Live-work tenants sue over evictions
Several tenants in a live-work Mid-Market building in San Francisco are suing the landlords, alleging harassment to force them out, as the property will be more lucrative as office space. A building owner said there is no merit to the claims.
“The landlords let this building go to pot,” said Gregory Brod, an attorney representing 11 tenants at 1049 Market St. who filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court on Wednesday. All pay around $700 for compact loft-style units with kitchenettes and shared bathrooms and have lived there for many years, Brod said.
Located on a gritty block between Sixth and Seventh streets, the sixstory, 75-unit building is in the center of the transformation being wrought by Twitter and other tech companies. Although it is zoned commercial, it has been used as residential “office lofts” for many years.
The residents, many of whom are artists, received eviction notices in early autumn.
John Gall, a former Major League Baseball player who is part of the family group that owns the building, said the city compelled him to convert it to offices. An August notice from the Department of Building Inspection threatened to revoke its occupancy permit because about half of the units, located in the building’s interior, lack windows and thus violate laws requiring natural light in living spaces.
The situation stirred concerns about gentrification forcing out lowincome and creative people — an issue that has continued to gather steam as average rents top $3,000 a
month, evictions have increased across the city and protests have mounted.
San Francisco officials, including Supervisor Jane Kim, who represents the area, interceded to broker meetings between the 1049 Market owners and the Department of Building Inspection, trying to grandfather in the lack of windows so the units could remain as livework spaces. In November, the city suspended the owners’ permit for proposed office conversion work.
Building in disrepair
Brod said his clients allege that the owners let the building fall into disrepair, intentionally inflicting emotional distress.
“The door locks to get into the building are in disrepair and the elevators are broken,” he said. “We have photos of naked homeless people sleeping in the bathrooms, of syringes and blood in the stairwells. The tenants have had issues with heating, hot water, bedbugs, malfunctioning elevators.”
Gall said the allegations are false.
Charges disputed
“Our service staff is the same and gives the same attention to the building” that it always has, he said. “I know there was a hot water heater that went out, but it got fixed; that kind of thing happens. Nothing even remotely close to these issues has happened.”
A Chronicle reporter and photographer toured the building in October, at which time it appeared to be clean and in good repair.
The tenants and housing-activist groups have called on Gall to rescind the eviction notices. He has not done so, but also has not pursued unlawful detainer suits against tenants who remained.
Gall said many tenants had accepted relocation money and had moved out. “There are maybe a couple of dozen people left in the building,” he said.
His next meeting with city officials is scheduled for February; he’s also trying to meet with his lender about the situation.
“We’re still in the middle of trying to figure things out,” he said.