By Bryan Wenter, AICP and Miller Starr Regalia : jdsupra – excerpt
For decades developers and landowners have considered San Francisco as a City that is unfriendly to property rights. From the City’s Hotel Conversion Ordinance, which severely restricts the conversion of hotels from residential to tourist use, to the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, which gives non-profit organizations the right of first offer and the right of first refusal to purchase certain multi-family properties offered for sale in the City, San Francisco has a longstanding reputation as being hostile to constitutionally-protected property rights.
It comes as no surprise, then, that the Board of Supervisors recently rejected a 495-unit housing development project proposed for development on a parking lot by hiding behind vague concerns about supposed environmental deficiencies under the auspices of the California Environmental Quality Act despite the project’s robust protections under the Housing Accountability Act, California’s most important housing production law. The HAA provides the only lawful basis for a city to disapprove a housing development project and CEQA does not serve as a valid basis to disapprove such projects. The Board’s rejection of the project overturned the Planning Commission’s certification of the underlying Environmental Impact Report and related project approval without making the written findings mandated by the HAA…(more
I’m not going to comment on the inaccurate statements about the San Francisco issues with property rights, since the authors are obviously uninformed. San Francisco’s building industry loves big developments and hates small property owners, so it depends on whose property rights you are referring to.
These threats from the California Department of Housing and Community Development come at a time when the citizens are fighting back with threats of their own. OurNeighborhoodVoices.com is the answer for many who have had enough from the Sacramento politicians. A state-wide effort to collect signatures to put an initiative on the November ballot grew out of the anger of many who were blind-sided by the recent bills such as SB9 and SB10 that remove single family zoning from the state.
These bills, supported by our state representatives were not publicly vetted by the constituents who are really upset and ready to oust the state reps. At least one election to replace David Chiu may ride of the popularity of the state density bills. The top two contenders will have to show their hands on the matter as the outcome will undoubtably show us where the San Francisco is headed. This ballot initiative is heavily supported by Southern California residents who know about it, and they could tip the scales of political power away from Northern California if enough of them decide to vote.
SF CEQA 