provide tenants with written information on evictions, rent increases, occupant changes and owners’ rights “before and after (the) sale of a rental,” according to the San Francisco Rent Control Ordinance.

Outrage with property owners and fear of exacerbating the homelessness problem in the City originally prompted community groups and tenants to bring their concerns to Daly.

One tenant coalition, Citi-Stop, recently began a campaign to bring increased legal accountability to Goliath-sized property owner, CitiApartments (i.e., Skyline Realty), volunteers said at the group’s informational meeting on Saturday.

The group led a successful protest and put pressure on the city attorney’s office, meeting facilitator Molly Goldberg said. As a result, the city brought a lawsuit against CitiApartments.

Supervisor Daly attended the meeting and encouraged individuals and groups to bring their testimonies to the Board of Supervisors.

“I’d have to say this gathering is impressive,” said Daly. “It says a lot about you … and a lot about CitiApartments.”

Daly also said it was important for the tenant voice to be heard at City Hall, because he said the Lembi family, owners of CitiApartments/Skyline Reality, is politically connected in San Francisco. “They probably have the ear of the mayor and a few of my other colleagues,” he added.

K Kruschka, a nearly 30-year resident in the Tenderloin and current CitiApartments tenant, agreed.

“They (the Lembi’s) must have some really powerful connections,” Kruschka said. “The organizations that are supposed to be helping us are not doing (anything).”

Kruschka said he approached the San Francisco Rent and Arbitration Board with a complaint about a decrease in services after CitiApartments took over his building four years ago.

When Kruschka’s arbitration board official presented the matter before a judge, Kruschka said he overheard the Lembi’s lawyer discussing details with the official about a party Kruschka said they had both attended the night before.

Since then, Kruschka said he has experienced other aggravations from CitiApartments’ presence in his building. These complications included problems with illegal rent collection from his bank account and prolonged construction activity that ruined his kitchen.

Illegal rent collection, forceful eviction notices, prolonged building upgrades, and tenant ignorance about rent control laws are all things CitiApartments’ management banks on to force tenants out, said Elizabeth Derham, a Citi-Stop meeting facilitator.

“The only way they can make money is to push tenants out,” Derham said. “(They) target rent-controlled buildings (with) short subprime loans…and buy in a block.”

Robert Haaland, co-chair of Pride at Work, one of the groups involved in the Citi-Stop campaign, put it another way: “CitiApartments is trying to create a monopoly in the city and artificially raise the rents. They are systematically driving up rents in San Francisco during the worst mortgage crisis in history.”

Gavin Newsom’s press office and CitiApartments’ legal department did not return phone calls, or respond to inquiries.