> LVT says the state should not only stop protecting these things, it should do a 180 and actively kill the uses by levying taxes they can't afford.
Do all of those things have to be at ground level? Remember space is not taxed (the marginal tax on building up more space vertically is 0), only land. If a theater is on the 5th floor of a larger building, does it stop being a theater?
Can any theater afford a ground level space at current San Francisco prices?
If a theater can only afford to be in San Francisco because of Prop 13 then we should recognize that as a form of taxpayer subsidy for the theater.
If there is the political will for taxpayers to subsidize theaters (why not, art is nice), then why not subsidize a theater's lease on the 5th floor of some building, instead of preventing building up by subsidizing a one storey theater on the ground floor?
But I think there's a good argument to be made that the taxpayer subsidy process should be more transparent and less arbitrary than "whichever theater bought its land longer ago gets a bigger subsidy".
LVT says the state should not only stop protecting these things, it should do a 180 and actively kill the uses by levying taxes they can't afford. Rather than slowing/blocking the transition to condos and formula retail, accelerate it.
In principle, the new denser buildings could have space for the old low-value uses, but new construction is expensive. The new buildings would have to age a while before those marginal uses could afford them, and in the meantime the tenant organizations would all die. Maybe this could be averted using some central-planning scheme, maybe not. But you can imagine how the electorate might not want to risk it. The trends LVT would tend to accelerate are the ones most residents lament.
I think we should allow sites that are already dead or are transitioning voluntarily to drastically increase density. Letting owners do this forces tenants' hands, which is a sad tradeoff (and to the left-NIMBYs, a dealbreaker). LVT goes even further and forces owners' hands, which I'm less wild about.