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Vacancy glut in SF could spur tax on empty storefronts
SF Chronicle ^ | 24 Jan 2018

Posted on 01/24/2019 7:40:05 AM PST by rey

When people see the empty storefronts that have multiplied in San Francisco the past few years, they often blame competition from online vendors for the death of small retailers.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin sees another culprit: landlords who intentionally keep their properties vacant until they can extract higher rents from potential tenants. Now he wants to repopulate those storefronts by taxing property owners with consistently empty units.

“This is by no means meant to be a revenue generator,” Peskin said Tuesday. “It’s meant to be a behavior changer.”

Under Peskin’s proposal, owners of commercial properties in Neighborhood Commercial Districts — areas where stores and services are clustered — that are vacant for more than six months would face a fine of at least $250 per day. And while storefronts are the visible face of the long-term vacancy problem, Peskin wants to target residential properties as well. Landlords with three or more units that are vacant for six months would also pay $250 per unit per day until the unit is leased.

(Excerpt) Read more at sfchronicle.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: tax; vacancytax
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To: null and void

We have friends who just sold a five unit apartment house on Telegraph HIll that they have owned for at least ten years. They live in Nevada and bought it so that they would have one of the apartments for their own use when they came to town.
For openers, the law would not allow them to end the lease on any of their tenants so that they could have a place of their own. So for several years, when the came to SF, they still had to stay in a hotel. Then the city came along and demanded that they do substantial earthquake “hardening” of the structure, necessitating that they “relocate temporarily” two of their tenants. They offered one of them “some additional money” to not come back (which was illegal, but it worked). They wanted the penthouse, but it was occupied by an over 60 bachelor. The rules for over 60 tenants are even more onerous that for “normal people.” Fortunately, the guy found a girlfriend who lived out of the city and he left.
But the deal killer was that under SF rent control law, you, as a landlord, are only able to raise rents 60% of the actual value of your property. So each year, your income lags the market, while the cost of maintenance goes on. They finally had had enough, sold out and reinvested the money in properties in Nevada and Arizona. And with Prop 13, the new owner is facing a huge increase in the building’s property taxes, with no ability to raise rents to cover that cost.


41 posted on 01/24/2019 8:22:59 AM PST by vette6387 (Fire Mueller)
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To: rey

“This is by no means meant to be a revenue generator,”

LIAR.


42 posted on 01/24/2019 8:23:38 AM PST by fungoking (Tis a pleasure to live in the 0zarks)
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To: vette6387
We have friends who just sold a five unit apartment house on Telegraph HIll...

Didn't they see this?


43 posted on 01/24/2019 8:25:19 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: dfwgator

Telegraph Hill and Pacific Heights are two very different places in the city. Nazi Pelosi and Dianne Fineswine live in Pacific Heights.


44 posted on 01/24/2019 8:28:38 AM PST by vette6387 (Fire Mueller)
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To: vette6387

The point is how the system is rigged against Landlords.


45 posted on 01/24/2019 8:29:05 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Larry Lucido; SaveFerris; PROCON
Whatever you do, don't open a Pakistani restaurant!


46 posted on 01/24/2019 8:32:49 AM PST by Gamecock (In church today, we so often find we meet only the same old world, not Christ and His Kingdom. AS)
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To: dfwgator

“The point is how the system is rigged against Landlords.”

For sure. We just sold a commercial building in a well-known North Bay city. We owned it for 18 years. We were lucky to choose a place to invest where the city government stays of of the business of trying to control the property rental business. That said, we too are investing the proceeds in property outside the State of California, and because we’re doing a tax-free exchange, California will get zip in any capital gains taxes.


47 posted on 01/24/2019 8:33:28 AM PST by vette6387 (Fire Mueller)
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To: circlecity

The remedy is to burn the property and collect the insurance and then leave the burned out hulk

The Homeless did it. There were no police protecting the streets. They burned the place in retribution for comolaining about crapping on the sidewalks.


48 posted on 01/24/2019 8:34:58 AM PST by bert ( (KE. N.P. N.C. +12) Pri ncess Gray Beaver, for President?)
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To: rey

You don’t suppose that mandatory minimum wage had something to do about it, do you? The same owner could open up in the suburbs and pay employees $10/hr instead of $15/hr. That would inspire businesses to move.


49 posted on 01/24/2019 8:39:11 AM PST by OrangeHoof (When the Rapture occurs, CNN will still be fully staffed.)
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To: budj

That’s it in a nutshell. The factor they did not mention is the incredible overreach, fees, taxes, and regulation that cost more to comply with than what you can make.

That’s absolutely how Ca destroyed my business.


50 posted on 01/24/2019 8:39:29 AM PST by Openurmind
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To: rey
What I don't understand is while landlords should be free to do as they please with their property, why would they leave high rent property empty.

What businessman wants to rent property where customers have to sidestep human feces on the sidewalks and step over vagrants reclining in their doorways?

51 posted on 01/24/2019 8:40:56 AM PST by JimRed ( TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: rey
Supervisor Aaron Peskin sees another culprit: landlords who intentionally keep their properties vacant until they can extract higher rents from potential tenants.

Dear Supervisor Peskin,

That is what is called the free market. You know, what made America great. Those are their stores; not yours.

52 posted on 01/24/2019 8:43:13 AM PST by Petrosius
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To: circlecity
My bet is that this is an effort to help some well connected property developers buy these properties for a song.

If the developers names are Trump-related, it will bring a criminal investigation. Schumer, Pelosi or other RAT relatives, not so much.

53 posted on 01/24/2019 8:44:35 AM PST by JimRed ( TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: sevlex
I predict a sudden rash of “suspicious” fires.

That worked out great for Detroit.


54 posted on 01/24/2019 8:48:49 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: rey

Not that I agree with the councilman’s draconian marxist leninist solution, but this behavior has been SOP for a long time. Walk west on Bleecker from 7th ave South in the Village and you will find dozens of vacant shops whose landlords are waiting for someone to meet their price. Even on Long Island this plays out in our many strip malls. One in Carle Place that hosts a Manhattan level restaurant has had four of its nine properties vacant for over five years. Is there a solution? Market forces created this, it is likely they eventually will solve it. As for Frisco, were this abomination to become law I would challenge it on the takings clause of the 5th amendment.


55 posted on 01/24/2019 9:07:46 AM PST by xkaydet65
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To: rey

So you can’t get a tenant in a bad neighborhood. Punishment is to tax you.

I predict a boatload of mysterious fires as property owners choose to go Galt.


56 posted on 01/24/2019 9:09:58 AM PST by meyer (WWG1WGA, MAGA!)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Her! Hear! Buckeye McFrog nails it!

Punitive taxation is a dhimmicrap weapon of choice.


57 posted on 01/24/2019 9:10:41 AM PST by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. Mr Trump, we've got your six.)
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To: rey

Maybe the regulatory environment in SF is so egregious as to keep entrepreneurial risk at an ebb. Ya think? maybe no one wants to risk being in a store front business in that loony bin.


58 posted on 01/24/2019 9:15:25 AM PST by VTenigma (The Democrat party is the party of the mathematically challenged)
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To: rey

I’m a landlord of several rental units. My highest priced unit on a price per square footage basis is approx $1.45 per square foot monthly.


59 posted on 01/24/2019 9:17:36 AM PST by Degaston
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To: VTenigma

I wouldn’t mind opening a business in a non-feces neighborhood.


60 posted on 01/24/2019 9:18:15 AM PST by morphing libertarian (Use Comey's Report; Indict Hillary now; build Kate's wall. --- Proud Smelly Walmart Deplorable)
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