Levin

MEMORANDUM OF FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

In July 2014, the City and County of San Francisco enacted an Ordinance that requires property owners wishing to withdraw their rent-controlled property from the rental market to pay a lump sum to displaced tenants. The 2014 Ordinance requires that property owners pay the greáter of a relocation payment due under a 2005 Ordinance or the new, “enhanced” amount: twenty-four times the difference between the units’ current monthly rate and an amount that purports to be the fair market value of a comparable unit in San Francisco, as calculated by a schedule developed by the Controller’s Office. Plaintiffs, who are property owners now obligated to pay amounts that range to hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit, allege that the Ordinance on its face is an unconstitutional taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

On October 6, 2014, the Court held a bench trial on the merits in which the parties stipulated to all relevant facts. Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52, this Court now makes findings of fact and conclusions of law. The Court holds that the Ordinance effects an unconstitutional taking by conditioning…