Friday, November 20th, 2009
“2010 Condo Lottery: Previous participation may not yield additional tickets
Dear Plan C Member,
Ticket sales for the 2010 Condo Conversion Lottery have been announced by the city and will begin on Monday, November 23rd (additional information can be found here).
As you may be aware, it has been the practice of the City to issue additional tickets to buildings that can substantiate unsuccessful past participation. Specifically, the rules and instructions issued by the City’s Department of Public Works (“DPW”) for the 2009 lottery (ORDER NUMBER 177,881) stated, “Multiple tickets for any building will be sold based on the current 2009 lottery and proof provided for each year of past unsuccessful participation; that is one (1) ticket for the 2009 lottery, one (1) ticket for unsuccessful participation for any and all of the lotteries during the 1990-1994 period, and one (1) ticket for each year of unsuccessful participation in the 1995-2008 period.”
Recently we learned that the City may be denying additional lottery tickets to buildings that qualify with the minimum qualifications (summarized generally as: one owner-occupied unit for each of the last three years in 2-4 unit buildings, and three owner-occupied units for each of the last three years in 5-6 unit buildings). Historically, lottery priority and the issuance of additional tickets have required that one of the qualifying owner-occupants has been an owner (but not necessarily an occupant) during each of the previous lottery losses. The change for the last couple of years and for 2010 is that DPW appears to have a new interpretation of written law. To establish priority credit (additional tickets), DPW is requiring that each of the qualifying owner-occupants be the same original owner occupants that were unsuccessful in past lotteries.
Simply put, your building might qualify for the 2010 lottery and receive one ticket, but unlike in years past, may not be entitled to additional tickets based upon unsuccessful previous lottery participation.
We are reaching out the membership of Plan C to see if there are other TIC groups where this situation is likely to have an impact. If you’re facing the same issue, or would face this issue if one of your fellow TIC co-owners were to sell their interest, let us know and we will put you in contact with other similarly situated people. Send us an e-mail at, info@plancsf.org.
Collective action by affected TIC groups (including possible litigation) is more likely to succeed than individual efforts.”
-DPW Condo Lottery Information Page
Tags: condo conversion, San Francisco Condo Lottery, TIC
Posted in General Info | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
This came through the internets to us, and we thought we’d share:
New Home Buyer Tax Credits-Condo Conversions do NOT qualify
If you handle “New Home” transactions you are impacted by California SB 15, which was passed as part of the California budget and effective March 1, 2009. It provides for a tax credit of up to $10,000 for people who buy a previously unoccupied home and agree to live there for two years.
Update: Condo conversions do NOT qualify since they have previously been occupied.
[Our source] spoke to someone at the Franchise Tax Board today and she confirmed that this is the case. She says they are still working on a validation process, but thought that there were enough inquiries on this issue that they would do something to filter out these applications.
Poor San Francisco. We get the short end of every stick, don’t we?
Tags: condo conversion, Tax Credit
Posted in theFrontSteps | No Comments »
Monday, February 2nd, 2009
Good news on a Monday morning:
-Waiting to go condo is San Francisco’s version of waiting for Godot [seeing that phrase a lot lately...good on ya Malcolm.]
Building owners can spend years vying for one of 200 condo-conversion slots awarded annually via a lottery. But this year San Francisco is considering letting people skip the line, offering a one-time chance to the hundreds of folks on the lottery list to go condo now – for an extra fee. The goal is to generate more revenue for the cash-strapped city and to create building-industry jobs, because condo conversions generally require some construction work to bring buildings up to code.
-A proposal to expedite condo conversion would require approval by either the supervisors or the voters – no easy task in a city where housing issues are famously contentious. Tenant advocates say the practice hurts renters who get evicted when buildings convert to tenancies in common, the step before going condo. Previous proposals for increased condo conversions have failed miserably.
-”It’s a win-win if the fee is not too high,” [says one TIC owner]. “The city also will make more money when property taxes go up, when they reassess the units (as condos rather than TICs).”
On the other hand, TIC owner Daniele Mills, an administrative assistant at Genentech, said she thinks the proposal doesn’t seem democratic.
“It has a lot of repercussions for people with less income than other people,” she said. “The lottery seems more fair.”
Nothing in life is fair. It’s kinda like going to a club and tipping the doorman to get in, skip the line, and party on, instead of losing your buzz waiting in line.
Proposal: Pay fee, skip condo-conversion line [SFGate]
Tags: condo conversion, TIC
Posted in legislation | 5 Comments »
