4 ms·
Aaron Peskin got his illegally merged $1.5M “monster” home
- marssaxman 7y agoThis reads like such a recursive mess of "why is that any of anyone else's business" that I have a hard time sympathizing with anyone involved.
- shereadsthenews 7y agoNobody would care except Peskin makes it his business to tell everyone else what they can’t do with -their- property.
- joshuamorton 7y agoIn addition to the other poster, it's clear political corruption: A person merges their duplex. Peskin blocks it using his position on the neighborhood board. Peskin then acquires the now illegal single family home at a large discount. Peskin, a city official, then manages to get a permit for the exact thing that he had blocked not three years earlier.
- Gibbon1 7y agoSeems to me the appropriate action here is Grand Jury -> Indictment -> Trial -> Peskin goes to prison.
- jessaustin 7y agoIn some jurisdictions, I imagine Peskin might be that lone corrupt regulator whose brazen corruption makes the public suspect all regulators. In lots of other jurisdictions, his misconduct isn't unusual in the least...
- TomMckenny 7y agoEdit: I stand corrected, the legislation will indeed harm tenements. I would suggest that arguing against legislation by showing a supporter's hypocrisy may not be the strongest approach. It is a tad fallacious after all. Full disclosure, my incorrect original post: Find a guy with dirt that supports protecting rent controlled units. Use that to attempt to discredit legislation that helps tenants. If the best argument against protecting rental units is a weak Tu Quoque, then perhaps protecting duplex rentals is a good idea.
- akanet 7y agoI am the author. I did not bother with a refutation of the terrible piece of legislation being proposed, because others have done a better job elsewhere. One could check out https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Peskin-s-bill-is-San-Francisco-s-attempt-to-13618207.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Peskin..., for instance.
- jamestimmins 7y agoWhat tipped you off that this was happening?
- akanet 7y agoI got a tip from a friend that something was off with the whole duplex/sfh situation, and I guess I have a reputation for pushing through to publication with stories like this.
- jamestimmins 7y agoInteresting. How much research did this take?
- Lazare 7y ago> Use that to attempt to discredit legislation that helps tenants. This legislation will hurt tenants.
- mistursinistur 7y agoRent controlled duplexes are already protected by the regulations that were violated here. You can't remove rent-controlled units without a permit! Obviously some onlookers don't understand current laws and don't understand the proposed legislation. It's important for them to know that their trust in the legislator to do this for them is misplaced.
- tunesmith 7y agoWhat's the original rationale behind preventing a duplex to be merged into a one-family home? I would have thought it is just so you can't use it as a reason to kick out a tenant. But if the tenants are already gone...?
- thekevan 7y agoI believe to maintain rental units which are available to those who do not or cannot afford to buy. There is a rental shortage in the city, thus rental prices are going higher. The more rentals that leave the market, theoretically, the higher rent goes.
- shereadsthenews 7y agoIt isn’t city policy to prevent such mergers but it is city policy that you must get a permit for such a merger before actually doing it.
- IkmoIkmo 7y agoIt's a bit like removing busstops as a municipality, in favour of car lanes. If you know that busses are used 4x as much by a low socioeconomic class compared to say an upper class, and vice versa for cars, then a law preventing the elimination of (even unprofitable) bus stops is essentially a protection of vulnerable citizens. Same with housing stock. If you only have gigantic housing units that only the ultra-rich can afford, poorer people get pushed out the city even faster compared to a housing stock with many smaller (and thereby affordable) units. Preventing parties from eradicating this stock again is a protective measure for people who rely on this housing stock to have a home in the city.
- shereadsthenews 7y agoThat can’t really be the reason because SF has approved numerous such mergers and expansion of gigantic single-family structures and they steadfastly forbid subdivision of buildings no matter how large into duplexes in the vast majority of the city. The city’s actions indicate that detached single-family structures are the strongly preferred type.
- fortran77 7y agoThat stairway looks awfully narrow. Is it even up to code? I thought the minimum width in CA was 34". Also there's not a proper landing with a handrail.
- ShakataGaNai 7y agoIt's an illegal merge, it's highly unlikely the made sure to do the work "up to code". That being said, if you look at the railing it looks to be made out of a 2x4 sized piece of wood. The 5 floor slats looks roughly the same sized. So with that we get 20" wide, which would be a narrow but doable staircase. The landing width of the stairs in my SF apartment (which is new and to code) is 30". So not sure what code is, just a datapoint.
- fortran77 7y agoI think the railing would need to continue at least the width of a stair to form a proper "landing"
- capkutay 7y agoPeskin's NIMBY supporters are basically on the same level of denial of trump supporters...they don't care what their own party's candidates do, they just want to make sure their side wins.
- dang 7y agoPlease don't take HN threads further into partisan flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- CPLX 7y agoSan Francisco housing policy is literally insane. Having read this entire article I'm not even totally sure what kind of insane this is, but I'm sure of my conclusion.
- basic6 7y agoHe's Jewish.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mc32 7y agoSomething seems a bit off here. “Dec. 2002: Trafton sells the duplex to Peskin’s parents for $800,000 — a $700,000 loss on the $1.5M she paid two years earlier.” Later on the parents transfer ownership to their son and his wife.... 2002 was after the .com bubble but not a terrible real estate year...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pintxo 7y agoNot from the US, I must say I find it ridiculous that one seems to require a permit to renovate a kitchen in SF. Is this common in the US?