San Francisco sues developers of sinking luxury high-rise

San Francisco on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the developers of a sinking and tilting luxury high-rise, claiming that the developers were aware of the problems but withheld the information from  potential home buyers in breach of the law. 

Millennium Tower, which was completed about eight years ago had sunk 16 inches into the soft soil and landfill, so far. The sinking of the tower in the city's city's crowded Financial District had been uneven, which had left the tower tilt 2-inch at the base and roughly 6-inch at the top.

City attorney Dennis Herrera filed the suit against Mission Street Developers LLC, in a cross-complaint of the previous lawsuit filed by homeowners against the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, which is building the new Transbay Transit Center next door.

"We are not going to sit by and allow a developer- or anyone else - to enrich themselves at the expense of others by hiding crucial information that they're required by law to disclose," Herrera said at a news conference Thursday. "That gave the developer an unfair advantage against competitors, and it cheated homebuyers out of information they needed to make an informed decision."

In the lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, Herrera claimed, developer Millennium Partnersknew by 2008 - a year before it started selling condominiums - that the building had sunk almost 6 inches, well in excess of projections.

''Part of my responsibility as city attorney is to protect San Francisco residents and taxpayers from unfair or unlawful business practices,'' Herrera said. ''Before they had sold a single condominium Mission Street Development LLC (Millennium Partners' affiliate) knew it had sunk more than it was supposed to and that it was still sinking. Yet they didn't tell homeowners as they are required to do so under the law. It's that simple,'' sfgate.com reported.