Condo-conversion seniority plan moves ahead (updated)

From this morning's Examiner, "A plan granting seniority points to people who’ve been trying the longest to convert their residential units to condominiums was forwarded without a yes-or-no recommendation to the full Board of Supervisors Wednesday from the Land Use Committee. The move came despite the objection of tenant activists, who argue the plan would encourage evictions by making it easier to upgrade tenancies-in-common to the stand-alone homes."

The nobel laureates at BeyondChron once again have chosen to only get the opinions of those whose time could be better spent doing ANYTHING other than arguing against an otherwise intelligent measure. This measure wouldn't change anything about the number of units converted and only serve to help those who have been waiting for years to convert. In fact, if these brilliant activists actually thought about this a bit, they would see that some folks who have recently evicted tenants could potentially win the lottery on their first try, thereby creating exactly the problem they seek to avoid. If a building has been waiting for 10 years for conversion, don't you think there's less of a profit motive there? There's certainly no 'speculation' in waiting around that long.

Rocket scientist Ted Gullickson "went on to call the legislation a "half-measure" which would only "undercut full measures later." He also made sure to let everybody know that tenant activists would continue to make it as hard as possible for TICs to become condos, no matter what kind of measures are taken, to which Dufty responded, "my intention is not to accelerate anything but to restore some equity." "

So how can you possibly say that this will increase evictions? This DOES NOT change the number of conversions! This just gives preferential treatment to those that have been waiting longer through the now-indefinite lottery system. How does that increase evictions? Give me one good excuse for this battle? Why do you even care about this? Go out and build some housing, already! Jeez!

The one bright side to this is that Gullickson and company continue to show everyone how little they really care about those who they are trying to protect. Their obstructionist tactics have little value, and rarely, if ever, have any consitutional or legal merit. Complaints without solutions are just that; complaints. And nobody listens to a complainer for very long. Ted, we've tuned you out. You had your chance. Step aside and let some intelligent people get to work solving this city's housing crisis!