Exclusive, gated street on which Pelosi and Feinstein once lived.
Posted on 08/08/2017 1:09:49 PM PDT by servo1969
Exclusive, gated street on which Pelosi and Feinstein once lived.
The wealthy residents of San Francisco's exclusive, gated Presidio Terrace haven't paid a $14/year tax bill for three decades. This led the city to auction off the tony street that boasts among its former residents House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA). The auction was an attempt to recoup its delinquent tax losses valued at less than a thousands dollars (including penalties, interest, etc.).
Officials hit the jackpot when a young couple purchased the street at auction two years ago for $90,100. The new owners are reportedly toying with the idea of charging residents and even outsiders (gasp!) to pay to park on their shiny new street.
Now the current residents of the street are outraged and have filed formal complaints and even a lawsuit in an attempt to rescind the sale.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
Thanks to a little-noticed auction sale, a South Bay couple are the proud owners of one of the most exclusive streets in San Francisco -- and they're looking for ways to make their purchase pay.
The homeowners apparently only found out about the sale earlier this year, and they are moving to retake their street.
The San Francisco Chronicle continues:
The homeowners, however, are crying foul and want the Board of Supervisors to negate the sale.
. . . . They didn't learn that their street and sidewalks had been sold until they were contacted May 30 by a title search company working on behalf of Cheng and Lam, said Emblidge. The title search outfit wanted to know if the residents had any interest in buying back the property from the couple, the lawyer said.
"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.
Last month, the homeowners petitioned the Board of Supervisors for a hearing to rescind the tax sale. The board has scheduled a hearing for October.
In addition, the homeowners association has sued the couple and the city, seeking to block Cheng and Lam from selling the street to anyone while the city appeal is pending -- a move residents fear could complicate their efforts to reclaim the land.
The residents say the city had an obligation to post a notice in Presidio Terrace notifying neighbors of the pending auction back in 2015 -- something that "would have been simple and inexpensive for the city to accomplish."
Treasurer-Tax Collector Jose Cisneros' office says the city did what the law requires.
"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.
"There is nothing that our office can do" about the sale now, she added.
Fried said that as far as she knows, the Board of Supervisors "has never done a hearing of rescission" -- and that because it's been more than two years since Cheng and Lam bought the property, it could be tough to overturn the sale now.
Curbed San Fransisco has more details on the suit filed.
In the complaint, homeowners note that the association has owned and maintained the O-shaped avenue since 1905. So why'd they drop the ball paying the tax man? According to the suit:
"The Association has not paid those taxes because the City has been sending the property tax bills to the Association at the following address: 47 Kearny Street. [...] Which is not the address of the association or any member.
"After research, the Association is informed and believes that this address was associated with an accountant who last performed work for the Association in the 1980s. [...No] member of the Association was aware that property taxes has not been paid."
Neighbors hope the court will rescind the 2015 sale and return ownership to them. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the city's Treasurer-Tax Collector told the Chronicle's Matier and Ross that the office did everything required under the law and that everyone else in the city manages to keep their property taxes straight.
Curbed San Francisco continues, reporting on the couple's stated plans for the street:
In the meantime, the street's new owners are considering instituting a parking fee in the neighborhood. But if neighborhood residents aren't keen on paying a parking fee, that's no problem for the street's new owners.
Matier and Ross note: "[I]f the Presidio Terrace residents aren't interested in paying for parking privileges, perhaps some of their neighbors outside the gates--in a city where parking is at a premium--would be."
Priceless. Sell street back to residents for $1 or more MILLION!
Taxes and Sheriff’s Sales are for the LITTLE PEOPLE, dontcha know. We’re SPECIAL and it doesn’t apply to us.
They need to pay an annual Millionaire's tax plus a billion to regain control.
SF is Broke.
The couple should put up a gate and close the street until they drop the suit.
Sell it on to whoever will buy it for a profit, and get out of the lawsuit/liability loop.
Absolutely. There are very few ways to rescind a tax sale; but I would bet that about $50,000 an hour is being spent on attorneys right now to try to do so.
The major problem is that the sale is almost 2 years old. Going to be hard to rescind that without a good old fashioned judge in the pocket to do it.
I call bullying!!! I’m bully-shaming the rich folks!!! /sarc
Too low. There are 120 parking spaces. They could easily charge $1,000 per month each, not an out of line price for parking in SF. That’s 1.44 million per year.
They could have an RV Park there.
A vacant lot there would be a bargain at $50/SF. Let the sellers and buyers hire separate appraisers, and split the difference. The sellers will still come out $millions to the good, and the homeowners will have no more tax bills. Everybody wins.
The thing these owners of the street need to watch out for is a scenario where you have every occupant of those multi-million dollar homes suddenly slipping and falling on the street and sustaining "permanent, life-altering injuries" the next time it rains. I'm sure there are plenty of ambulance-chasing lawyers who would love to take a case like that.
I'm not sure why anyone would buy a street in a neighborhood like that. It's an enormous liability issue, and the new owners are now responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the street.
Rent it out to a conservative group in 2020 and line it with Trump/Pence yard signs.
This kind of thing must happen all the time in private developments with publicly-accessible private streets running through them.
I suspect the equivalent of squatters rights apply - since nobody has contested the current use of the land for the last two years that use (parking) may be protected. (If I don’t actively keep people from hunting on my land for a couple of years they get the right to continue hunting on it, and that right even extends if I sell the land, though only to those hunters who can show they have been ‘continuously and uncontestedly hunting it.)
Or tear up the street and start a community garden for all SF residents. Very eco-friendly.
If the city was mailing tax bills to the wrong address then the residents might have a good case here.
the new owners could maybe erect a nice new high rise Section 8 welfare housing project....to help house many of San Fransicko’s thousands of street beggars
they’ll be Helping The Homeless while also Increasing the Neighborhood’s DIversity
all major left-wing causes, should be very popular in SF
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