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Latest from Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP

When the Tax Court issued its opinion in Pine Mountain Preserve, LLLP v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 151 T.C. 14 (December 27, 2018), the conservation community gave a collective sigh of relief because the court dismissed the IRS’s arguments challenging amendment clauses in conservation easements. But alas, the Tax Court giveth and the Tax Court taketh away. That sigh of relief came with some bitter medicine regarding floating homesites. More below.…
In the spring of 2017, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a major overhaul of the City’s inclusionary housing fee provisions.  At that time, we reported on a related bill introduced at the state level by Assemblymember Phil Ting.  The state legislation would have required San Francisco to impose its inclusionary housing requirements on units authorized under the State Density Bonus law (“State Density Bonus Units”), unless the Board exempted these units by ordinance. …
After over seven years of planning and public outreach, as of January 7, 2019, the Central SoMa Plan and its implementing legislation are finally effective.  The City’s analysis concludes that the Plan area has development capacity for over 8,000 new housing units (approximately 33 percent of which will be affordable) and over 30,000 new jobs, and will generate over two billion dollars of public benefits.…
Service Focuses on Conservation Purpose Test and Division of Proceeds Clause in PBBM-Rose Hill, Belair Woods, and Champions Retreat Golf Founders The IRS has been busy this year challenging conservation easement deductions, particularly conservation easements protecting golf courses and conservation easements providing overinflated syndicated tax deductions.…
On September 30, Governor Brown signed AB 2923, which could pave the way for BART to develop up to approximately 20,000 residential units, plus about 4.5 million square feet of office and commercial uses, on about 250 acres of BART-owned land. It requires cities and counties to adopt local zoning standards for BART-owned land that conform to BART Transit Oriented Development (TOD) zoning standards and establishes a streamlined approval process for qualifying projects. The law…
Proposition C—the Commercial Rent Tax for Childcare and Early Education—is set to take effect on January 1, 2019, and increase the Gross Receipts Tax (“GRT”) on commercial rents in San Francisco.  As discussed in our previous post, Proposition C competed with Proposition D—the Housing For All Commercial Rent Tax—and prevailed with San Francisco voters in June.…
This summer, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved legislation that increased the Transportation Sustainability Fee (TSF) for large non-residential projects, amended the HOME-SF (Housing Opportunities Mean Equity-San Francisco) Program to temporarily (through 2019) reduce Program requirements, and created a new administrative approval process for 100% Affordable Housing Bonus Program projects.…
California voters will consider a November ballot initiative (Proposition 10) that would repeal the 1995 California Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act (“Costa-Hawkins”). Costa-Hawkins generally limits rent controls that may be imposed by local jurisdictions on housing units in buildings with a certificate of occupancy issued after February 1995, prohibits local jurisdictions from expanding rent control to include “vacancy control,” and exempts single-family homes and condominiums from rent controls, with limited exceptions.…
Earlier this summer, Bay Area voters passed Regional Measure 3 with 54% of the vote, authorizing $4.5 billion of transportation improvements throughout the region. Commuters will pay a $1 toll hike on seven Bay Area bridges, excluding only the Golden Gate Bridge, beginning on January 1, 2019. Our original article summarizing RM-3 lays out the planned improvements. …