Good morning, on todays Your Call at 10am PT, were speaking with artists about SFs affordability crisis and gentrification. These people are trying to keep their apartments on VanNess. Kudos to KRON for giving them a voice. A New Yorker cartoon in the lobby of the law firm representing the building owner shows an older man saying, I would die, but I have rent control. From the SF Examinde piece below: [All was well until February, when the building was sold in a bankruptcy sale to a Fremont-based investor. The new landlord stopped accepting rent checks immediately, and then moved this fall to evict the couple, alleging that theyre illegally using the space for a residence, according to records. The building went on the market for $5.8 million last year before selling in January for $8.4 million, according to property listings that also say the building was sold as-is ... subject to existing Tenants [sic] rights. The owner, Yue Yue LLC, is managed by a man named Edmund Jin, according to property records. Messages left at Jins Fremont home and with his San Francisco attorney, Paul Utrecht, were not immediately returned this week. On the couples lease is a sentence that says the building cant be used for residences. However, that line is crossed out, and the lease also has an appendix authored by the former owner -- a charitable trust with a mission to rent to artists (Michael is a sculptor) -- that specifically allows for the couple to live in their unit. And according to documents discovered by the couple, the building has always had tenants in residential apartments.]
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 15:59:14 +0000