Plugged-in people see it all the time in San Francisco, two-unit buildings remodeled to live like a single-family home but still legally “two units,” often times with a door or wall removed following final inspections.
To be heard by San Francisco’s Planning Commission this afternoon, an aboveboard request to legally merge the two units at 19-21 Child Street into one, removing the kitchen from 19 Child Street and a section of wall between the two owner-occupied units.
From the owners (who likely aren’t quite as naïve as presented):
We are a young family hoping to keep and grow our roots in San Francisco. In 2009, we purchased 19-21 Child Street with the goal of making it our family home. As new homeowners, we did not realize the structural limitations of its designation as a multi-unit building. Since then several events have occurred that have changed our needs: Our daughter Sophie was born in July 2011 and it has become clear that [my husband’s] mom will need to come live with us in the lower unit.
And from the Planning Department (which shouldn’t be either):
The project is not consistent with the Housing Element of the General Plan in that the proposal will eliminate two dwelling units with area that could both potentially accommodate families and would result in one dwelling unit that few San Francisco residents could afford. The flight of families from San Francisco due to a lack of family sized dwelling units available in the City has been specifically cited as an area that needs to be addressed in the Housing Element as it relates to production and retention of family housing stock. The proposed merger would not help San Francisco achieve its goal of retaining families and family‐sized housing in the City.
Despite letters of support from their Russian Hill neighbors, and none opposed, the Planning Department recommends the Planning Commission disapprove the dwelling unit merger (DUM) request for 19-21 Child Street.
∙ 19-21 Child Street Dwelling Unit Merger Request [sfplanning.org]
∙ San Francisco’s DUM Policy In Principle (And Action At 2037 Jefferson) [SocketSite]
Such BS. I can’t stand the SF Planning Department… for many reasons, of which this is but one.
I know several people in the same situation that don’t want to deal with the planning department or the planning commission to convert their two unit buildings into a single family dwelling they just don’t rent out one of the units or have taken down a wall without permits. I think the building above and others like them should be allowed to convert the building to a single family home. For all purposes the buildings are acting like one unit anyway why not let them just make it legal?
I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask, but I don’t see why the city should bend the rules to accommodate these fine folks. And frankly, a separate unit for the mother-in-law sounds like the optimal solution if you ask me; and a lame excuse to give the planning commission who has no heart. Now, say, if they were to create a 400 square ft apartment with a door in the lower level with a kitchenette and call it “unit b” they would probably have a much easier time here. Planning rarely comes onsite to inspect from what I understand. Building Inspectors just care that its built to code. I expect they will be filing a revision with the planning department in a few weeks. This stuff happens every day in the city so not sure why its newsworthy unless I’m missing something. I hope they get their approval; but I’d seriously consider keeping the Mother in Law in a separate unit. 🙂
Another example of ideological overreach by the planning department. The city should do everything they can to retain families who would like to put roots here, but instead this particular planner thinks that it is in our interest to force this family out of the city. What i find particularly sad is that the planner do not seem to see or to care for the consequences of his/her actions
Maybe Planning could approve the change with a Conditional Use permit that required the building to be re-converted to two units before it can be sold? That way the owners could live in it as long as they want, but would change it back whenever they wanted to sell it. Seems like that preserves the city’s interests and accommodates this family’s needs.
See page 24 on this document for the actual general Planning Code information regarding mergers:
http://sfplanning.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8458
Did these folks meet the supermajority, four of five criteria?
I don’t see the problem with the decision. They are applying known criteria and policy priorities to a specific project. It’s not like this is an arbitrary decision. If that is unpopular, than work on the city leadership to change the policies and criteria.
Also, many in this forum argue for caveat emptor, and the same applies here. I have to wonder about a buyer who knowingly bought a three unit building, actually went through the process to make it legally two units, and only now realizes the “structural limitations” due to its multi-unit status. Who gave them advice to turn it into a single family home – the realtor, a contractor? They say they wanted to make it “our family home”, which makes me think they never intended to rent out the second unit. If they wanted a 4800 sq ft SFR, that’s what they should have bought. alternatively, they should sell this and buy what they want.
It’s crazy that people can complain about such silly things like a kitchen to be “DEOLISHED” and a wall to be “DEOMLISHED.”
[Editor’s Note: Just to be clear, those are the architect’s words, not ours…]
SF builds no market rate housing in which a growing middle class family can afford to live. Also, a family cannot live in a 1200sf ‘2’ bedroom for long. Hello ‘burbs. (eg Novato -4000sf; $600K).
The city is mapping itself to become a short-term corporate/transitional center along with large populations of permanent government-supported residents.
Meanwhile, the possible denial of a merged unit above is um, moronic & is an extension of the more compelling issue of absence of construction of middle class family-friendly housing.
Invented – you don’t know whereof you speak. I know a lot of families who live in 1000-1500 sq ft flats and SFRs in SF, and many who were raised in such units. Interesting, most of these folks are solidly in the much-valued middle class. Maybe their dollar goes farther in Novato, but they are not willing to give up 3 hours per day commuting, or like the amenities of a city. They are making a rational trade off of square footage for other things they value in the City. So I think preserving such options for them is OK (and clearly within Planning policy – again, there were no surprises here).
It seems to me that it is the upper-middle clas and wealthy who have come to expect 5000 sq ft. for their family homes, and yes if they can’t get it here they will move to Marin or Lafayette or wherever.
This highlights the importance of not only doing your homework before you buy a place, but also go the extra mile and hire a professional independent specialist who will have an incentive to provide you with accurate information. And even with the best of advice, nothing is guaranteed in SF. A bet is a bet.
I know people who want to put a rooftop deck on their condo unit they purchased a few years back. They asked the Realtor, then the contractor doing the inspection, if they knew if it was doable. Both told them it was but stayed pretty vague on the details. It turned out they had to do a complete retrofit of the building and had to get the other condo owners to pony up 100s of 1000s for said retrofit – which they wont. They should have hired a structural engineer for a few 100 bucks.
Either way, its still going to be two units off the market.
They will either have grandma in a separated unit, or do it illegally and worry about putting it back together before resell.
Invented wrote:SF builds no market rate housing in which a growing middle class family can afford to live.
I realize you didn’t say this explicitly (enrico, above, did), but this isn’t The City’s fault.
Say it with me: Market Failure.
If the majority of S.F. developers want to keep building lux, luxury and überlurury condos aimed at the rightmost edge of the household income distribution, and owners want to merge existing multifamily units to make large single family homes, that reduces the availability of units in the price range of “growing middle class families”. This is why the existing code discourages dwelling unit mergers, and the planning department is just recommending applying what current city policy is in an evenhanded manner.
I don’t think housing is chasing families from the city, it’s SF unified. But go ahead and play that out in city planning. Everyone knows the truth already. Just got to keep up the fiction!
Plenty of middle class folks are raising kids in 1200 to 1400 foot flats, in cities worldwide. Don’t go putting 1950s “American Dream” mythos on them. They’re doing just fine, thanks.
One other thing: this couple is going to spend in the five figures on this remodeling work. For that amount, why can’t they just sell it and buy a new place which is already configured in a manner which meets their new family requirements?
One of the planning commissioners should ask them this question straight away.
I agree with Eddy. I think all parties will be thanking the commissioners a year from now for retaining the LOCKable doors.
As someone who successfully completed a Dwelling Unit Merger in SF I can offer this: the Planning staff has no authority to make recommendations outside the scope of criteria laid out in the Planning Code (above). The Planning Commission, OTOH, does.
The winning argument (made by a Commissioner no less) related to my building was based on building “family size housing”.
Same argument used to approve 147 South Park today.
wc1 wrote: They will…do it illegally and worry about putting it back together before resell.
They probably won’t worry at all. What they’ll probably do, given your scenario following a dwelling unit merger denial (not at all certain), is do the work illegally, and then upon reselling just disclose to those making offers that the merger was done without permits and hence unwarranted. Then it becomes the buyer’s problem to get the then-existing work legalized.
of course, if they are denied at the PC, and they go ahead and do the work illegally, its likely that they won’t get away with it, unless they have especially good relations with their neighbors.
A pair of highly educated doctors didn’t realize the limitations of the $2.5M building they bought? I find it hard to believe they never bothered to ask their agent or anyone else when plunking down that kind of cash.
I don’t agree with the planning code wrt mergers, but it is the code and should be respected or changed. It is amazing how developers and contractors in SF treat inspections like a game, making changes and doing work after final approval.
More BS from the Planning Dept. The owners are doing everything above board and in a very professional and safe manner.
If they don’t get approval, then they should do the work “quietly” removing the wall one evening.
Get on with it.
In Eastern Europe under communism there were similar restrictions limiting the minimum units in a house. If a person were lucky enough to get approval to build a house, he’d have to show that the house was actually multiple apartments. Houses that were built between 1945 and 1990 have multiple little kitchens and bathrooms. Fortunately those regimes are gone now, from Eastern Europe anyway.
Holy Sawzall Silencer Batman! Did futurist just recommend that the homeowners evade the city’s regulations? Seems like a reasonable course of action to me, especially since the effect on the total housing unit count is effectively the same.
SF just has way too many regulations when it comes to housing and it hurts everyone in the long run.
Here’s a counterpoint — I own a SFH that’s too big for me, it’s zoned RH2 (so I’m entitled to make it two units), and the layout could very easily be split into two units. However, if I convert to a 2 unit building, the whole thing becomes subject to rent control (SFH is exempt from rent control). I’ll be damned if I’m going to do that, so instead I have a nice 800 sq ft storage room.
It’s all BS.
[anon.ed] wrote:
Just a quibble (I agree with the overall sentiment of what [anon.ed] wrote), but it’s relevant to the side issue of what constitutes “family size housing” (I originally posted this on a previous thread):
From what I’ve read, the trend toward larger homes in the U.S. didn’t start in earnest until the ’70’s (I think of the television characters Mike and Carol Brady’s place as a projection of the age’s aspirations) and then really kicked into gear in the early eighties.
That said, I’m not advocating that the PC tell the owners of this place they should learn to live in the unmerged unit they have now just because people in the past, or even in the present in other countries (“communists!”), can do so with a similar-sized family easily. They should just cite the code, apply it evenhandedly, and leave it at that.
Tear out beautiful 19th century detailing to create a McMansion behind a Victorian facade = fine… Remove a wall and a tiny kitchen = heresy.
Seriously though, staff is NEVER going to support a DUM… Ever. Jesus himself could ask for a DUM and staff wouldn’t support it. That doesn’t mean that planning won’t allow it, however… So the point of this article is a little fuzzy for me.
The DUM is one of my pet peeves… And it conflates many of the issues we’ve debated time and time again on this site. It goes hand in hand with Prop 13 and rent control. Personally, I find the whole “fake unit” thing just ludicrous. Planning knows these “apartment” are, barring a total economic collapse, unlikely to return to the rental market, but it makes them feel better about supposedly preserving housing. I could go off on a rant about this, but I gotta run…
Hey MOD! you’re falling into the typecasting mode of thinking again.
As an architect, I have been very vocal at times, railing against some of the dumbest and most arcane code requirements SF has on board. Of course, issues of safety, exiting and fire-resistant materials are always number one.
But this change the owners want to do is logical, simple and they should just do it. It doesn’t matter ONE iota, and shouldn’t be our business or the city’s business of how LARGE the unit is for one family. And one more thing: making this home one unit will NOT affect negatively anyone in the city who wants to live here, family or single.
Planning Code should be cleaned up, simplified, become very clear and allow our city to grow properly.
Wait, does it remove two units from the market, or just one? 2-1 = 1, last I checked.
If anyone on the above 28 comments bothered to waste finger-tipping on defending our mendacious and malevolent Planning apparatchiks, a pox of code violations upon you. This is indefensible and stupid. Period.
What I find most despicable about this is the intentional lack of clarity. “Family housing”. What the heck does that mean? Apparently, it means these are two “family units”, with one suitable to a couple with two kids (assuming there are three bedrooms upstairs) and another with ONE bedroom.
And what of a family consisting of a couple, two or three kids, and one or two grandparents? Surely they can fit in a two bedroom!
The merger would remove
family‐sized housing options in the area and replace it with one dwelling unit that few San Francisco
residents could potentially afford.
Most San Francisco residents can’t afford a five-bedroom house. So? Most of them don’t need one. But what about those families who do need that many bedrooms? Novato?
I smell more going on here than indicated on the floor plan / planning application. Hire architects to draw up a full set of plans, hire lawyers and get letters from neighbors to remove a four foot section of wall and a Pullman kitchen? A contractor could do this in an afternoon and nobody would notice.
This is just the first step of what is going to be a major renovation. They just don’t want to announce that, until the issue of legally merging the units is settled. The neighbors may be in for a surprise.
Funny that it is so hard to condo-convert in this city.
I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest a hypothetical. What if the owners have already decided to move to the cliched burbian family-spawner?
They could have decided to sell in the near future and are simply maximizing their return on the property. There’s nothing in the planning code that says you have to continue to live in a property after claiming a “but my fambly neeeeeeds it” exemption.
I have no knowledge of this property’s and owners’ situation besides what I’ve read here, but I will note the lack of high dudgeon among these commenters for those occasions where a “family” renovation gets flipped within 12 months of completion.
Modify your own dwelling as you see fit?!? What do you think this is, America???
Not on topic, but I feel like refuting some of the comments made on this post:
“Who gave them advice to turn it into a single family home – the realtor, a contractor?” Of course it must have been one of those 2 super villian. They hired an architect to make these plans right, were they duped by the super villians as well?
“It is amazing how developers and contractors in SF treat inspections like a game, making changes and doing work after final approval.” Is it? Is that amazing or is it made up. Scenario #1: Contractor does a project for a client, gets inspections passes final and then against the clients wishes keeps working, not for pay but to spite the code. Nope. Scenario #2: Developer finishes house to sell, gets final sign offs. Keeps working to change stuff, puts it in the disclosure packet or has the buyers inspector call it out and has to sell for less money becuase it’s not to code. Nope.
“Tear out beautiful 19th century detailing to create a McMansion behind a Victorian facade = fine” That is always brought up here too. But only when looking at the finished house. So the thought is the exterior was salvaged and brought back, all the interior details must have been there as well. That is not how it is, the interiors are trashed with no Victoriana left to them. They are not getting turned from Victorian to Modern, but from P.O.S. to habitable. If you don’t like the modern look add trim. Nice big crown is for sale at SFVictoriana. Go wild.
sparky-b – A contractor on at least one occasion has suggested that we do the final inspection with the fixtures in one configuration and then change things after sign-off. It was a minor innocuous change but it was evading the building code. So some contractors use this tactic to satisfy their customers.
—————-
futurist – I could have sworn that you used to rally against doing projects without pulling permits. Oh wait, that was someone else. Noequeen or modernarch or something like that.
nevermind.
Yes, they would do that. But at the request of the client who is paying for the fixture and the work. I am not saying it does not happen, and your example is perfect, I am saying it is not their idea to do it in order to get around the code. Like you said the attempt is to satisfy the customer. The customer is making the choice to do it not the contractor.
anyone know what the verdict was?
“The customer is making the choice to do it not the contractor.”
A “just following orders” excuse? Really? That’s lame. Hitman to judge: “I am not guilty, it was my client that made the choice to kill the guy, I was just trying to satisfy my customer and get paid”…
D2D – I’ve never known a contractor to evade code in a way that resulted in an inferior product let alone creating a danger. I’m sure some pros do wrong though I’ll bet that their effect on the housing stock comes nowhere near the damage that some clueless DIY homeowners cause. Your murder analogy sounds like hyperbole.
Sparky, I’m not saying that you SHOULD preserve Victorian detailing… My point is that in a city obsessed with preserving everything in amber, it just seems rather hypocritical that you can do literally anything you want in your home except remove a wall to open two units together. I could buy the most pristinely preserved Maybeck in the city, gut it and put it back together using only crap from Home Depot and that’s ok.. but asking to merge two units is borderline sacrilege.
Yes, the “story” bandied about by the proponents is probably BS, but that’s not the point. Planning simply demands that you go through this ridiculous charade. It has almost become another form of Kabuki theater…
Ultimately, planning has been backed into a corner thanks to Prop 13 and rent control. As Greg pointed out, adding a unit to your pre-1977 home makes it subject to rent control and pretty much destroys the value of the property… So, now getting rid of units, or finding ways to successfully incorporate them into a property (it’s a family room!), thus creating the illusion of a SFR is an absolute necessity if you want to sell a home where a unit once existed. This is, of course, a disaster for renters… Only long term owner/landlords protected by Prop-13 benefit from this system. The city is paranoid about losing rental properties, but some of its own policies have created a much worse situation for prospective renters.
Can’t raise Sophie and soon-to-be-arriving [second child] in 1200 sq ft? Why not sell and buy a $2 million SFH in Noe already? And in a few years when Sophie doesn’t lottery into Alvarado, make the long-awaited move to Mill Valley? I feel like we’ve heard this story already…and somehow it’s not garnering any sympathy from my end.
[Editor’s Note: We’ve edited citymom’s post, and removed a few comments, in an attempt to re-focus the discussion on San Francisco’s planning policy and property related aspects of this post.]
My two cents:
1) City policy should not be so firmly against mergers. It’s not fair to property owners and does more harm than good in that it simply encourages illegal modifications.
2) The planners were simply applying policy (at least according to some here — I don’t personally know), so I would not fault them for doing their jobs. In fact, I prefer a system whereby our government workers follow the rules consistently rather than create a haphazard, corrupt system where some people get their way and others don’t.
3) In their written comments, the planners should not have made the issue political by discussing the reasons for family “flight” from SF. That is simply not their place, and frankly I don’t think they are in a position to set forth official government positions on the issue. If anything, citing this as the reason for their denial only makes their action seem arbitrary and capricious. Indeed, I would guess that the denial would not have been featured on this website had the planners simply said the DUM fails to comply with the rules for reasons A, B, and C, and is thus denied.
4) I firmly disagree with the planner’s opinion that DUMs are why families, especially those in the middle class, are leaving SF in droves. In my experience as an SF parent who has many, many friends with young children, there is one reason that vastly outweighs all of the others put together: THE CRAPPY SF SCHOOL SYSTEM.
It must really be inexpensive to file one of these things because people do it, but never succeed.
The hilarious part of it is that the buildings are priced lower than SFRs due to the very fact that you cannot combine the units. The buysers are always “surprised” by the regulations, as if it didn’t occur to them that if all that had to be done was to take out a small wall and a kitchen, that the seller wouldn’t have done that and jacked up the price.
But every year, people think they can buy a less expensive two unit building, combine them, and pocket the difference. Like they are the very first people to have ever thought of doing that.
The city should increase the application fee to $100K, and then turn them down anyway. May as well make some money off of them. Maybe they could hold a contest for the “most sympathetic combiner before they sell it off and make $$$” contest. These stories are always real tear jerkers, ha ha!
“The proposed merger would not help San Francisco achieve its goal of retaining families and family‐sized housing in the City.”
What nonsense. Families flee on educational grounds. Here is a family that owns a property, and is being denied the right to modify their own building to suit their extended family needs.
Do not be suprised when this family moves to Marin or San Mateo.
Isn’t one reason we buy property? To be kings of our own castles?
anon.ed,
Thanks for posting the Planning Code doc. I’ve been searching for a similar document that covers the regulations for converting garages into living spaces. (not a unit, but rooms)
Do you know of one?
I’m considering converting the garage of my town home into a den. I called DBI and they said they turn these requests over to Planning and as far as they know, Planning doesn’t allow this. Do you or any readers have insight on this issue?
^^^ Not Allowed
Hey if these guys can take a rental unit off the market because of their “need” for a 4000 square foot home, I am definitely going to planning to see if I can convert my two unit into a SFH.
When we purchased our place, a two unit was going for about 60% of the price per square foot as a single family home, so it just made economic sense to get the rental income for free. Of course, we didn’t try and make the claim afterwards that we had no idea why it was so much cheaper, I am going to have to try that one.
We have a much stronger case too, since we have 4 people living in 1200 square feet. Maybe I can move the in-laws in for a few weeks into the lower unit to complete the sob story.
Of course, the fact that a 2400 square foot home is worth almost double what a 2 unit flat is worth didn’t even cross my mind.
Another consideration to all of this has to do with government subsidies for splitting single-family residences into multi-unit buildings during mid-century. I am told (though don’t know for a fact) that the government paid owners to chop up their homes in the 1950s or so. This is why we have so many Victorians divided into flats, for example.
This adds yet a further argument that an owner of a 2-unit building should not get the windfall of a merger into a SFH, since that property already took government money to become 2-unit. (Of course, this argument only applies to homes where such a subsidy was given.)