Developer behind rejected 50-story condo tower sues San Francisco

The developer behind a controversial plan to build a 50-story condominium tower in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset has sued the city for rejecting the project.

An affiliate of CH Planning led by John and Raelynn Hickey filed a complaint alleging the city misinterpreted state law in finding its proposed highrise at 2700 Sloat Boulevard “categorically out of compliance,” the San Francisco Standard reported.

The lawsuit filed by 2700 Sloat Holding argues the 589-foot tower and retail complex lives up to requirements of the state’s Density Bonus Law, which allows developers to exceed standard density requirements in certain circumstances. 

The suit alleges the city misinterpreted and applied the law to the project.

It added that the proposal was not a final blueprint, but met objective zoning standards and represented an attempt to establish the “realistic development capacity of the site.” 

John and Raelynn Hickey, the developer couple behind the project, claim in their lawsuit that a proposal to build six buildings to make up the tower was “hypothetical and meant only to establish the realistic development capacity of the site. The number of buildings was not a project detail.”

The city’s Board of Appeals late last month unanimously upheld a decision to block the 680-unit project, among the tallest outside Downtown.

The tower, proposed in a low-lying neighborhood three blocks from the ocean, has seen a years-long tug-of-war between the developer and city planners over building density and local zoning rules. 

The highrise proposed by CH Planning, based in Reno, would replace the half-century-old Sloat Garden Center.

In May of last year, the city’s Planning Department notified the developer of issues with a more modest proposal for a 12- to 13-story project. Three months later, the developers came back with a plan to build it four times taller.

Jen Kwart, a spokeswoman for the City Attorney’s Office, said that as of late last week, the agency had not been served with the lawsuit.

Last month, the Standard revealed that John Hickey, who has taken the lead in discussions with the city, had served eight years in a federal prison after he was convicted of  defrauding more than 700 investors in a Ponzi scheme to develop land in Napa and Sonoma counties.

As of 2016, three years after his release from prison, Hickey had paid $5,150 toward the $17.4 million he owed in restitution to his victims, according to the Standard.

— Dana Bartholomew

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