San Francisco’s Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Ordinance allows landlords of rent-controlled units to legally evict their tenants without cause, if said eviction is intended to allow the landlord or landlord’s family to occupy the apartment as their principal place of residence. Landlords can legally evict as long as some... Read More »

While zoned for building up to 80 feet in height, the shuttered Lucky Penny parcel at 2670 Geary Boulevard is also only zoned for moderate density. And as such, plans for a seven-story building, with 21 apartments over three stories of office space, a new ground floor commercial space... Read More »

Purchased as two adjacent but completely separate units in the Royal Towers building at 1750 Taylor Street for a combined $4.6 million back in January of 2014, an application to legally merge the one-bedroom unit #804 and the two-bedroom unit #805 was soon filed with the city, citing a... Read More »

With the wine shop Vino having closed its doors at the end of last year, following a 20 year run at 2425 California Street which sits within the Upper Fillmore Neighborhood Commercial District, on the border of Lower and full-blown Pacific Heights, a request for a formal determination as... Read More »

Airbnb and HomeAway have agreed to dismiss their legal challenge of San Francisco’s new short-term rental law which restricts units that haven’t been registered with San Francisco’s Office of Short-Term Rentals from being listed on their sites and to provide a mechanism for easily verifying said registrations. The requirements... Read More »

With San Francisco Supervisors having drafted two competing proposals for overhauling the percentage and mix of below market rate (BMR or “affordable”) units that developers of market rate projects are required to provide on-site or fund elsewhere in the city, in response to the passage of Proposition C and... Read More »

Having more than doubled from around 250 in 2015 to over 600 in 2016, the number of formal complaints related to illegal short-term rentals in San Francisco is on pace to double again in 2017, with roughly 200 complaints filed in the first quarter of the year, which is... Read More »

In the works for over two years, the custom-tailored ordinance to allow the owners of the 31-story Intercontinental Hotel at 888 Howard Street to privatize the two outdoor terraces on the 3rd and 5th floors of the hotel, which are currently privately-owned public open spaces (POPOS) and were required... Read More »

Marketed as “private micro-suites” with queen sized beds on Airbnb for $90 per night, or “sleeping boxes” according to a couple of complaints, the short-term rental registration/certificate for 4229 Moraga Street in the Outer Sunset, at which there appear to have been up to 12 listings for beds throughout... Read More »

While legislation to streamline the approval process for developers of below-market-rate housing in San Francisco to build up to three stories higher than zoned was adopted last year, the biggest component of San Francisco’s proposed Affordable Housing Bonus Program, which would have allowed market-rate developers to build up to... Read More »