Having been charged with evicting tenants from rent-controlled units and then illegally marketing the apartments as short-term rentals on Airbnb, Homeway and VRBO, Darren and Valerie Lee agreed to pay $276,000 in penalties and fees back in 2015. As we first reported at the time, the settlement included injunctive... Read More »

The value at which a residential unit in San Francisco is now considered to be “demonstrably unaffordable and financially inaccessible” by the City’s Planning Department has just been raised to $1.63 million, up from $1.51 million and versus $1.34 million in 2013. The demonstrably unaffordable mark, which is set... Read More »

While San Francisco’s Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office was recommending that the City actively explore “the highest and best use” for the city-owned gas station site at 598 Portola Drive, and consider rezoning the parcel for redevelopment, perhaps with a bit of housing in light of the city’s oft-touted... Read More »

A plan to build and preserve affordable housing for 500 San Francisco educators by 2020 is now on the boards. As proposed and announced by Mayor Ed Lee this morning, the City proposes to jointly finance at least one new affordable housing development for 100 educator households with the... Read More »

While the Mayor’s Office has agreed to spend a potential record-setting amount to purchase a Mission District development site in order to build 72 units of affordable housing, the City is poised to approve the development of a 550-foot office tower on Transbay Block 5 at the corner of... Read More »

Two landlords who employed the Ellis Act to evict tenants from the rent-controlled units and then marketed the apartments as short-term rentals on Airbnb, Homeway and VRBO have been hit with $276,000 in penalties and fees to settle a lawsuit brought by San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera last year.... Read More »

Officially lobbed by Supervisor Chiu, Mayor Ed Lee is slated to answer the following “housing crisis” question of the week in a prepared address to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday: “Mr. Mayor, last month, Supervisor Jane Kim and three colleagues introduced a ballot measure that would limit... Read More »

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has filed two lawsuits against landlords in San Francisco for illegally converting their apartments into short-term rentals, which the property owners then marketed through online platforms such as Airbnb, Homeway, and VRBO. “In the midst of a housing crisis of historic proportions, illegal... Read More »