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By Isabell Angell and Grace Rubenstein
State lawmakers are jumping into San Francisco's affordable housing crisis, trying to ease the crunch by targeting the controversial Ellis Act.
Two bills from San Francisco legislators -- one each from state Sen. Mark Leno and Assemblyman Tom Ammiano -- would allow cities to limit how landlords can use the law.
The Ellis Act, enacted by California in 1985, was intended to give landlords a way out of the rental business. But in San Francisco it's been widely used to evict tenants to make way for condos.
Leno's bill, introduced yesterday, would allow the city to prevent landlords from using the Ellis Act for five years after buying a property. Ammiano's bill would allow cities to enact a moratorium on Ellis Act evictions when they don't have the ratio of affordable housing required by law (most cities don't).