Empress LLC v. Cityand County of San Francisco

The owners of the Empress Hotel brought this action against the Executive Director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, claiming that the City of San Francisco unlawfully delegated zoning decisions to him by taking official actions consistent with his requests on all zoning petitions affecting San Francisco’s Tenderloin area. We conclude that the action is precluded by the Noerr-Pennington doctrine and affirm the judgment of the district court.

I

The Empress Hotel is located in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, an area which in the past has conjured up images of salaciousness rather than steak. It has also recently been the subject of urban renewal efforts. Several decades ago, the City of San Francisco designated the Empress as a mixed-use hotel and issued a Certifícate of Use that allowed the hotel to operate with 58 tourist rooms and 30 residential rooms. A Certificate of Use remains valid until revoked, but requires annual compliance with the City’s Hotel Conversion Ordinance, which was designed to stop the depletion of housing for the poor, elderly and disabled after studies conducted by the City revealed that a substantial number of residential hotel units in the City had…