Oakland Council in Pre-Dellums Rush to Reward Speculators

by Paul Hogarth, Beyond Chron (reposted)

Mon, Nov 20, 2006 7:40AM

In November 1998, Republicans suffered huge losses at the polling place as a backlash to their impeachment effort against Bill Clinton. Nevertheless, the lame-duck House of Representatives voted to impeach the President anyway. Now Oakland City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente (a failed Mayoral candidate) wants to rush through a condo conversion bill to reward his allies in the real estate industry – even though incoming Mayor-elect Ron Dellums opposes the plan. Dellums won over 50% of the vote last June, and mayoral candidates opposed to increased condo conversions won 66% of the vote. De La Fuente’s ordinance is a slap in the face at Oakland voters, and will be an early Holiday present for real estate speculators who stand to make massive profits. But it would be the Nightmare Before Christmas for Oakland’s low-income, elderly or disabled tenants.

Oakland protects tenants who are in danger of losing their homes through condominium conversions. Under the current law, property owners who want to convert a building that has five or more units must buy a “conversion right.” Either they must build new replacement units for the evicted tenants, or they can (and the vast majority of them do this) find someone who has built a condo complex that agrees to rent to the tenants for seven years. Speculators hate this “conversion right” requirement because it slows down the potential gentrification of Oakland. Still, there have been 390 condo conversions in Oakland in 2006 alone (more than the total number of conversions from 1981-1999) – and most of them have been in buildings of 2-4 rental units where no “conversion right” is required.

Read More
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=3930#more

Add Your Comments

Support Independent Media

We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!