By Megan Fan Munce : sfchronicle – excerpt
The developers behind a controversial project to build a 50-story condo building in San Francisco’s Sunset District have sued the city, claiming that officials misinterpreted and violated a state law meant to incentivize affordable housing.
California’s Density Bonus Law (DBL) is designed to incentivize the construction of low to moderate income housing by allowing developers to build more housing units in a project than local regulations normally allow if they agree to make a larger percentage of those units affordable housing.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in the San Francisco Superior Court, the developers, 2700 Sloat Holding, which owns the site, argues that the city is misinterpreting the requirements of the law and also violating it by requiring developers to pay certain fees…
San Francisco Planning Director Rich Hillis said he had not reviewed the exact details of the complaint, but said he believes the developers of the project have misinterpreted how far beyond local regulation the density bonus law allows developers to build.
“It kind of defies logic that you could take a site that has a 100-foot height limit, apply a 50% bonus to it and somehow get a 560-foot tower,” Hilles said. “We think they’re wrong in their interpretation of what’s allowed under the zoning.”…(more)