Residential Builders Assoc. Pushes Legislation Aimed at Curbing Predatory Real Estate Speculation
California Political Desk
April 05, 2006
RBA Targets Ellis Act Abuses, Fueled By Greed, That Disproportionately Displace Elderly and Long-Term Tenants.
April 4, 2006 (SAN FRANCISCO, CA) – The Residential Builders Association, in an unprecedented action, today appealed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to pass legislation aimed at aggressively cracking down on predatory real estate speculators who are flagrantly abusing the state’s Ellis Act.
These abuses of the Ellis Act by rapacious real estate speculators, working hand-in-hand with predatory real estate agents, are destroying the fabric of our neighborhoods,” RBA President Joe O’Donoghue said. “The victims of these practices are generally elderly, long-term tenants, people on disability and young people just starting out, but the bottom line is, we are all poorer for it. We cannot allow these vultures to grow fat at the expense of those San Franciscans who are least able to defend themselves.”
Specifically, O’Donoghue asked the supervisors to introduce legislation that would make buildings vacated as a result of the Ellis Act subject to the City’s more rigorous, new-building construction codes when they are renovated. Currently, such buildings are subject to less rigorous standards.
By subjecting these Ellis Act buildings to the tough standards that are imposed on new construction, we can remove the profit motive, thereby dissuading these grasping and greedy speculators from plying their so-called trade,” O’Donoghue said. “These vultures will no longer be able to make money at the expense of our most vulnerable citizens.”
The Residential Builders Association of San Francisco - founded in the summer of 1976 - is an organization whose members are professional builders, contractors and real estate developers principally concerned with adding to - and enhancing - housing stock in the City of San Francisco.
The Ellis Act, passed by the California Legislature in 1986, ostensibly to allow landlords to go out of the property-rental business, allows property owners to evict all the tenants in a building if all the units are removed from the rental market. Greedy speculators often invoke the Ellis Act to empty out a multi-unit building of all its tenants, and then sell the freshly vacant units as either condos or Tenancies-In-Common.
O’Donoghue said he has directed all RBA members to refuse to work on buildings that have been emptied out as a result of the Ellis Act, and he appealed to the Building Trades Council, which governs the construction trades unions, to do the same.
O’Donoghue also called on members of the City’s Real Estate Associations to likewise publicly refuse to allow its agents to show building that have been cleared out as a result of the Ellis Act.
We have got to end these abuses,” O’Donoghue said, “and it’s high time that the people who have been profiting from these practices stand up and do the right thing.”
April 4, 2006 (SAN FRANCISCO, CA) – The Residential Builders Association, in an unprecedented action, today appealed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to pass legislation aimed at aggressively cracking down on predatory real estate speculators who are flagrantly abusing the state’s Ellis Act.
These abuses of the Ellis Act by rapacious real estate speculators, working hand-in-hand with predatory real estate agents, are destroying the fabric of our neighborhoods,” RBA President Joe O’Donoghue said. “The victims of these practices are generally elderly, long-term tenants, people on disability and young people just starting out, but the bottom line is, we are all poorer for it. We cannot allow these vultures to grow fat at the expense of those San Franciscans who are least able to defend themselves.”
Specifically, O’Donoghue asked the supervisors to introduce legislation that would make buildings vacated as a result of the Ellis Act subject to the City’s more rigorous, new-building construction codes when they are renovated. Currently, such buildings are subject to less rigorous standards.
By subjecting these Ellis Act buildings to the tough standards that are imposed on new construction, we can remove the profit motive, thereby dissuading these grasping and greedy speculators from plying their so-called trade,” O’Donoghue said. “These vultures will no longer be able to make money at the expense of our most vulnerable citizens.”
The Residential Builders Association of San Francisco - founded in the summer of 1976 - is an organization whose members are professional builders, contractors and real estate developers principally concerned with adding to - and enhancing - housing stock in the City of San Francisco.
The Ellis Act, passed by the California Legislature in 1986, ostensibly to allow landlords to go out of the property-rental business, allows property owners to evict all the tenants in a building if all the units are removed from the rental market. Greedy speculators often invoke the Ellis Act to empty out a multi-unit building of all its tenants, and then sell the freshly vacant units as either condos or Tenancies-In-Common.
O’Donoghue said he has directed all RBA members to refuse to work on buildings that have been emptied out as a result of the Ellis Act, and he appealed to the Building Trades Council, which governs the construction trades unions, to do the same.
O’Donoghue also called on members of the City’s Real Estate Associations to likewise publicly refuse to allow its agents to show building that have been cleared out as a result of the Ellis Act.
We have got to end these abuses,” O’Donoghue said, “and it’s high time that the people who have been profiting from these practices stand up and do the right thing.”
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