The San Francisco Business Times reports on the bid of former Supervisor Aaron Peskin in his bid for the District 3 seat, currently held by Mayor Lee appointee Julie Christensen. Among other issues he has discussed during his campaign, he would like to expand rent control to apartments built after 1979 – the effective date of the San Francisco Rent Ordinance. These units, as “new construction”, are exempted from rent control.
This kind of change would require an amendment, at the state level, to The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which currently grandfathers the exemption from rent control of units that were decontrolled when Costa-Hawkins was enacted. Peskin notes that San Francisco cannot do this alone, but says that he would “like to at least start that conversation”.
