S.F. parking fee case to state’s high court

The state Supreme Court will hear San Francisco’s appeal seeking millions of dollars in parking taxes from lots run by three state university campuses, which have avoided charging customers a 25 percent fee that the city levies on users of all other parking facilities.

Lower courts ruled that UCSF, UC Hastings College of the Law and San Francisco State University were exempt from the tax because California law prohibits local regulation of state institutions. But the state’s high court voted unanimously Wednesday to take up the city’s appeal and decide whether San Francisco and other charter cities can collect the taxes from public universities. No hearing date has been scheduled.

“UC benefits from the city’s support, the people who work at UC benefit, and they should pay taxes on the same footing as everybody else,” Deputy City Attorney Peter Keith, the city’s lawyer in the case, said Thursday.

Data from several years ago show that UCSF would have paid the city $4.3 million a year, and Hastings $450,000, if the tax had been collected, Keith said. No figures from San Francisco State were available. Keith said a ruling in San Francisco’s favor would also benefit Berkeley, Los Angeles and Santa Monica, where state campuses likewise have been exempt from local parking taxes.

San Francisco established its parking lot tax in 1970 and increased it to 25 percent in 1980. The city tried to collect the tax from UCSF in 1983, backed off when the university objected, and finally sued in 2014 to require the universities to add the tax to their parking fees.

In a 2-1 ruling in May, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco said the universities’ parking lots are state “governmental activities” that support the schools’ educational and clinical functions by providing access for students and employees.

The majority opinion in that ruling by Presiding Justice James Humes cited a 1978 decision in a dispute between Santa Monica and UC. In that ruling, another appeals court rejected Santa Monica’s attempt to require UC to obtain a permit and pay fees to construct a university building in the city.

The state Supreme Court, Humes said, set the ground rules in 1956 when it refused to let a city impose building permit and fee requirements on a local school district because schools are regulated statewide.

Dissenting Justice Kathleen Banke argued that a state institution’s exemption from local regulations doesn’t apply to taxes paid by private citizens to park their cars.

The case is San Francisco vs. UC Regents, S242835.