Contrast that with New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Property owners had their buildings destroyed, so taxes went to zero (taxes based on the property value, not the land value). This incentivized property owners to wait and see if their neighbors would rebuild rather than take immediate action.
Property taxes on land aren't unique to San Francisco. It's basically standard practice in most cities to have one tax for property and one tax for improvements.
> Contrast that with New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Property owners had their buildings destroyed, so taxes went to zero (taxes based on the property value, not the land value)
New Orleans has separate property taxes on land and structures, so property taxes did not go to $0 after Katrina.
Overall property tax rates went up because income from taxes on structures went down, but unimproved lots still get a tax bill.
The main difference between property and land tax is that with a land tax, the structure isn't taxed. So you can build up "for free" wrt taxes, which encourages more density on the most valuable land.
E.g. land in the middle of downtown San Francisco that's currently rented out as a flat parking lot, could instead be built up into multi level parking or housing instead. Whereas the current tax structure would punish such developments by increasing the tax (which is why it's still a flat parking lot).