Sponsored link
Monday, January 13, 2025

Sponsored link

UncategorizedThe other Twitter tax break -- and how it...

The other Twitter tax break — and how it cost the city $25 million

By Tim Redmond

Way back in 1969, when Sue Hestor was a young activist organizing a peace march, she asked the sympathetic owner of the Furniture Mart building on Market Street if he would let her group use a corner of his shop for office space. “He said he was sorry, but no,” Hestor, now a veteran land-use lawyer, recalled recently. “He said the legal use of the building was very clear: Just showroom space, no offices.”

That’s the position the city took in 2002, when the owners wanted to rent out the 1.2 million-square-foot space, which was used as a home furnishings showroom, as offices. The zoning administration, Larry Badiner, said that would require a change of use: Under city law, the property was never used for offices, and if the owners wanted to fill it with cublicles, they needed to apply under the city’s annual limit on new office space – and pay the fees that any other office developer would pay.

Now, of course, the building is home to Twitter, and has been renovated entirely for traditional office use. And there’s been considerable discussion around the payroll-tax break that Mayor Ed Lee used to entice the microblogging company to set up its headquarters, with several thousand employees, in the 1937-vintage mid-Market building.

But there’s been almost no discussion of the fact that the building owners never paid the $25 million in city fees for housing, Muni, and childcare that should have been required when the showroom became office space.(more after the jump)

48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our FacebookTwitter, and Instagram

Marke B.
Marke B.
Marke Bieschke is the publisher and arts and culture editor of 48 Hills. He co-owns the Stud bar in SoMa. Reach him at marke (at) 48hills.org, follow @supermarke on Twitter.

Sponsored link

Sponsored link

Featured

The ‘common sense’ attack on progressive policies and ideas

Plus: SFPD's failure to keep racial profiling records and the early signs of Wiener's housing policies and the People's March .... that's The Agenda for Jan. 12-19

OPINION: An open letter to three new supervisors with a few questions

Can a concerned resident pin down Sherrill, Mahmood, and Sauter on some issues they haven't talked much about?

When it comes to playing a pop star, he’s more monkey than man

How actor Jonno Davies and writer-director Michael Gracey went ape on superstar Robbie Williams for 'Better Man.'

More by this author

Adorable free ‘Muni Routle’ game tests your SF transit knowledge

Hop aboard the city's latest obsession: an online daily quiz for transportation geeks—and folks just waiting for the bus.

Beloved Lower Haight artist Pete Doolittle has died

His brightly-colored iconography, painted mostly on discarded windows, came to represent the rapidly changing neighborhood.

Party Radar: 11 last-minute NYE (+ NYD) picks for your cork-popping delectation

Our 'pick of the litter' for a sweet, sweet eve—plus our infamous Comedowns Are For Losers New Year's Day list.
Sponsored link

You might also likeRELATED