Board upholds denial of parking variance for 180 Corwin Street

The San Francisco Board of Appeals on the evening of the meeting upheld the zoning administrator’s denial of a parking-variance request for 180 Corwin Street, refusing to allow the property owner to keep a six-unit configuration with only five off-street parking spaces.

Roger Telles, the appellant, told the board he bought the building for $228,000, spent about $73,000 on renovations, and carried substantial monthly costs while trying to resolve the unit’s legal status. Telles said selling a unit at the city’s below-market-rate (BMR) price of $175,000 would leave him about $151,000 “into the unit” and would force him to pay roughly $40,000 to transfer the unit. He warned those figures made compliance infeasible.

Planning Department staff, represented by Tina Tam, said their records and analysis supported the original determination that the property is a five-unit legal property and that the variance previously had been denied. Commissioners pressed Telles for documentation and a fuller breakdown of his calculations; several said the financial exhibits and tax analysis were insufficiently detailed to establish the substantial hardship that would justify overturning the denial.

Board members framed the decision as a balance between avoiding the loss of an additional housing unit and avoiding the creation of a precedent that would weaken parking and code enforcement. Several commissioners said they were sympathetic to the appellants’ costs but could not find the legal or evidentiary basis to grant the variance. The chair called the roll and the clerk noted that 4 votes would be required to overrule a departmental action; the motion to overturn did not reach that threshold and the denial therefore stood.

Outcome and next steps: The board upheld the zoning administrator’s denial of the variance; no further action was taken at that meeting.