The more we dug into this, the more interesting it got

August 7, 2017 10:04 AM

Rich SF residents get a shock: Someone bought their street
posted by Think_Long (53 comments total)

The schadenfreude, it's glorious.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:09 AM on August 7, 2017 [23 favorites]

::muffles loud and long LOLs redundantly::
posted by infini at 10:10 AM on August 7, 2017 [6 favorites]

Now they’re looking to cash in — maybe by charging the residents of those mansions to park on their own private street.

Hoisted by their own petard! I hope someone follows up when the invisible hand gets around to slapping Tina Lam and Michael Cheng silly.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:13 AM on August 7, 2017

This was possible because the street was already private, owned by the development? How common is it that a street would be private? I assumed streets were always "public" given that they are often the map for access to public utilities- power, water, sewer.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:19 AM on August 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

http://web.gocomics.com/boondocks/2003/10/08

Doooooo iiiiiiiitt
posted by turkeybrain at 10:21 AM on August 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

The schadenfreude is tempered by the fact that I'm pretty sure that the people on that street will be able to afford lawyers who know, at minimum, what "easements by prescription" are, and may not pay one thin dime for parking.
posted by Grimgrin at 10:21 AM on August 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm trying to eat lunch, and I can't eat for the laughing.
posted by Etrigan at 10:22 AM on August 7, 2017

Hm. Who owns the gate, I wonder?

'Cause, like, take that away, and those homes would be worth a lot less, and their residents would feel less secure and might be compelled to sell despite the financial loss. Buy 'em all up, put the gate back, resell at original price, ka-ching.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:22 AM on August 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Report: Nation's Gentrified Neighborhoods Threatened By Aristocratization
posted by Space Coyote at 10:23 AM on August 7, 2017 [23 favorites]

To me the biggest question is why a privately owned street only has a $14 a year tax bill.
posted by Think_Long at 10:23 AM on August 7, 2017 [22 favorites]

To me the biggest question is why a privately owned street only has a $14 a year tax bill.

Well sure, it seems awfully low, but those billionaires apparently couldn't afford it.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:25 AM on August 7, 2017 [11 favorites]

“I was shocked to learn this could happen, and am deeply troubled that anyone would choose to take advantage of the situation and buy our street and sidewalks,” said one homeowner, who asked not to be named because of pending litigation.

I...I just can't....hard to breathe....too much laughter....
posted by gusottertrout at 10:27 AM on August 7, 2017 [24 favorites]

easements by prescription

The purchasers have only owned it for two years. Is that really enough time for an easement by prescription?
posted by enn at 10:27 AM on August 7, 2017 [4 favorites]

Drinking your milkshake, buying the dirt under your McDonald's ... a classic play.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:28 AM on August 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

There’s a bit of irony in the couple’s purchase. Until a 1948 U.S. Supreme Court ruling banning the enforcement of racial covenants, homes in Presidio Terrace could be purchased only by whites.

“The more we dug into this,” said the Taiwan-born Cheng, “the more interesting it got.”

chefkiss.gif
posted by poffin boffin at 10:29 AM on August 7, 2017 [33 favorites]

I wish them the best with their combination fracking, skunk breeding business.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:31 AM on August 7, 2017 [27 favorites]

The purchasers have only owned it for two years. Is that really enough time for an easement by prescription?

I'd say it's some flavor of implied easement, but whether that would require the new owners to allow street parking (instead of simply requiring them to allow access between public roads and their own parcels) I don't know. Those houses all seem to have driveways and probably garages, so street parking might not be required.
posted by asperity at 10:38 AM on August 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

easements by prescription

The purchasers have only owned it for two years. Is that really enough time for an easement by prescription?

Exactly. It hasn't been 'hostile' until very recently. Adverse possession won't get them out of this.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:40 AM on August 7, 2017

Maybe they can sell walking tours, too.
posted by jeather at 10:49 AM on August 7, 2017 [9 favorites]

The sitcom/soap opera almost writes itself.
posted by dominik at 10:52 AM on August 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

I see street vendors on all the sidewalks.
posted by suelac at 10:53 AM on August 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

The free market saves the day ... again!
posted by scratch at 10:54 AM on August 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

When I woke up today I did not expect to read an article where a foreign born real estate speculator is the hero of an economic inequality story...
posted by danny the boy at 10:54 AM on August 7, 2017 [41 favorites]

It's nice of them to remind the professional-managerial class of who really runs things.
posted by indubitable at 10:59 AM on August 7, 2017

haha holy shit I read the article now and I take that back. $90k to irritate capitalists like Dianne Feinstein is money well spent.
posted by indubitable at 11:02 AM on August 7, 2017 [5 favorites]

*furiously types e-mail petitioning Final Fantasy XIV game developers to expand the housing market*
posted by Fizz at 11:08 AM on August 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

I read the article now and I take that back. $90k to irritate capitalists like Dianne Feinstein is money well spent.

Past homeowners have included Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her financier husband, Richard Blum; House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi; and the late Mayor Joseph Alioto.

[My bolding]

So, how does shelling out ninety grand irritate someone who doesn't live there anymore?
posted by Mister Bijou at 11:19 AM on August 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Even if Feinstein herself no longer lives on the street, I am certain other capitalists like her currently do.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:21 AM on August 7, 2017 [6 favorites]

So, how does shelling out ninety grand irritate someone who doesn't live there anymore?

capitalists

like

Dianne Feinstein

So, don't be a jerk, Mister Bijou.
posted by scratch at 11:22 AM on August 7, 2017 [4 favorites]

I bet that the Folsom Street Fair would make a decent offer for the street's use as a venue.

[GIS the FSF at your own risk]
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:33 AM on August 7, 2017 [11 favorites]

Is there an outfit that would be crowdfunded to enable more of this? Not even remotely joking.

The poor and middle class are on a slow burn down and "Burn With Us" seems like it's gets a faster and sharper reaction from the Landed Assholery than anything else.
posted by Slackermagee at 11:43 AM on August 7, 2017 [10 favorites]

Seems like the smarter play for Cheng and Lam would be to offer to re-sell the street to the HOA for a couple million and make a quick 2000%+ return on investment, but it doesn't sound like something they're even considering. Is there some kind of legal statute against it?
posted by KGMoney at 12:02 PM on August 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Also, nice burn from the treasury-tax office:

“Ninety-nine percent of property owners in San Francisco know what they need to do, and they pay their taxes on time — and they keep their mailing address up to date,” said spokeswoman Amanda Fried.
posted by KGMoney at 12:04 PM on August 7, 2017 [15 favorites]

That whole enclave is kind of wacky. I got to visit the house of one family there as part of a museum-sponsored tour of local art collectors' homes. The big houses are practically touching each other around the cul de sac - it felt like you could lean out the kitchen window and reach into the neighbor's cupboard for a cup of sugar.
posted by twsf at 12:05 PM on August 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Seems like the smarter play for Cheng and Lam would be to offer to re-sell the street to the HOA for a couple million and make a quick 2000%+ return on investment, but it doesn't sound like something they're even considering.

From the article:

As for the threat to charge them for parking, the residents suspect it’s part of a pressure campaign by the couple to force the homeowners association to shell out big bucks to buy back the street.
posted by Shmuel510 at 12:10 PM on August 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Is there really no requirement for physical notification? That seems weird to me, especially in a large city.
Do they really only need to do registered mail to last known address and/or notice in the major paper?

Around here, if a house is seized, there is a bright orange sticker that need to be affixed at all the entrances.
Vacant lots/parcels of land get a sign facing the nearest street or access.
I'm not sure if the county has ever seized a street, but I imagine the notification process would be similar.

I wonder if the relevant statutes don't specifically mention streets as requiring notification.so the city is in the clear.
But even then, you'd think open space, medians and/or shared access would qualify.

Well, it's a reminder to all HOAs to make sure your paperwork and contacts are up to date.
I can totally imagine some skeevy developer doing this to a middle-class HOA and jacking up trash/water/cable access fees.

"Dear residents, as part of the continuous improvement to our environment, there will now be a mandatory street cleaning charge of $50 per month."
posted by madajb at 12:56 PM on August 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Well sure, it seems awfully low, but those billionaires apparently couldn't afford it.

Presumably there was one resident who was a bit of an asshole and refused to pay on principle (“because fuck you, that's why!”, or some equivalent thereof). Then, of course, it could not but have fallen apart, because, even though any one of the others could have paid the whole thing out of petty cash, people with that kind of money tend to be of the social-dominance orientation, believing that in every transaction, there is a winner and a loser, and the first person to blink and pay the token peppercorn sum would be declaring themselves to be someone else's bitch.
posted by acb at 1:09 PM on August 7, 2017

I just don't see how a multi-million dollar home owner on a private street is truly suffering by having to pay to fix their screwups (or, realistically, by having to temporarily pay until they sue the accounting firm that screwed up). Sorry you're all mildly inconvenienced by a paperwork fuckup, but I lost my violin on account of it being way too tiny to find.
posted by jeather at 1:09 PM on August 7, 2017 [13 favorites]

it felt like you could lean out the kitchen window and reach into the neighbor's cupboard for a cup of sugar.

That is not a wacky rich person thing. That is a city thing.
posted by maryr at 1:12 PM on August 7, 2017 [6 favorites]

I'm wondering about the other 180 private streets in San Francisco. I asked city data whisper (and MeFi's own) Eric Fischer about it and he came up with a few: Culebra Terrace, College Terrace, Grenard Terrace.
posted by Nelson at 1:14 PM on August 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

Weird stuff like this with private property can even happen when everybody thinks they're on top of things. My mom's condo association has been jumping and jumping and jumping through legal hoops to officially transfer ownership of their parking lot and storage units to the condo owners, after some AHEM badly reviewed contract verbiage did not explicitly transfer said parking spots, etc. from the original developers. And this was an honest mistake, as compared to outright negligence or fraud.

Good times.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 1:34 PM on August 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is HILARIOUS.

(And a nice change from ritzy neighborhoods deciding to privatize a public street by putting up a gate to limit access and then finding the city has bulldozed it down AND is charging them out the wazoo for the privilege and somehow don't feel particularly motivated to put repairing the bulldozer damage at the top of the to-do list.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:37 PM on August 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

I hope they rent the parking spots to self-contained tiny houses.
posted by figment of my conation at 2:35 PM on August 7, 2017 [13 favorites]

ThePinkSuperhero: "This was possible because the street was already private, owned by the development? How common is it that a street would be private? "

It's pretty common; most streets in trailer parks for example are private, owned by the park.

Grimgrin: "The schadenfreude is tempered by the fact that I'm pretty sure that the people on that street will be able to afford lawyers who know, at minimum, what "easements by prescription" are, and may not pay one thin dime for parking."

Which will help them not a whit if the parking is already occupied by other residents of the surrounding neighbourhood. Or heck long termed leased to owners of RVs who can't park their equipment in their own driveways. Though I don't personally understand it, apparently RVs and travel trailers parked in front of your house have a negative impact on property values.
posted by Mitheral at 2:43 PM on August 7, 2017

I wonder if it's mostly Terraces? Around here I feel like most of the Places and Terraces are either tiny or private streets.
posted by maryr at 3:09 PM on August 7, 2017

So, can't they just sue whomever manages the HOA in to oblivion to recoup however much the carpetbaggers want for the street?
posted by Megafly at 3:10 PM on August 7, 2017

to recoup however much the carpetbaggers want for the street

That's the thing. The street is not for sale. Pity.
posted by amanda at 8:29 PM on August 7, 2017 [5 favorites]

... to irritate capitalists like Dianne Feinstein ...

I first read that as irrigate, but yeah, that too.
posted by Bruce H. at 9:12 PM on August 7, 2017

This was possible because the street was already private, owned by the development? How common is it that a street would be private?

Weirdly, a single dead-end street in my neighborhood with about 8 houses on it is private. The houses aren't fancy; the owners aren't rich. This street goes straight into the center of what would otherwise be a square block in our fairly uniform grid, so I assume the original developer wanted to create 8 lots without yards in a space that would otherwise be 3 lots with yards, and this is how they did it (à la Baker's Edge brownie pan). Apart from configuration, the street doesn't look different from its surroundings, and you'd never know it's private except that the street sign says so.

I see street vendors on all the sidewalks.

Heh, there are already street vendors in this story, and they vend streets!
posted by aws17576 at 10:55 PM on August 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

There are one or two streets like this in LA, in the mid-Wilshire area. The funny thing is I'd swear Diane Feinstein owned one those houses.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:59 AM on August 8, 2017

To me the biggest question is why a privately owned street only has a $14 a year tax bill.

Prop. 13.
posted by Lexica at 1:13 PM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

And even if the owners buy their way out, now that the property has changed hands the tax amount resets to the current market evaluation. This is a masterful screw job that keeps on giving.
posted by Mitheral at 2:46 PM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

Update: not the first time this neighborhood hasn't paid its taxes on its common areas
posted by crazy with stars at 4:16 PM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]