Corner Properties are a Problem for GBDs if Street Frontage is used in GBD Assessment Formula
Corner properties are a problem for GBDs with their rate and weighted vote formulas if street frontage is used. The biggest jump in the rate of an assessment comes from linear foot street frontage. Since corner properties have both a front and side that are street facing, their assessments are going to be bigger than their surrounding in-block neighbors who only have 25 ft. of street frontage. The corner properties have about quadruple the street frontage of their neighbors on the same block.For example, plugging some numbers into the Inner Sunset Green Benefit District calculator at https://innersunsetsf.org a 2500 sq. ft. building, 3000 sq. ft. lot, and 120 ft. street frontage gives you- $533.99 yearly assessment and a weighted vote of .06%. Taking the same building and lot sq. ft. and reducing the street frontage to 25 ft. like in-block neighbors gives you - $306.08 yearly assessment and a weighted vote of .03% , a $227.91 difference for being on the corner.
It is hard to argue that corner houses are going to receive any more “special benefits” than in-block houses. Green Benefit Districts use steam cleaning sidewalks as proposed “special benefit” as a means to comply with state assessment laws where there is a need to distinguish “special benefit” from “general benefits”.
CA Constitution, Article 13D:
Sec 2 (i) “Special benefit” means a particular and distinct benefit over and above general benefits conferred on real property located in the district or to the public at large. General enhancement of property value does not constitute “special benefit.”
Sec 4 (a) Only special benefits are assessable, and an agency shall separate the general benefits from the special benefits conferred on a parcel.
Steam cleaning the sidewalks twice a year or more as a “special benefit” is ostensibly the reason for adding linear foot street frontage to the GBD assessment formula. This addition boosts the amount of all GBD assessments. If your property sidewalk has urine, poop or vomit on it regularly, you are probably already cleaning it often. If you are in a neighborhood that has these problems, how often though is it just the sidewalk? Steam cleaning the sidewalks twice a year is not going to increase property values. For most property owners, steam cleaning the sidewalk is a “sham benefit” and people could use the money they would have spent on the assessment towards things that would increase their property value.
Another “special benefit” argument of Green Benefit Districts is the enhancement to commercial zone(s) of the district. This will supposedly increase property values, though tangential at best and a general benefit. Even if we say these community commercial zone projects are a benefit, there is no argument that these projects benefit corner houses more and that corner houses should pay more than the same size middle of the block houses.
Cutting the corner houses on a block on the edges of Green Benefit Districts is taking gerrymandering to an extreme. This has been done in proposed Green Benefit Districts. It is easy to see why the GBD formation committee would gerrymander out corner houses because the corner house voters are worth about twice as much as their neighbors in the GBD weighted voting system and they pay about an additional half more in assessments than their neighbors. They would most likely vote no. If the promoters of the GBDs feel so confident in the worthiness of a GBD, they shouldn’t have to weight the vote of property owners and gerrymander to a house their district by excluding corner houses along the district perimeter. The cutting of corner houses out of the GBD shows the lengths to which they are willing to go stack the deck and force a GBD on a neighborhood.