If you've ever been to San Francisco, you'll know that finding a good parking space is always an issue. However, destroying the limited affordable housing in favor of new parking structures is not the answer. That's why San Francisco Board of Supervisor President David Chiu has introduced legislation that would make it more difficult to evict tenants.

“A recent survey of new garage permit applications show that almost a half of all permit application to build new garages there have been a previous mass eviction involving the Ellis Act,” Chiu said. (The Ellis Act, which state legislators passed in 1986, granted landlords the legal right to evict tenants if they no longer wanted to rent out their housing but sell it on the market instead.) “Working class and lower income tenants have been evicted under the Ellis Act in the North Beach area so that new owners can build garages and less dense units. We are talking about less housing and more garage parking.

The legislation would require anyone who wants to build a parking garage and who evicted tenants using the Ellis Act to have to obtain a special permit to build the garage. The permit would require public hearings and would be appealable to the Board of Supervisors.

Also, the legislation would “modernize parking controls in the north east neighborhoods of our city” by implementing the parking rules developed in the recent Market-Octavia plan.

I've never lived in San Francisco, but this seems like a win-win to me. Not only will it preserve much-needed housing in the city, but it will keep the focus on improving public transportation and away from encouraging more cars.