Owner who demolished famed San Francisco house must build replica | Hacker News Reader

Owner who demolished famed San Francisco house must build replica

bbc.com

57 pointsskookum60 comments

Interestingly, the city determined a few years ago that the house was not a historic resource: http://citypln-m-extnl.sfgov.org/link.ashx?Action=Download&O...

Although the owner clearly exceeded the scope of the remodel permit issued by demolishing the house entirely, it's possible that the permit had authorized the removal of everything short of the wall framing (commonplace for "remodel" permits on non-historic buildings in SF.)

Ah, that’s why my new neighbor tore down the house and rebuilt an entirely different structure with a handful of original studs scattered throughout the framing.

Ah, the “little people” of multi million dollar inherited homes and land really got some justice here. Real justice.

> Ah, the “little people” of multi million dollar inherited homes and land really got some justice here.

The 'little people' referenced isn't the home owner. It's the community in San Francisco who lost a piece of notable architecture.

No one that lives anywhere near this community is a "little person". The woman that lodged the complaint is likely very, very wealthy as well. Hence the previous mocking (and accurate) comment about, "multi million dollar inherited homes and land..."

I live in San Francisco and I have never heard of this building. The threshold for what gets considered "historic" in this town is exteremely low. That, combined with the chronic housing shortage makes it difficult for me to feel contempt for the owner.

Historic doesn’t mean well known necessarily. Sometimes historians are the only ones who recognize the significance of a structure. It might still be valuable to preserve for the future.

Part of history and archeology is trying to understand the past better. But part of it is also realizing that future generations will have knowledge and tools that we don’t, and some level of preservation should be done as a matter of course, so that hidden knowledge isn’t erased before its salvage becomes feasible.

I can’t argue for this specific house, just that being famous isn’t the only reason to keep something.

Actually, in some ways it’s the famous locations that could be harmlessly torn down: the historic information has mostly been extracted, and many popular locations are merely a curiosity for tourists to stick in their cap.

Actually, we did. I own a house and I have to go through the pain of jumping thorough all the hoops of applying for renovation permits. If you can just ignore the law, it's a slap to the face for all the people that follow it, irrespective of where they live and how wealthy they are.

Your sentiment has merit, but it reminds me of the bit in Huckleberry Finn (I think?) where a traveling scam show comes to town. Every night, a crowd arrives, pays entrance, and is treated only to the scammers persuading them to keep quiet about it, so that the next night's crowd gets taken for suckers too. And of course, misery loves company, so the people do just that.

I want to build an ADU on my Mountain View property but was denied because the permitting department in anti-ADU and will obstruct any way they can, despite the rule changes. Yet others have gone ahead and built an ADU on their property anyway, under similar circumstances, ignoring the permitting department.

Morally speaking, did these people injure me? Did they slap me in the face? Are they wrong? They increased the housing supply during a shortage, but at the cost of ignoring the law.

Oh, I don't know about morality, didn't realize we are discussing it here. All I know is that you have 2 options: either ignore the law but make sure you are ready to face the consequences, or don't ignore the law. I don't think there is a 3rd option where you knowingly ignore the law and then cry about being punished for doing it.

As a practical matter, how would the city know unless neighbors report the construction activity? The question then is, can the city be trusted to maintain the anonymity of the reporter.

Anyone have direct experience on this?

Yes, I do. I've built software to detect such changes as soon as possibly by analysing flyover data. In our case stereo imaging to also get height information. Only big cities do that. In small cities people talk and word gets out. The only problem is to detect moving parts (trucks), temp. parts (parked vehicles, containers) and seperate trees from buildings. Most of the flagging was done manually.

People just need to pain everything with this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack

All features become invisible, black as could be.

Superblack spray paint is very expensive (eg on a roof of an illegal building) and the image would make it clear that something is hidden there and immediately flagged for manual inspection.

Clouds also don't help as the city only does flyovers on bright summerdays without any clouds. Google maps adds a lot of articial clouds, but that's probably from their gov. sources to hide something sensitive.

I hope this goes up through the court system. I hope the owner wins. There is often too much conservatism when it comes to preserving the old. Some really significant, old things, ok. But not at the pace of SF. I mean this does not happen in Japan, or Korea or China. People move on. Time goes on. People are buying the land and pay taxes. They should be able to do reasonable things with their property. I don't think Korea, Japan, etc., are unreasonable with regard to property development.

"this does not happen in Japan"

What do you mean by "this"? Japan has restrictions on what can be done to historic buildings. Eg, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/10/05/national/groups... has "Given its historic significance, however, the city refused to have the No. 1 Granary torn down, and in 2006 it was designated a historic structure, which protected it from developers who coveted the property, now a choice location in central Taipei" - for a building from 1944.

I’d say these are exceptions rather than a rule in Taiwan. They’ve saved a few Dutch colonial strctures too, but very few.

What do you mean by "this"? Because special restrictions on buildings with perceived historical significance seems to be something done in most countries.

Most cities, you have to get a building permit to do any major renovation. Those permits tend to be pretty specific on what you can or cannot do - some even require the exact construction plans.

The article makes it sound that the owner went well outside what he got the permit for. If so - what in the world did he think was going to happen? Where I live, they get you for cutting down one extra tree than what you were permitted.

> In San Francisco, property speculators have made a game out of tearing down historically protected homes, then retroactively applying for demolition permits, and using the now-empty lots to build massive mansions that sell for millions.

https://boingboing.net/2018/12/16/unscramble-the-egg.html

I'm assuming that the money to be made is greater than the fines they have to pay for demolishing a historical home.

Historical preservation is stealing from the future. (In this case, it’s stealing from the future in order to preserve an ugly house dominated by a garage door for posterity. The owner here did a public service.)

Demolition of history is stealing the past from the future.

Goes both ways.

I'm glad various buildings and artworks have been preserved, even though they may prevent other buildings or artworks. I don't know that I would have pushed for this one to be preserved.

Wow I can't believe the comments on this thread. Do you not see any value in preserving our past for future generations? Are we stealing from the future when we preserve more notable old buildings like castles as well, or do you just not like the way this particular building looks? I think the criteria is notability, not aesthetics, for what it's worth.

Sure... but why preserve this?

Because it's distinctive. It's common for people to hate an architectural trend, that has only recently fallen out of vogue, only later to come to admire it.

Shouldn't that be a matter of documentation in the first place instead of just keeping structures indefinitely?

It reminds me of the Metropolitan Sepulchre plan in the 19th century (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Sepulchre). While they went with garden cemeteries instead I believe the important point is that cities are for the living and the now and not the past. I personally think that there may be a value to keeping the old around but just mere archivism shouldn't be a reason. If people actually visit it frequently enough certainly keep it but if it is just for the information, we have books for that.

First I've heard of the Metropolitan Sepulchre. I very much enjoyed the link.

    Shouldn't that be a matter of documentation 
    in the first place instead of just keeping 
    structures indefinitely?

There has to balance between razing the ruins of Pompeii, and turning every modern strip mall into a heritage site. Where that balance ought to be is beyond me. Who knows what will interest future generations?

    we have books for that.

I don't know if books are a satisfying substitute. Down the road, when VR is higher quality, that would probably suffice.

correction: I've never heard of the Metropolitan Sepulchre

> Do you not see any value in preserving our past for future generations?

Book, art, etc.? Sure. Saving one painting doesn’t stop others from being made. Buildings and the like are different. Each building that’s “protected” robs future generations of real estate that could be put to higher value uses.

My office is in the Watergate. Aside from being sinfully ugly, the historical preservation status of the building makes it impossible to redevelop a high-value piece of land (near transit and the water) into a dense walkable neighborhood. There is no doubt people would prefer the buildings that land could be developed into over a decaying ode to concrete, but a handful of architecture snobs have robbed them of the choice.

It's just a house, not the Washington Monument. So what?

It's almost impossible to demolish structures in San Francisco, because somebody considers each one historic in some sense. A great example was the recent "historic laundromat" in the mission.[1]

The concept of property rights in SF is basically a joke. You can't do anything to your home unless you spend months and thousands of dollars navigating the bureaucracy. The burden is so onerous that it leads to people going rogue and ignoring all building codes and safety regulations. I have friends who live in places where the internal structure is totally different from what the city has on file. The electrical wiring and plumbing are a haphazard mix of amateur and professional work. The elevators haven't worked in years. But I'm sure if the property owner wanted to tear the place down and build something new (the only sane choice), they would be blocked.

1. https://reason.com/blog/2018/02/21/san-francisco-man-has-spe...

Sounds like there's local politics or pervious experiences in SF that I don't know about that might be driving people's negative reactions.

Where I live I cherish the work that's been done to preserve old buildings so I can see them today, and I hope they're preserved so my ancestors can see them as well.

Much of the existing bureaucracy in SF is purposefully byzantine in response to the urban renewal of the 50s and 60s which saw the "redevelopment" of the Western Addition, Fillmore, Japan Town, and the construction of the interstate highways which bisected neighborhoods. In the case of the former, victorians in historically black neighborhoods (see also: redlining) were torn down to be replaced with projects which went about as well as you can imagine. In the case of the later, we have the Loma Prieta earthquake to thank for restoring Hayes Valley and the Embarcadero to booming, walkable neighborhoods. Instead of learning from its mistakes, SF did a full 180 and landed on the opposite extreme - nothing may change unless all agencies, stake holders, and onlookers alike are perfectly satisfied. In practice, agencies are in the dozens (SF has no right to build, even when meeting all zoning restrictions!). Onlookers are neighbor homeowners who like increasing housing prices and less traffic and organizations like Calle 24 which are indistinguishable from protection rackets.

Yeah, I've been following the laundromat saga. If he can't develop a property like that one, then nobody can in SF.

So, if you value it so much, put up the money?

San Francisco could have purchased the property for preservation. Evidently, it wasn't worth that.

Needlessly infringing on private property rights is disgusting. If you want to preserve something, you should own it, or at least purchase some sort of right to keep the property preserved. Simply seizing that right, by force of government without payment, is at least unethical. I feel it is also unconstitutional, given that our constitution prevents the taking of property without compensation. In these cases, the property has to some degree been taken. Oh, we maintain the legal fiction that you still own it, but you can't actually do what you want with it.

This is a great argument in favor of nuclear annihilation.

How is letting someone build a bigger house for his family even remotely comparable to genocide? The city is basically telling his family that they are not welcome, this building is more important than them and they should leave.

The argument was that preservation is "stealing from the future." Ergo, the commenter apparently believes in earnestness that a personified "future" has an unqualified right to destruction. The argument as presented is sheer nihilism, and pointing that out was the goal of my comment.

A very similar law/policy exists in Venice for the preservation of the history of that city. Do you consider that to be 'stealing from the future'?

Venice is an exception because of how much of the city’s economy comes from tourism. There is an economic benefit that accrues to all property owners by maintaining a consistent historic look. That said, Venice is gross.

At worst, it is "borrowing from the future." That house will fall apart within 500 years. The earth could be habitable for another billion.

You 'steal' from the future every time you pump gas, eat meat, flush the toilet, maybe even breathing counts by your definition? I used to live next to a Neutra building in the ghetto of N Hollywood... Amazing architecture. Very fortunate the owners kept it in meticulous original condition down to the exterior paint triming colors.

Plenty of property owners would greatly appreciate owning this home, so he could have sold it off if he wanted to. Instead, he tried to cheat the system.

The city mandates that a person rebuild an ugly little house. Wow. I wonder if they'll also demand 2-prong outlets, asbestos, lead paint, and real fuses.

The neighbor who complained is a truly sour toxic person. She should be delighted to have the neighborhood improving. Instead she blocks it (which should be impossible) and creates a hostile neighbor situation.

No, they’ll be allowed to do new wiring and latex paint.

I expect situations like this in the future will result in sad "accidental" fires.

How does that get around the problem of mandated reconstruction with the insurance payout?

Unless the city is pitching in $$$ for the effort, this seems legally questionable. Insurance will only pay the market rate (and barely that), and the cost of such a process would surely run higher.

I live in a community where there is very little oversight like this (by design), but my mortgage requires that I cover my home for the cost to rebuild, not the market value. I questioned this because in my case it’s more than twice the value, but apparently it’s how things are normally done.

Well, market rate in this context meant the (regional) labor and material costs to construct a generic, equal sqft house with X rooms and Y baths. I perhaps chose the wrong term.

It'd likely require a lawsuit to make them shell out an additional $200k+ for the specialist architect and master carpenter to help recreate the original structure.

I don't know about "market rate", but I believe that items are typically insured for their replacement value.

There may not be a requirement to insure a protected structure at all, but it's plausible that such a measure could be introduced because of the perceived externalities (i.e. heritage value to society) of a protected building.

That's it exactly.

I live in an inexpensive area, and purchased my five(-ish) bedroom home for ~$125k. It would cost about $240k to rebuild, exclusive of the cost of the land.

When buying homeowner's insurance, my interest is that I would not lose value in the event of my home's destruction; I want to be able to buy another home of similar value and not owe more money than I already did. However, my mortgage requires that I insure the home's replacement value, and no insurer that I could find would cover me for only $125k.

This results in what I believe to be a negative incentive: assuming no equity, I currently owe $125k and have a home. If my home were to burn to the ground tomorrow, I would have a check for $240k. I'd then use that check to pay off my existing mortgage and buy a home of similar value outright - leaving me a profit of ~$115k in the process.

a bit like this -> landlord arsonists? https://www.gq.com/story/san-francisco-is-burning

Not mentioned in the piece, but California actually has a voluntary, arguably market-based tax incentive for historic house preservation, the Mills Act:

http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=21412

I just wish they cared about environmental preservation as much

Behold California, where you can’t tear things down and where you definitely can’t build them[1]. A shining beacon of good government for all of America.

[1] Except a decade and your first-born in legal fees later.

California is a large state, the majority of it not being the ultra-desirable overrated pockets like the bay area where the barriers to development are considered necessary to preserve the region from the hoardes of people.

I hope he appeals. You can't create an ex post facto covenence.

This is exactly the type of pointless bureaucracy that causes USA to fall behind China. Rural areas are dying because of centralization and consolidation of corporations which primary are headquartered in large cities. Those large cities then oppose residential construction but not commercial construction which causes a massive imbalance of jobs to homes. The ensuing increase in real estate prices makes people consider their house as an investment first and they try to prevent further construction to the point where they mandate that even existing buildings may not be rebuilt.

This situation is equivalent to a city investing in an electric bus fleet but then the federal government sues the city and sentences them to reinstate the ICE bus fleet. Nobody will disagree that this is crazy. Meanwhile, in this HN thread people argue in favor of the "historic" value of a random building.

Obviously this is an extreme example but just think about how less severe situations are invisibly slowed down by excessive bureaucracy in the very successful cities and how this causes massive inefficiencies on the scale of an entire country which is highly dependent on those cities.

Lost your job in <town>? Well, you're not welcome here in <city>.

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