A plugged-in reader reports that 318 Arleta Ave in Visitacion Valley “was blown over but gusty winds [last] Saturday night..the owner/ developer had just started working on the foundations.” From the Visitacion Valley Grapevine with respect to the property in May:
“City records indicate that the house located at 318 Arleta Ave. was built in 1900. The house still stands today, but its looks a bit run down. The paint has faded and peeled, weeds sprout from cracks in the sidewalk, and a water department ‘shut off’ notice is pasted on a boarded up window. From the outside it looks as if 318 Arleta Ave. might not last another year let alone another century.”
“The property was sold in August of 2007 for the princely sum of $1,029,500 to a Mr. Sergio Iantorno….The million dollar plus sales price may seem stratospheric for this quiet block of Visitacion Valley if not for the fact that 318 Arleta Ave. sits on a 7,500 square foot lot. This is three times the size of the standard 2,500 square foot lot. There are two structures on the lot. The old farmhouse, which sits dead center on the property, and a small detached garage to its left. The right side of the lot is vacant.”
“In February of 2008, a Department of Building Inspection permit was issued to do interiors remodeling, enclose all property line windows, modify stairs and a rear deck, and relocate the entry door to “unit #316.” The new owner later applied to subdivide the 7,500 square foot lot into three 2,500 square foot lots on November 11, 2008. On December 31, 2008 a permit was flied to demolish the garage on the left side of the property. As of April 2009, no permits or plans have been posted for a replacement structure on this lot but it is likely that it will be a new single family home. Also on December 31, 2008 permits were submitted to construct a new two story single family house on the newly created lot to the right of 318 Arleta Ave…”
“Given the fact that significant improvements are planned for the adjacent lots, a fair question to ask: What will happen to 318 Arleta Ave.? Will it be totally remodeled or is it being willfully neglected to justify a demolition? Only the owner can answer those questions, but a few facts should be considered until the community knows for certain. First, the interior was gutted down to the stubs after purchase, but nothing has happened since. This may well be part of the “interior remodel” listed on the February 2008 permit. However, it’s been well over a year. Plenty of time to begin even the most extensive rehab. Secondly, several windows have been removed or intentionally left open leaving the building exposed to the elements and vandalism.”
Sounds familiar. And yesterday an emergency permit for the “partial collapse debris removal” from the second floor of 318 Arleta was requested.
∙ Visitacion Valley Grapevine: Valley News – May 2009 [visvalleygrapevine.com]
∙ The “Resourceful” Demolition Of A Historic Resource? (1268 Lombard) [SocketSite]
∙ 1268 Lombard Losing Its Battle Against The Granite Wrecking Crew [SocketSite]
I smell smoke!
It’s no library. Tear it down.
The old “blown over by gusty winds” problem. Happens all the time.
That bulldozer seen leaving the area when the winds started blowing? Merely a coincidence.
Gutted to the stubs? That would be studs.
sunset guy: is that fire smoke or crack smoke?
Interesting how creative people get about demolitions of derelict properties when the planning board puts up arbitrary rules forbidding it …
“Just let nature take its course …” (or help it along a little).
Let me get this straight.
SF supposedly has a housing crisis
there is supposedly “no land on which to build”
and yet here we have (yet another) huge lot with a derelict unusable building sitting on it that is prevented by our “planning” department from being turned into 3 new housing units.
yeah, shame on the property owner.
and SF wonders why it has a housing “crisis”. It’s all engineered folks.
(FWIW I totally disagree with the tactics used by these ruthless owners, but I disagree more with SF’s ridiculous planning and zoning laws)
“SF supposedly has a housing crisis”
I’ve posted this before, “Every place worth going to has a parking problem” — Jane Jacobs
You can easily morph this into “Every place worth living in has an affordable housing problem” because every place worth living in has more people that want to live there than can live there.
It’s an incredible fallacy to believe that there is some fixed number of people that SF has to accommodate and if we would only build enough housing the affordability crisis would end.
As long as SF is desirable it will have an affordability “crisis”, the only way to end that is to make SF undesirable. See Detroit.
I would not necessarily conclude that owner is intentionally letting property deteriorate. I think the “delay” in getting work done can be explained by owner not wanting to do any work until he gets permits to build the new homes. Not an easy sale on the existing home if you have to explain that you’ll have construction next door going on for the next year.
No, I’m not Sergio.
It’s an incredible fallacy to believe that there is some fixed number of people that SF has to accommodate and if we would only build enough housing the affordability crisis would end.
This is true — because it is a limited good, we collectively bid up real estate to the point of unaffordability.
However, whenever I’m up in Frisco I’m struck by how crappy the multifamily housing stock is, compared to Tokyo, in which I lived for most of the 90s.
SF may be small but it is similar in spacial extent to the core of Tokyo, from the near western suburbs (Nakano) to the near eastern suburbs (Ryogoku). While wall-to-wall 10-story buildings wouldn’t be an improvement, density does have its virtues; more hands and more mouths means more business.
Granted, SF is no longer a regional capital and doesn’t have a manufacturing base, so it’s something of a mystery how the average person is going to find productive employment here, unlike Tokyo which has the entirety of Japan plus much of the world to draw incomes from.
As long as SF is desirable it will have an affordability “crisis”, the only way to end that is to make SF undesirable. See Detroit.
Can I say Amen to that? Amen!
Twitter just raised $100M in a third round. This is larger than many IPOs, for comparison. I assume they will continue hiring only here, so that means at least another few hundred high paying jobs. They are just one example of the many successful and growing tech companies, mostly in New Media. Online ad spending is going back up again.
Looks like you will need to add Twitter to your Patented Lazy Google Indicator, dub dub. Did you see that the Twitter founder just bought a house in Noe?
$100M? Sun is losing that much per month.
The comments about San Francisco Exceptionalism remind me a lot of what I heard in the late 80’s about Los Angeles real estate when I went to USC. The late 80’a bubble estate market on the Westside of L.A. was full of stories about how unique and “wealthy” Los Angeles was, and for a while it was with buyers “investing” from all over the world, but it took many properties over 12-13 years to break even for purchase prices paid in 1988-89. A Twitter founder buys a home in Noe Valley, A Saudi Prince buys an estate on Sunset Boulevard for 50 million in 1988, these unique sales are not proof of either city having a healthy economy.
NVJ, have you ever lived in Manhattan, Chicago, L.A., Tokyo, London, or any other large world city? (I have! London, Chicago and L.A.) San Francisco’s place on the world stage is not nearly as important, especially economically, as it thinks it is. When most of my friends think of the Bay Area, they think Palo Alto, the Peninsula and San Jose since that is where their business travels take them. San Francisco has survived not because it is an economic destination, but because it is a tourist destination that happens to also serve as a bedroom community for large powerful companies that are located at least 15 miles south of the southern border of the city.
It is pretty funny to watch newcomers recycle the same tired arguments over and over again.
You were born here NVJ? Does moving to the city in 1988 make you a “newcomer”?
Unless you were born in the city&county of SF, have never left, and have nothing bad to say about SF, you are a “newcomer.”
New to Socketsite, not new to San Francisco. Note to self: responding to anon is a waste of time, this alias in invariably used by the most clueless.