It's not just SF, I sat in on some such meetings in Mountain View. It's petty tyrants in positions of power showing the plebes the extent of their authority. One of them even acknowledged that everything was up to code in a restaurant, but they wanted changes made anyway due to subjective aesthetics.
Sadly, the racist Supreme Court under former President Taft ruled that the city does have pretty much unrestricted ability to interfere with what people do in their homes and businesses, as a police power.
Euclid v. Ambler (1926) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_of_Euclid_v._Ambler_Re....
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It's not just SF, I sat in on some such meetings in Mountain View. It's petty tyrants in positions of power showing the plebes the extent of their authority. One of them even acknowledged that everything was up to code in a restaurant, but they wanted changes made anyway due to subjective aesthetics.
Almost every single zoning rule or HOA rule out there is based on subjective aesthetics without taking into account the immense tradeoffs.
And somehow this all passes Constitutional muster...
Sadly, the racist Supreme Court under former President Taft ruled that the city does have pretty much unrestricted ability to interfere with what people do in their homes and businesses, as a police power. Euclid v. Ambler (1926) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_of_Euclid_v._Ambler_Re....
Does anyone really care about the Constitution anymore? At least in SF, I doubt so.