SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Landlords hoping to use the Ellis Act to evict tenants in San Francisco will have to pay up, after the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to increase the amount tenants can receive in those settlements.
Supervisors voted 9-2 in favor of the legislation, proposed by David Campos that would require property owners to pay the difference between a tenant’s current rent, and two years’ rent for a similar apartment when evicting them using the Ellis Act.
According to the city controller’s office, a person who paid $909 a month for a two-bedroom apartment in the Mission would get a relocation payment over $44,000. The previous limit for Ellis Act evictions was $5,200.
“The reality is that in this rental market, that money will not be sufficient to help someone stay in San Francisco,” Campos said.
The San Francisco Apartment Association said the new legislation will essentially evict the landlords out of San Francisco, forcing them to sell either way.
“A lot of these people contribute to our community, they live here, they’re from here. They might have an asset in their property, but that doesn’t make them cash rich. They don’t have this expendable income,” Charley Goss of the SFAA said.