Supervisor Aaron Peskin is gearing up to draft legislation that would expand rent control to properties built after the current 1979 cutoff. Working with the City Attorney's office, Peskin is exploring a trade-off for new developments, which could be given height increases or zoning revisions in exchange for imposing rent control.

“As San Francisco builds more, the new buildings we build should afford the same legal protections against eviction and exorbitant rent hikes that current buildings have — or else the City will have a two-tier system, with some renters having more rights than others," Peskin said in a statement shared with SFist.

The Supervisor, who began his term just over a week ago, has been heralded as a progressive messiah and a challenge to Mayor Lee's status quo — after all, Peskin did defeated the Lee's appointed Supervisor Julie Christensen.

As the San Francisco Tenants Union lays out the basics of rent control, which is administered by the Rent Board, "In San Francisco, most tenants are covered by rent control. Rent Control rents can only be raised by certain amounts per year. In addition, some rental units have restrictions on how much the landlord can charge the new tenant due to previous evictions."

University of San Francisco law professor Tim Iglesias, who specializes in housing law, tells KQED that the City Attorney’s Office would be more receptive to a change than might the housing industry. "If it does get passed, I would immediately expect that they would bring a lawsuit to stop it,” he's quoted as saying.

Speaking of challenges to Mayor Lee, at the same meeting of the Board of Supes, the Examiner writes that Jane Kim introduced a charter amendment intended for the June ballot that would double the percent of affordable housing market-rate developers are required to build under inclusionary housing policies. That's a direct challenge to Lee, who also hopes to increase the reach of inclusionary housing but through slow and careful consensus — just as you'd expect from Ed Lee.

The current 2012-established inclusionary requirements are for market-rate developments of 10 residential units or more. Developers must build 12 percent of the units overall as below market-rate housing on the same site, or 20 percent on a different site, or incur a penalty. As inclusionary housing is a part of the City's charter, changes proceed through the ballot.

“We need more supply of all kinds of housing to meet the still growing demand,” Kim said in a statement. “Increasing inclusionary housing requirements for new developments is one critical way to create more housing that’s affordable to more San Franciscans.̶

The Chronicle remarks that Kim's move "will undoubtedly be seen as a political power play," forcing Lee to act fast or get out of the way.

Related: Mayor Seeks Increase In Affordable Housing Requirements