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.