San Francisco’s Commercial Vacancy Tax

jdsupra.com ^ | December 8, 2022

[grundle]

In March 2020, the voters of San Francisco approved Proposition D, also known as the Commercial Vacancy Tax. The ordinance applies to ground floor, street-facing, commercial properties within any of the 32 districts listed in Section 201 of the Planning Code (which the regulation defines as “Taxable Commercial Space”). The districts listed in the Planning Code include the major neighborhood commercial areas of San Francisco such as Polk, Inner Clement, Broadway, the Castro, the Mission, Haight and portions of the Mid-Market and South of Market (around Folsom Street) areas.

The amount of tax is calculated based on the length of store frontage facing a public right of way and the number of consecutive years that the space has been left Vacant. For the first year that a property is Vacant, that amount is $250 per linear foot of frontage, for the second year it is $500 per linear foot, and then increases to $1,000 per linear foot at the third year and thereafter.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

LOL...so you can’t make a financial go of a retail space and vacate it. Then you get taxed on the vacant space that is generating zero revenue.

Never let it be said the best and brightest go into government.

[Right_Wing_Madman]

This is literally the plot of Police Academy 6.

I didn't know that, thanks.

[alexander_busek]

Who pays it, theres no one residing in the building. The building owner has no money as theres no tenants. Can’t get blood from a govt-created turnip.

Ever hear of "tax liens?"

If the building owner can't pay up, he forfeits his property rights / the city confiscates the property.

Regards,

[Secret Agent Man]

Yeah

Although I think all of those vacant building owners should do a multi- billion class action lawsuit against SF for deliberately creating the social environment that caused their major losses of income, and also for crearing an environment where businesses would leave, creating building owners who can’t get new tenants in in a crime riddled city, and will use this self-created situation to steal their buildings under this targeted color of law through liens.

[zeugma]

Plank #1 of the Communist Manifesto: Abolition of private property.

Wew haven't had private property in this country for decades

[Falconspeed]

Force: open your store or else we will tax you for a closed store. And serve coffee in your store or else we will tax you for not having coffee.

[asinclair]

I doubt those buildings are owned free and clear. That means the SF tax will make the commercial debt problem worse. If the owners walk away from the building mortgages, the ownership shifts to the banks. With this vacancy tax in place, no one would even consider buying the building for $1. The banks are stuck with the tax. Another cut in the sea of fiscal cuts.

Glad I don't live in California.