KQED-
San Francisco residents will soon decide if property owners of longtime vacant storefronts should pay additional taxes.
Proposition D, on the March 3 primary ballot, marks the latest effort to curb the increasing number of empty storefronts that have sprung up throughout the city in recent years. Under the measure, championed by Supervisor Aaron Peskin, property owners in the city’s roughly 40 neighborhood commercial districts — including Union Street, Japantown and Haight Street — would have to pay $250 per linear foot of ground-floor retail space that has sat vacant for more than 182 days. That tax would double to $500 the following year and $1,000 annually thereafter.
The measure requires the approval a two-thirds supermajority and would take effect in 2021.
The California Right 