San Francisco Chronicle - December 11, 2004
San Remo case goes to U.S. high court
Justices expected to focus on 'taking' issue in long dispute
- Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to take up a long-raging fight between the city of San Francisco and the owners of a historic North Beach hotel over a law intended to preserve low-income housing.

The owners of the San Remo Hotel, a 62-unit Victorian structure on Mason Street, say they should have been able to convert some of their rooms from low- income residential housing into short-term tourist lodging with no penalty.

But a city ordinance passed in 1981 and modified in 1990 requires that hotel owners either construct low-income residential housing to replace the lost rooms or pay the city for construction costs. The city fined brothers Tom and Robert Field, owners of the San Remo Hotel, $567,000 under the law in 1993.

The Field brothers, in turn, sued the city in state and federal courts that same year, saying the limits on their right to determine the use of their property amounted to an unconstitutional "taking."

The California Supreme Court rejected the brothers' claim in 2002, and the federal court said they were stuck with the state's decision.

The U.S. Supreme Court isn't expected to decide the merits of the city ordinance itself, but instead is likely to determine how federal courts should deal with property takings already ruled upon by state courts. If the brothers win in Supreme Court, they will take their challenge of the city ordinance back to lower courts.

Their attorney, Paul Utrecht, said he expected to win, noting legal commentators had called the brothers' situation "worse than mere chaos" and "a Kafka-esque maze."

City Attorney Dennis Herrera, however, said the hotel owners weren't "entitled to still another bite at the judicial apple."

"Allowing litigants to shop for favorable forums and endlessly re- litigate decisions they don't like imposes enormous burdens on municipalities in an era of dwindling resources," he said.

Tom Field said he was heartened by the Supreme Court's decision to hear his case -- but he'll be glad when the entire matter is behind him.

"I think everyone should have one federal case in their lifetime - but only one," he said. "I never want to go through another one again."