Mello Roos assessments show up on your SF tax bill as community facility districts (CFD). Every parcel in San Francisco is a part of at least one Mello-Roos/CFD. For most of the city it's the one for SFUSD's seismic facilities district, about $43 a year on a house and $21.50 a unit in a condo building, and nobody notices it.
Newer neighborhoods have additional CFD/Mello-Roos assessments that are sometimes substantial: Transbay, the Shipyard at Hunters Point, and Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island. On a 1,000-square-foot condo in a Transbay tower the taxes are about $10,500 a year on top of the 1.18% everyone else pays. While in Mission Bay they are a fraction of that, typically between $850 to $2,400 a year on a 1,000 square feet condo, depending on the block.
Read on to learn:
- 📏 Why Mello-Roos is a tax on square feet, not on value, and why Prop 13 and Prop 19 never touch it.
- 🏙️ Transbay: the expensive one, building by building, with the year each one ends.
- 🏝️ Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island: a lower rate that turns into a tax forever.
- 🚢 Mission Bay: cheaper than its reputation.
- ⚓ The Shipyard: per unit plus per foot, and a second district for maintenance.
- 🏫 The small ones everyone pays, and the old ones almost nobody notices.
- 🏗️ What's coming at Pier 70, Mission Rock, Central SoMa and Potrero.
- 📋 One table with every district, and how to buy in one without surprises.
