Supes' misguided decision gives tenants, owners equal clout - San Francisco Business Times:

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With un-Solomon-like wisdom, the Board recentlyg approved an ordinance makingall "conditiona use" building permits issued to commercial property ownersx subject to appeal before the Aside from undercutting the authority of the , which usually maintains purview over such the Board has deciderd that the appeal process can be triggered by the signatur e of just five Supervisors acting at the behesgt of any residential or commercia l tenant in the city -- not those withinn the surrounding neighborhood.
This fundamentally changes the rules by which city government invalidating guidelines that previously allowed only property ownera the right to appeal Planning Commission decisionsd and granting equivalent rights to a group that has no legitimat basis forhaving them: tenants. Existing laws require the city Planning Commission approve a conditional use permit before any property owner structurally alters his or her In turn, property owners who apply for such a permitt must prominently display their application in the area where the remodeliny is planned and must notift all property owners within 300 feet of the project by Until the Board of Supervisors' recent intervention in the regulatorh process, if a nearby owner or tenant objectex to construction plans in theirr neighborhood, they could appear beforre the Planning Commission and state their case for not issuinb a conditional use permit.
Once the Planning Commissiob had granteda permit, however, only nearbuy property owners were permitted to protest the decision by petitioning the Boardf of Permit Appeals (to revoke the In most other cities acrossa the country, this is callefd due process. Yet, to the Board of Supervisors, this course of actioj didn't extend far enough. Regrettably, from a practicak standpoint, their efforts will hurt the local economy.