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Sue Hestor has to do what she can to publicize her law practice, but it is ridiculous that the Board of Supes would be still fighting last millennium's battle against live-work lofts. Construction of live-work has been banned since 2001. There's no going back in a time machine to collect the fees from live-work developers the city should have been collecting in the '90's. Let's move on.

"Making current owners pay after the fact for the city's mistakes doesn't seem fair."

Sounds like somebody didn't do her homework before making her purchase.

Heck, it sounds like she didn't even read the paperwork that came with the development!

This is a good example of trying to swim against the ecomic tide with goverment action

Often there are unintended consequences

There is a huge demand for more housing and not so much for industrial and new loft artist space.

The only real solution to this problem is to continue building a variety of new housing units. Regulations, fees, fines, and inspectors are only going to cost money and mess things up for people. Artists do fine with lofts and pay the going rates if they are good, which many locals are. This idea that what goes on inside private dwellings can and should be tuned by government oversight is beyond worthless.

Don't these properties pay property taxes at the normal rate of 1.14%? If so, what is the issue? Is it that the developers didn't pay enough fees at the time they were built (which is now nearly a decade ago)? The Board of Supervisors never ceases to amaze.

Here's an interesting side bar: Because the live/work lofts were built as a special zoning class in industrial areas, and the Planning Dept. in its infinite wisdom is choosing to saddle what are now very mixed use neighborhoods like the North Mission as Industrial -- butt up against mixed use and residential (in fact they are zoning many houses as Industrial and these will only be allowed to stay residential as a grandfathered-in exception and with much less flexibility for future enhancements like a garage) stay with me here -- if the live wrk lofts fall into some new level of compliance by owners paying fees... then the waivers buyer signed when they bought these lofts, waivers with respect to industrial zoning and noise/pollution, then it stands to reason these loft owners will now be able to sue the city for those same issues, which they can't do now. Just watch, if this goes through it will throw the Eastern neighborhoods plan into even more litigation than it already faces. Thanks for reading.

Man, give me a break. Waaaah. I moved into a nightclub district and it's loud at night! waaaah! I moved into a light industrial zone and it took me four years but I now realize there isn't any grass!

Nowhere in that one sided article was made mention of the millions of dollars reaped from transfer taxes paid to the city by the buyers/sellers of these lofts.

As for Sue Hestor, well she's just another Gloria Allred wannabe.

M.R.

My wife is a full-time artist. I know lots of full-time artists. I don't know a single one that owns a live-work loft. I've never even heard one of my wife's friends talk about someone who owns a live-work loft.

Arcane question about live/work buildings: I know many of them, in exchange for the permits, had to permanently give up the right to ever petition for a residential parking permit area around their building. Anyone know what the dividing line is for which bldgs this applies to, and if there are live/work bldgs that are exempt from this? Does this waiver apply to all live/work built after a certain year?

Hey, I said it was arcane.

cy, is that why Harrison St doesn't get permits? One block in either direction is a different zone, but Harrison St itself (at least around 20th) doesn't have any which is very annoying.

Impose the fees, then maybe some of the owners will get a clue of how CCSF & the bored of stupidvisors try and screw small property owners, then maybe some of these owners will vote to throw out the lot of stupidvisors. The artists (& advocates like Debra Walker) lobbied for the exemptions, the developers drove a truck through the laws and now CCSF wants the owners to pay? I hope it fees are imposed - the revolt might start- the sooner the better. Anybody for play doh figurine or papier mache mask classes. I'm here to help.

Jeeze Fluj, such schadenfreude regarding real estate buyers remorse.

It isn't schadenfruede. I'm not gloating. It is more of a notion of sincere disbelief and bewilderment that I meant to express. We're talking about SOMA, right? "Where are the bucolic fields of heather I was promised" doesn't hold a lot of water.