By Tim Redmond
SEPTEMBER 11, 2014 — The final terms of the deal still aren’t out yet, so we can’t be sure. It was hashed out in closed session with the Board of Supervisors and the city attorney, Sup. Jane Kim leading the way.
But if everyone is telling the truth, and nothing is getting changed in the Mayor’s Office at the last minute, then it appears that the big developers at the Transbay Center, who were willing to pay $100,000 for the services of Willie Brown and were threatening to sue the city, got essentially nothing.
Sure, the terms of the deal extend the tax payment period to 37 years and reduce the annual tax amount proportionately. Like a mortgage refinance. But the city can still issue the $1.4 billion in bonds that it needs to do the work on the Transbay Terminal, including extending the Caltrain tracks from 4th Street to downtown .
How did that happen? Two factors:
1. Members of the Board of Supervisors, and apparently the City Attorney’s Office, were completely unimpressed with the lawsuit threat. Too many times in the past, the city has folded when faced with developer and big-business lawsuits, and it’s cost San Francisco hundreds of millions of dollars. Sometimes, these threats are just bluffs; sometimes, the greedy businesses go to court and lose. Sometimes, you have to stare them down and say: So sue us.
2. The mayor and the supervisors were unwilling to back down on the revenue needed for the Transbay Terminal project. They could hardly do what the developers wanted, not without terminal embarrassment: Without the money from the giant projects, the entire expensive construction project would be nothing but a glorified bus station. A regional transit hub needs a rail connection, and that means the city needs every penny of the $1.4 billion in bonding capacity.
And let’s remember: the city gave the developers huge favors. The height limit was increased radically, to allow the tallest building West of the Mississippi. The builders were allowed to get away with shadow impacts that could have shortened other projects. And after all that, they wanted a tax cut?
In other words, there was no way the politics could work for the developers, not even with Willie Brown pulling strings. The sellout would have been too huge – and once the press got involved, too obvious.
So when the majority of the city officials involved said, in effect, no way we’re cutting your tax liability, the developers blinked. They said, okay, just changed a few things around the edges and settled.
If the city had taken the same approach in 2001, there would have been another $30 million a year in the budget.
So I have to ask: Just what did Boston Properties get for its $100,000 lobbying fee? And is that why Brown is so bitter about local government these days?
