Harman V. City And County Of San Francisco

In this taxpayer's suit we are asked to determine if San Francisco may properly sell its vacated streets, burdened with private easements of ingress and egress, for 50 percent of their unencumbered fee value. We hold that, because the value of such easements in all of the city's streets are not uniform, the city's arbitrary reduction of 50 percent of the value of the vacated street in fixing the sales price violates its charter duty to obtain 90 percent of the rationally determined market value of all public property offered for sale.