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Article source: http://www.examiner.com/article/academy-of-art-university-579-million-economic-impact-bay-area

Worried that the city’s 14 postsecondary schools are pushing low-income individuals and families out of apartment buildings and residential hotels to provide beds for their students, the Board of Supervisors is looking to ban almost all conversions of existing residential space into student housing.

“We want to encourage construction of new student housing and block the cannibalization of our existing residences,” said Supervisor Scott Wiener, author of the ordinance that will go before the board’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee on Monday.

Although Wiener and other affordable housing advocates are reluctant to name names, the restrictions are aimed directly at the fast-growing Academy of Art University, which has been taking control of buildings across the city as its enrollment has soared from 2,300 10 years ago to more than 16,000 today.

“The academy has grown a lot in the past decade, with a continuing need for more space,” said Rebecca Delgado, a vice president at the school.

While the for-profit university was founded in 1929, it never had the traditional central campus of other schools like San Francisco State University, UCSF and the University of San Francisco. Without land, expansion has meant buying, not building.

In an October 2011 letter to the city Planning Commission, a university spokesman described its plan for growth.

The university “plans to expand by leasing buildings within the city that become available,” said the cover letter for the university’s institutional master plan.

That’s a strategy that threatens housing for the city’s low-income residents, housing advocates say.

Of the 17 residential buildings Academy of Art University owns or operates, five were former residential hotels, according to a May 10 report to the Planning Commission, “representing a loss of 263 residential hotel units.” Other schools, like the much smaller San Francisco Art Institute, also told planners that they plan to lease student housing from “tourist or residential or mixed residential-tourist hotels and similar quarters.”

No one is denying there’s a housing crunch for college students in San Francisco. The San Francisco Housing Action Coalition estimates that 40,000 to 50,000 of the city’s more than 120,000 college students are scrambling for off-campus housing every year.

“San Francisco’s official student housing policy is Craigslist; come here and hope,” said Tim Colen, the coalition’s executive director.

But when schools try to satisfy that demand by buying existing buildings or negotiating exclusive leases with residential hotels, it pits students against other, often older and poorer, city residents.

“It’s a policy issue,” said Brad Paul, an affordable housing advocate who was deputy mayor for housing and neighborhoods under Mayor Art Agnos. “We have to decide how to encourage schools to build student dorms and take the pressure off city housing.”

The proposed ordinance is the second part of the city’s carrot and stick effort. Two years ago, the board passed an ordinance that exempted any newly constructed student housing from the city’s low-income housing fee, which typically adds $50,000 to $60,000 a unit in building costs.

The new proposal also encourages new construction by exempting new student housing from the city’s requirement for a mix of various-size units, allowing greater density and cutting open-space requirements for developments with small, 350-square-foot or less apartments.

But there’s also a stick in the ordinance. Except for limited exceptions, it bars conversion of existing dwelling units into housing limited to students.

While the city’s residential and apartment buildings “can rent to students individually, schools can’t put together a master lease and remove (the buildings) from the general housing market,” Wiener said.

The new ordinance is the product of long discussions between college officials, housing advocates, landlords and city planners, all working for an agreement that both serves student needs and protects other renters in the city, the supervisor added.

Discussions already are under way with developers interested in building new student housing in the city, said Colen, who sees it as a potentially profitable market for local builders.

The new ordinance “is a real good start,” he added. “Let’s pass it and see how the market responds.”

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-proposes-new-rules-on-student-housing-3725276.php

It’s a fitting moniker, perhaps, considering how many unsold tickets the two teams have on many game days.

Utah-based Overstock.com pioneered the Internet sale of surplus goods from manufacturers and from companies going out of businesses. They now sell top-of-the-line goods as well.

The six-year deal states that the company will pay $1.2 million the first year. That cost increases by 3 percent in each subsequent year, according to the plan that the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority will vote on today.

“What can I say? It’s a good deal and I’m happy,” said Oakland City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, who is also president of the authority, which oversees the stadium and neighboring Oracle Arena. He said he expected the deal to be approved.

“The Bay Area is one of our strongest customer bases,” said Overstock President Jonathan Johnson, who added that the name will bring the company national exposure as well.

“Think of it as the three O’s: Oakland, Oracle Arena and now Overstock.com Coliseum,” Johnson said.

The agreement comes with a couple of caveats: If there is either a football or baseball strike, Overstock will get a pro-rata reduction in its payments.

And if either the A’s or the Raiders leaves the stadium, the company’s payment will get cut by 35 percent.

The Coliseum authority has been looking for a stadium sponsor since 2008 when McAfee, an antivirus software company, declined to renew a similarly priced deal.

In the can?: The 104- year-old Cannery at Fisherman’s Wharf could soon become the latest addition to the Academy of Art University’s ever-growing real estate portfolio.

Sources tell us the for-profit university, which has gobbled up more than three dozen properties around town in recent years, is hoping to enter exclusive negotiations to buy the iconic red brick building at the foot of Columbus Avenue.

The university may also have its eye on the old California AAA headquarters near Civic Center, which is owned by the same investment group as the Cannery.

Once a groundbreaking tourist attraction, the converted Cannery has fallen on hard times and is expected to sell for between $15 million and $20 million – far below the $33 million that Vornado Realty Trust and its partners paid for the building at the height of the market in 2007.

When asked about the university’s interest in acquiring the Cannery, an academy representative e-mailed us an elusive statement Tuesday from project manager Paul Correa. It said no decision had been made but that they were talking to the city Planning Department about the school’s master plan “based on meeting the needs of its students, and on the adaptive re-use and preservation of historic and significant buildings.”

Get me to the …: It’s wedding bells for San Francisco Assemblywoman Fiona Ma.

Ma plans to marry Jason Hodge, a second-generation Oxnard firefighter and avid surfer who she met during last year’s state Democratic Party Convention in Los Angeles. The big day is Nov. 12 in Half Moon Bay.

Ma tells us that Hodge, who was elected last fall to the Oxnard Harbor Commission, proposed to her with a $10 ring when he accompanied her during a state legislative delegation trip to Shanghai in November.

So where do the newlyweds intend to live?

“He has a house in Oxnard, and I live in San Francisco and Sacramento,” Ma said. “We will figure it out.”

And just in case anyone didn’t get the message, consider this a formal engagement announcement.

“I’m just going to link it, and send it to all my friends,” she said.

EXTRA! Catch our blog at www.sfgate.com/matierandross.

Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815 or e-mail matierandross@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/26/BAJS1J7VNM.DTL