In the great tradition of “movies that make you gay,” few stand as tall as the 1975 documentary Gray Gardens.

Of course, movies don’t have the ability to turn people gay, but there’s a special power in a movie like Gray Gardens, an idiosyncratic documentary that practically counts as homework (the funny kind!) for the modern queer — a movie we should know.

Following the strange everyday life of “Big Edie” Beale – the aunt of former first lady Jackie O – and her grown daughter “Little Edie”, Gray Gardens welcomed viewers to the titular estate in the East Hamptons, a run-down house where the women in poverty and (as some would call it) delusions lived.

Over the decades it has become a real cult hit, around which friendly gays will build their entire personality. And among the many fascination of the loyal fandom is the Handyman of Beale, who makes occasional appearances throughout the doc.

Dubbed “The Marble Faun” by Little Edie, viewers spent years contemplating the young man’s identity. But in the 2000s he resurfaced and the world finally got to know Jerry Torre.

Sometime after the events of Gray Gardens, Torre moved to Saudi Arabia where he worked for a palace garden – a job secured through Jackie O’s second husband, Aristotle Onassis. Back in the States, he drove cabs in New York City and ran an art transportation business while pursuing his own passion as a sculptor. He has lived happily with his partner Ted O’Ryan Sheppard for many years.

All of this and more – including memories of his time with the Beales – is told by Torre in his fascinating memoir, The Marble Faun Of Gray Gardens, co-authored with film historian Tony Maietta.

Now Torre becomes the focus of his own film in an adaptation of his famous book. As Deadline reports, The Marble Faun Of Gray Gardens is being adapted into a feature film by Unger Media, which tells the story of “a gay teenage runaway from Brooklyn who portrays Big Edie and Little Edie as misguided guardian angels in his life – and beyond. “

Sounds like another future gay classic to us!

The adaptation is scripted by Leo Geter (who has written scripts for shows like Longmire and The Closer), who is producing along with Torre, Maietta, Jonathan Unger, the CEO of Unger Media, and actor/comedian Drew Droege, who shares that he is “a longtime Gray Gardens fan”. and that Torre is “profoundly inspirational to me as an artist and a queer person.”

Deadline is currently casting for the role of Torre. He was only a teenager when he met the Beales, so we’d expect a young aspiring actor to take on the role of The Marble Faun.

Our two cents? Rising star Daniel Zolghadri has been great in coming-of-age movies like Eight Grade and Funny Pages and could fill the bill. As for Big Edie and Little Edie, Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore’s appearances in the 2009 HBO film are still not over, so why not bring them back?

Or heck, maybe Jinkx Monsoon is available?

The post The true story of Gray Gardens’ twinky homosexual handyman is being was a film, mom darling appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Good Thursday morning!

American Democratic Majority, the super PAC tied closely to George Norcross, spent $6.4 million in the 2021 elections. At this point two years ago, it had just started up and raised $1.25 million from the NJEA’s super PAC.

Now, all 120 seats in the Legislature are up again and competitive races in two South Jersey districts — 3 and 4 — will be crucial in the battle for control of the Legislature . The first quarter 2023 fundraising numbers are in, and American Democratic Majority raised a whopping $0.

The New Jersey press corps has written quite a bit about the diminishment — it’s way too early to say downfall — of the South Jersey Democratic machine. But this is somewhat puzzling. Norcross retains the ability to easily raise millions of dollars. So maybe there will be a later infusion, or perhaps he’ll begin another project. When I asked, Norcross answered solely with a joke that you’ll see below. You’ll also find below some other news that’s got to be unwelcome to Norcross.

TIPS? FEEDBACK? Email me at [email protected].

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m working with Connor Roy.” — George Norcross, referring to the “Succession” character who is polling at about 1 percent in his presidential campaign, which to be fair is better than most polls have been for former Gov. Chris Christie.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY — Cory Booker

WHERE’S MURPHY? No public schedule.

CAMDEN RISING PILE OF SUBPOENAS — “N.J. corruption probe focuses on Camden, ties to South Jersey powerbroker, sources say,” by NJ Advance Media’s Ted Sherman: “The city of Camden and a major nonprofit group working on revitalization efforts have been hit with a flurry of subpoenas in recent weeks in what appears to be part of a corruption investigation into lucrative development deals involving millions in tax incentives, according to four sources with knowledge of the inquiry. The specific focus of the investigation was unclear and officials declined comment. But NJ Advance Media learned many of the records sought by the subpoenas are related to companies, individuals and transactions that have been publicly tied to South Jersey Democratic powerbroker George E. Norcross III, who wields great influence in Camden. … Some of the subpoenas described by the sources requested documents connected to the awarding of state-funded economic development incentives that were the subject of a special governor’s task force four years ago. … In response to questions, a spokesman for Norcross said the awarding of Economic Opportunity Act incentives in Camden “has been repeatedly and exhaustively reviewed, including by a special task force, the state, the Economic Development Authority” and the media.”

SCARLET STRIKES — “Both sides in Rutgers faculty talks hopeful on a contract deal within days,” by The Record’s Mary Ann Koruth: “Union leaders representing 9,000 Rutgers University faculty members said Wednesday that a final deal on a new contract could be possible by the end of the week — but only if the university administration negotiators keep up momentum and show urgency to close a few issues that remain on the table. Three faculty unions have tried to ramp-up the pace of negotiations with the university since April 15 when they secured key victories that paused a one-week strike and resumed classes. Now, as the end of the semester looms with final exams starting on May 4, faculty members under increasing pressure to sign a contract have shifted some of that pressure onto Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway by floating the possibility of a no-confidence vote in him.”

UNDER THE BOARDWALKS THEY’LL BE HAVING SOME FUNDS — “Here’s what Murphy wants to do with NJ’s leftover pandemic aid,” by NJ Spotlight News’ John Reitmeyer: “Gov. Phil Murphy is proposing more than a dozen ways New Jersey should spend its remaining federal pandemic aid, with funding for Jersey Shore boardwalks and aid for local governments facing rising employee health care costs among his requests. Murphy’s latest plans for deploying the last of New Jersey’s direct COVID-19 aid were included in a proposed state budget currently being reviewed by the Legislature. In all, Murphy has identified nearly $500 million in new spending that would be backed by money the state received in 2021 through the federal government’s American Rescue Plan Act, according to budget documents. … More than $1 billion of the state’s original $6.2 billion allocation has yet to be appropriated, according to the latest official accounting. That means lawmakers will also likely have their own ideas about ways the remaining federal aid should be used as they draft an annual spending bill in the run-up to July 1.”

LORETTA VS. BERETTA — “Retired N.J. lawmaker just led fellow senior-living residents in rally for tougher gun laws,” by NJ Advance Media’s Brent Johnson: “The group of older New Jerseyans — both grandparents and great-grandparents, ranging in age from 86 to 100 — gathered in front of a senior-living facility Tuesday, clutching not only walkers but protest signs calling for tougher gun laws in America. And standing in front, gripping a megaphone, was an influential retired state lawmaker who now lives in the building. A year after moving in, former state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg organized a rally with her fellow residents at the Arbor Terrace retirement community in her native Teaneck to urge Congress to pass federal legislation with stronger firearm restrictions.”

— “NJ’s landmark affordable housing law helped at least 50,000 residents since 2015, report says”

—N.J. public worker pension fund has gained nearly $4B on investments so far this year”

—“Bayonne assemblyman plans to return to crane worker position when state pulls out of Waterfront Commission”

—“NJ spends $467K on prisoner sex-change operations, gender care so far this year”

—“NJ council sets first regional curbs on warehouses”

—“Women’s political representation edges up at local level, but gains meager, study finds”

—Greenstein: “An investment in water is an investment in New Jersey”

—“NJEA makes early endorsements in some legislative races, setting up early money”

LEAKING ON A MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO GLOUCESTER — “Plan to build N.J. terminal for trains that carry combustible gases hits federal roadblock,” by NJ Advance Media’s Nyah Marshall: “A developer’s plan to transport combustible gases by rail from Pennsylvania to a terminal in New Jersey has been blocked on the federal level after years of community organizing to stop the project. The U.S. Department of Transportation denied a special permit on Monday sought by Energy Transport Solutions, a subsidiary of New Fortress Energy, to transport liquefied natural gas by rail to a port on the Delaware River in Gibbstown in Gloucester County, according to the Federal Register. State and national environmental groups are celebrating the denial because it may block the proposed project that critics say would send polluting, combustible ‘bomb trains’ across dozens of South Jersey and Pennsylvania towns daily.”

HAIR TODAY GONE YESTERDAY — “Joe Biden’s plans just sidelined these NJ Democrats,” by The Record’s Charles Stile: “We’ll see if Biden gets a bounce in the polls — and in fundraising — from his Tuesday announcement. But it is undoubtedly a sad day for Murphy’s hairstylist, who was no doubt paid handsomely for cultivating a robust hair bloom on the desert of a middle-aged dome. The makeover, which also included the hip, red-framed glasses, should no longer be a priority. (Murphy will probably still do his share of Biden surrogate work as things heat up, so he may need to maintain the bangs.) It also means an end to all the other obvious, just-in-case candidacy moves. The governor will no longer need to lob potshots at Ron DeSantis”

—“Rapper Pras, of N.J.-formed the Fugees, found guilty of political conspiracy”

NEITHER RED NOR BLUE BANK —“Two slates duke it out in Red Bank’s first nonpartisan local election,” by New Jersey Globe’s Joey Fox: “When it comes to political drama per square mile, Red Bank has long been one of New Jersey’s most effective municipalities. For years, Democrats in the Monmouth County borough of 13,000 have been locked in a brutal internecine fight, with two competing factions engaged in a constant tug-of-war over local control. This year’s May 9 elections represent a continuation of that battle, but with a new twist: they’ll be the first elections held under Red Bank’s new nonpartisan form of government approved by voters last year. Leading one ticket is incumbent Mayor Billy Portman, who won his first term off-the-line just last year; the borough’s new charter reset all terms, with all offices up this year regardless of when they were last elected. Portman’s opponent is Tim Hogan, a first-time candidate and the president of Riverview Medical Center, a major hospital in Red Bank.”

A TINY PORTION OF THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN — “Mayor-backed slate sweeps race for 3 Newark school board seats,” by NJ Advance Media’s Steve Strunsky: “With 94% of districts reporting, a mayoral-backed slate of three Newark Board of Education candidates swept Tuesday’s election by a nearly 3-1 margin, with voters overwhelmingly approving a local tax levy projected to cut the average homeowner’s bill by $15 for the coming school year. The ‘Moving Newark Schools Forward’ slate backed by Mayor Ras Baraka included two incumbents, Josephine Garcia and Hasani Council, and Allison James-Frison, who ran unsuccessfully against the mayor’s slate last year. … Turnout in the state’s largest school district was low on Tuesday — about the same as last year’s 3% mark.”

—“Should Baraka be worried that Newark voters don’t vote?” by New Jersey Globe’s David Wildstein: “When Newark Mayor Kenneth Gibson ran for governor in 1981, he came out of Newark with 21,967 votes. That enabled him to carry Essex by a 40%-13% margin over Jim Florio, and helped propel him to a third-place statewide – just 3,448 votes out of second. But that was more than 40 years ago, and circumstances have changed for another Newark mayor, Ras Baraka, as he considers a bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2025. Baraka has struggled to turn out votes in the state’s largest city in recent elections. When he ran for re-election in the May 2022 non-partisan municipal election, just 10 % of Newark voters turned out to vote. Despite his 83% landslide, 92% of voters in Baraka’s hometown didn’t vote for him. … The latest data point came on Tuesday when voter turnout in a contested race for the Newark Board of Education was roughly 3.7%, just slightly better than the 2.9% turnout in April 2022.”

A PLIGHT IN THE ROXBURY — ”‘Pornography’ on the shelves at Roxbury High? Librarian sues residents for defamation,” by The Daily Record’s William Westhoven: “Roxbury’s High School librarian has sued a group of township residents, saying they’ve made her the target of ‘a civil conspiracy to defame her character’ with allegations online and in public that she’s allowed pornography in the library. The alleged campaign centers on the graphic novel ‘Gender Queer: A Memoir,’ and other books in the library that critics have called sexually explicit but which also have been approved by the state as part of its sex education and gender-identity curriculums. The lawsuit, filed last month by librarian Roxana Russo Caivano, said the residents have labeled her a ‘child predator’ and accused her of ‘luring children with pornography.’”

TOO HOT OFF THE PRESSES — “A newspaper was planning its last edition. Then the press caught fire,” by The New York Times’ Corey Kilgannon: “In 2017, a tech executive and his wife from New Jersey with a spare fortune to invest in local news and nostalgia started a weekly print newspaper covering their beloved Montclair, an affluent commuter town some 30 minutes from Manhattan. As other regional and community papers were fading, Montclair Local popped up with a subscription price: $12 a year. It added a website and weekly email newsletters, and for seven years, it defied the odds. The press run grew to 3,500. … But print circulation costs were eating 40 percent of the budget, so last week, the Local’s board announced it would go online-only and merge with another online outlet, Baristanet. Its last print edition would come out the following Thursday, April 27. … But on Monday morning, Ms. Baranauckas received an email with some troubling news: There had been a fire at the printing plant in Rockaway, N.J. Suddenly, the Local’s last edition was in jeopardy.”

—“Sires-endorsed slate cruises to victory in West New York school board elections”

—“Ex-Ocean Township manager getting $110,000 in lawsuit deal after firing”

—“Paterson educator claims he was discriminated against — because he’s white”

—“Ramapo Indian Hills school board’s legal fees overshadow budget talks as accusations fly”

—“Paramus weed dispensary’s future remains hazy, as CEO calls questions ‘political’”

YOU KNEW IT WOULD BE 22 — “New Jersey’s 25 worst highways, ranked by how much we hate them,” by NJ Advance Media’s Bobby Olivier and Jeremy Schneider: “1. Route 22 Why we hate it: If New Jersey’s highway system is indeed a manifestation of man’s sin and folly, then Route 22 must be the devil himself. It is a commuter’s eternal damnation, a gauntlet of car wrecks, road rage and drivers touting death wishes. The moment you pull onto 22 you become the worst version of yourself, involuntarily giving people the finger as you slalom through Hillside.”

DESTROY YOUR HEALTH AND YOUR FINANCES — “Pork roll vs. Taylor ham debate celebrated in new scratch-off lottery ticket,” by The Record’s Sarah Griesemer: “The New Jersey Lottery is getting in on the fun with a scratch-off ticket called ‘The Jersey Debate.’ The ticket, which features a traditional match-the-numbers game, costs $5 and has a top prize of $200,000. ‘What we’re really trying to do is embrace the fun of the New Jersey-ness of this debate and just how unique it is,’ said Missy Gillespie, chief communications officer for the New Jersey Lottery.”

YOU MAY NEED SOME PLUMBERS — “President Nixon’s North Jersey home hits the market for $1.2 million. Take a look inside,” by The Record’s David M. Zimmer: “Put up for sale at the end of March, 23 Sherwood Downs was the final home of former President Richard M. Nixon and his wife, Pat. The asking price is $1.2 million, twice what the couple paid in March 1991. Located deep within the gated Bears Nest community, the three-bedroom, five-bathroom home was the second Bergen County residence for the Nixons. The pair lived in a 15-room home on 4 acres in Saddle River for nine years before they sold it in November 1990. They moved to 23 Sherwood the following April.”

HOW IT THIS POSSIBLE IF EVERYONE’S LEAVING? — “‘Everyone’s fighting over crumbs’: New Jersey housing markets slip right back into the Pandemic Housing Boom,” by Fortune’s Alena Botros: “New Jersey’s average home value is up 5.9% over the past year. Meanwhile, San Francisco’s average home value is down 11.8% over the same period. It’s clear that the housing market correction, mostly fueled by last year’s mortgage rate shock and currently losing steam, is milder in the East and sharper out West. But New Jersey housing markets, in particular, are getting surprisingly hot again.”

—“Report: 37% of working families in NJ struggled to make ends meet during COVID pandemic”

—“Killer of Press photographer gets life plus 35 years for ‘cruelty in its purest form’”

—“Cooper and Cape Regional reach definitive agreement to merge”

—“7,100 square-foot esports gaming venue set to open near [Rowan] campus”

—“Memorial service for P-Funk co-founder Clarence ‘Fuzzy’ Haskins set for Plainfield”

—“FDU names its 9th president. Here’s how he differs from his predecessors”

The post The Norcross machine hasn’t turned on but appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Nearly 400 firearms were collected Saturday at a gun buyback event in South San Francisco sponsored by numerous government and law enforcement agencies.

A spokesman for the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department said Saturday that hundreds of people turned in guns — no questions asked — and received $100 in cash for handguns, shotguns and rifles and $200 in cash for assault weapons and so-called “ghost weapons.” had.

The event, presented by San Mateo County, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department, the South San Francisco and San Bruno Police Departments, and Citizens for San Mateo County Gun Buyback, hosted the South San Francisco Anonymous Gun Buyback Event.

A total of 392 firearms were collected, including seven assault weapons and 12 “ghost guns”, the latter of which cannot be traced.

Another weapon buyback event is planned for later this year.

The post Almost 400 firearms turned in at South San Francisco gun buyback | Native Information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Nearly 400 firearms were collected Saturday at a gun buyback event in South San Francisco sponsored by numerous government and law enforcement agencies.

A San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson said Saturday that hundreds of people surrendered weapons — no questions asked — receiving $100 cash for handguns, shotguns and rifles and $200 cash for assault weapons and so-called “ghost guns”.

The event presented by San Mateo County, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department, the South San Francisco and San Bruno police departments and the Citizens for San Mateo County Gun Buyback, hosted the anonymous gun buyback event in South San Francisco.

A total of 392 firearms were collected, including seven assault weapons and 12 “ghost guns,” the latter of which are untraceable.

Another gun buyback event is planned for later this year.

The post Almost 400 firearms turned in at South San Francisco gun buyback | Native Information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Newcomers to San Francisco who are looking for signs of a futuristic tech metropolis tend to come away disappointed. Yes, there is a robot barista making coffee in the airport, but other evidence is harder to come by. The city’s apathy towards its own tech sector is exemplified by low regard for ride-hailing apps. Not that that’s likely to stop a new service from trying its luck.

Alto is hoping to stand out from rivals Uber and Lyft by making its drivers employees – with all the attendant benefits – and sending them out in a standard model of car, a mid-sized Buick SUV. That may win over riders and drivers. But the company should not expect a warm welcome from the city.

Uber and Lyft were both founded in San Francisco. Neither are made to feel wanted. San Francisco airport may have been one of the first in the US to embrace ride-sharing services but it appears to have regretted the decision. If you arrive on a domestic flight and want to catch an Uber, you are left to hunt for non-existent signs, bump your suitcase along a concrete pass and down a flight of stairs and head out to a distant car park.

This is intentional. San Francisco’s troubled history with its taxi drivers matches New York’s. In 2010, shortly after Uber was launched, the city introduced a new auction for medallions, the licenses that give drivers the right to operate taxis. The price was a straightforward but stratospheric $250,000. In the past, these were available for a nominal fee but there was a long waiting list. Medallion holders would hang on to them for decades – sometimes renting them out to other drivers as a form of passive income.

San Francisco’s decision to create a market for medallions made the city a lot of money – $63mn, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), the city agency with regulatory authority over the taxi industry. Medallion sellers made millions too.

The city’s response is to give taxi drivers who paid a vast price for their licenses priority over ride-sharing apps at the airport

But within a couple of years of sales, rideshare companies had swamped the city, offering cheaper rides via convenient apps. Taxi revenues collapsed. The market for second-hand medallions was non-existent. Taxi drivers who had taken out huge loans were left with unaffordable debt. Many defaulted. Drivers want the city to buy back the medallions at the prices paid – the most recent organized protest was held earlier this month. But this is unlikely to happen. New York cab drivers are fighting the same fight, battling vast loans taken out to buy medallions before ride-hailing companies changed the market.

There is no satisfactory way to apportion blame. In San Francisco, a credit union that backed many of the loans sued the SFMTA for not protecting medallion value. Last year it lost its case. The SFMTA does not have jurisdiction over ride-hailing companies. They are regulated at state level, not city.

San Francisco’s response is to give taxi drivers who paid a vast price for priority medallions over other taxis at the airport. This is intended to help with the huge financial burden, although it is small compensation. They are permitted to drive along Market Street, one of San Francisco’s main streets, which is closed to private vehicles. As of 2020, the city has imposed a 3.25 per cent surcharge on ride-share journeys but not on taxis.

Passengers unaware of the backstory will not stop calling Ubers. Some may think twice after they have been forced to take an inconvenient route, but not many. The strange thing is that both taxi drivers and Uber have lost out financially. Ride-hailing companies are still trying to figure out how to make sustainable profits and keep users booking rides. Uber has only just begun to report positive net income. Its latest battle is working out how to offset rising oil prices. An oil levy for passengers to cover the price rise will help drivers but could put off riders.

The downsides to ride-hailing companies are common knowledge by now. They do not reduce car use—they increase it. Congestion has grown worse, making cities noisier, more polluted places, where journeys take longer. Research by Carnegie Mellon University shows that Ubers and Lyfts produce 20 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than personal vehicles because they spend so much time driving around to collect passengers. Alto may well carve out a niche in the Bay Area. But the future of city transport is still up for grabs.

Elaine Moore is FT’s deputy Lex editor

The post Why San Francisco turned bitter on Uber, Lyft and different ride-hailing apps appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Serina Calhoun has worked as an architect in San Francisco for 21 years and has faced plenty of headache-inducing projects, but the renovation of a Bernal Heights fixer-upper that she took on in 2020 stands out as truly atrocious.

Many of the city’s worst story lines converged at the seemingly cursed house, leaving Calhoun and the home’s owners slack-jawed by all the plot twists.

It involves insanely high real estate prices. Byzantine planning codes that even the city’s planners find confusing. Neighbors who demand a say in any change near them. Squatters, drugs and vandalism. Police officers who blame the district attorney as they let criminals go. A pricey private security guard. And heaps of frustration.

Sounds like San Francisco, alright.

“This is a whole other level of crazy,” Calhoun said.

It all began in October 2020 when Jennifer Sun and her husband, Ben, purchased a house in Bernal Heights for $1.75 million. In most parts of the country, that would buy a stunning mansion. In San Francisco, it buys a rather dated fixer-upper.

The couple are wealthy, and nobody but them will shed any tears over their home remodel gone awry. Still, what happened next points to what’s broken in San Francisco — and so much is broken.

A sticker, writing on the refrigerator and a sign are some of the damage left over from squatters who trespassed and lived in the home of a Bernal Heights couple.

Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

The couple hired Calhoun to design a remodel, submitted their plans in March 2021 and hoped to secure permits within six months. They kept paying rent on their South of Market apartment so they could live there during the remodel, while also paying their new mortgage.

But six months turned into 12 months — and still, no permits.

The first hiccup was that the Planning Department said the home had been illegally converted into three units by a previous owner, and the couple wanted to restore it to its original single-family home set-up.

After some back and forth, the Planning Department said the plan was allowable because there was no record of any tenants ever living there.

Dan Sider, chief of staff for the Planning Department, said planners were ready to approve the plans including major interior work in July 2021, but then the couple submitted a proposal with a new wrinkle: extending the back of their home by just under 3 feet . That would make the back of the house even since the third story juts out beyond the lower two.

But this being San Francisco, and especially Bernal Heights, that seemingly small change is a very big deal. That’s because of a “special use district” approved by the Board of Supervisors in 1991 that governs every little change to homes in the neighborhood. The idea was to preserve the area’s character, but the details will make your eyes glaze over and, according to Calhoun, have prompted many architects in the city to refuse to work there.

In sections and subsections to subsections, it governs changes to homes in minute detail — down to the allowable width of curb cuts and garage doors.

“I can assure you that it is not a page-turner,” Sider said good-naturedly.

Jennifer Sun stands below two holes in the ceiling of her home, part of the damage from squatters. She and her husband have had to hire private security while they wait for permits to remodel their new home.

Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

A group of neighbors called the Bernal Heights East Slope Design Review Board — with no apparent website or easy way to find them — gets to weigh in on projects in the area. An email sent to an address associated with the group was not returned.

The rules include the length of a home can extend into the backyard from the front of its property line. But because the couple’s house sits on a curved lot, Calhoun’s been trying to get an answer on where on the front lot to start measuring from. She said she waited until November just to get a planner assigned and has spoken to four different planners about the 3-foot extension, and that none knows the answer.

“They shared that the code is confusing even for them,” she said.

Then, the planner told Calhoun the home was historic and the facade — though nondescript — could not be altered. Sorting that out would have extended the project by another six to nine months, Calhoun said, so the couple dropped proposed changes to the front.

Then things got really weird.

In February, Calhoun received an email from a member of the Bernal Heights East Slope Design Review Board who reported a neighbor across the street from the couple’s home had grown “increasingly agitated” by the couple’s lifestyle and the cars coming and going from the home at every hour.

Sun said she was shocked. They weren’t living there. What cars? What lifestyle?

So they visited the property, which had weird spray paint across the garage door and signs of people inside. They called police, who accompanied them inside the house where they found squatters had taken it over.

Photos the couple took show piles of furniture, clothes and a fridge full of food. Graffiti covers the refrigerator and walls. One message can’t be relayed in full because of antigay language, but it reads in part, “No soliciting. No shopping. No snitches.” They bashed holes in the walls and ceilings, wrecked a sink and other fixtures, left dog poop on the carpets and discarded needles and syringe caps around the house. Flies were everywhere. The house still smells bad.

According to the couple, police officers gave the squatters — all of whom appeared high — 10 minutes to collect their belongings and leave. They arrested only one. No one else faced any consequences. The couple said police explained there was nothing they could do because District Attorney Chesa Boudin “has different priorities right now” and wouldn’t prosecute.

Salar Naderi, a spokesperson with the Police Department, confirmed police found seven people occupying the house and arrested Richard Ostergard, 47, who had warrants for stealing a vehicle, possession of stolen property and theft. Naderi said the homeowners “did not want to have any of the (other) subjects cited or arrested,” disputing the couple’s version.

In any case, Sun, 36, said that just a few hours later, neighbors texted and called to tell her the squatters were back. And it doesn’t sound like they’re merely people down on their luck. Photos show nice belongings, and neighbors reported them driving a Mercedes, BMW and Dodge Durango.

Neighbors continued to report to the couple that people were entering the home over the next couple of days, and that someone tried to access the property with a crowbar.

The couple quickly hired a private security guard whom they’re paying $8,000 a month to watch over the house every night.

“If we had known the city would take so long, we would have moved in and this wouldn’t be an issue,” Sun said.

Even though they’re doing well professionally, the couple said the costs have created “an immense financial impact” — and work hasn’t even started yet. Mortgage payments and property taxes on the house have topped $180,000 so far. They paid $3,000 to haul away the squatters’ belongings and don’t know yet how much it will cost to repair their damage.

Meanwhile, construction costs keep growing because of inflation and supply chain shortages, and there’s no telling how much the remodel will end up costing or when they can finally start.

“How does anyone afford this?” Sun asked.

Sun said she’s no longer excited about moving in after the remodel — which she thinks won’t be done for another year at best.

“It totally creeps me out,” she said. “Just unlocking the door, I get goose bumps. It’s uncomfortable being in here. It’s so unnerving. This is supposed to be home.”

This being San Francisco, there is one bit of good news for the couple. Redfin says their dream home turned nightmare is now worth more than $2 million.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf

The post How a San Francisco rework became an epic nightmare involving metropolis crimson tape, squatters and cops shrugging off crime appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – After an embarrassing loss to a watered-down version of the Arizona Cardinals two weeks ago, the San Francisco 49ers looked like a rudderless team headed nowhere.

Two weeks later, the Niners look like a team that is not only capable of making the NFC playoffs but can also make noise when they get there. The Jacksonville Jaguars’ 30-10 beatdown on Sunday follows the dominant 31-10 posting by the Los Angeles Rams on Monday night.

From the outside, the first one could easily be explained away by San Francisco’s apparent hex over the Rams. The second would be excused by the general inability of the jaguars. Put together and put in context, these two victories suggest that the Niners have finally discovered themselves.

At 5-5 with two wins in less than a week, those niners aren’t your two week old neighbor’s niners.

“The last 14 days have, I don’t mean to say, changed our team, but we’re definitely moving in the right direction now,” said quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. “We just have to keep going. There is still a lot of football to play.”

All you need this week:
• Full schedule »| Tables »
• Depth diagrams for each team »
• Transactions »| Injuries »
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There actually is. Although it was far too early to tarnish the Niners after losing to an Arizona team with no quarterback Kyler Murray and receiver DeAndre Hopkins (especially given the lack of NFC teams retreating with playoff spots) on November 7th, it was reasonable to wonder if they had all that was needed to get the ship in order and get into one of those seven postseason positions.

Instead, the 49ers have straightened the ship and are moving towards the Games by mid-January.

As? There are many ways in which the Niners have improved in their last two games, but nowhere is this more important than the most obvious place: the battle for sales. San Francisco was minus 9 in the deadweight differential in their first eight games, including minus 3 against Arizona. For the past two weeks, the 49ers have been plus-4, including two fumble rallies against the Jaguars.

“We sat here after the game in Arizona – take the build – everyone’s trying to solve these problems and we were literally like, ‘We have to stop flipping the ball, we have to get some defensive or special team losses, and that’s all we did, “said George Kittle.

That turnaround in sales helped the 49ers beat the Rams solidly on national television, and it opened some eyes in the process. It was exactly what a team with legitimate playoff aspirations would do to do it again to the Jaguars instead of falling into the “short week / long trip / early start time” trap six days later.

“I think it comes at the right time,” said linebacker Fred Warner. “We’re getting into the back half of the season and we’re getting hot. I think that’s exactly what we are. I think we’ve been trying all the time to find that identity, to find ourselves and it’s starting to get too show through. “

The real test of the Niners’ potential post-season hopes will come over the next seven weeks. The first, against the Minnesota Vikings next week, has two meanings. If the playoffs started today, the Niners would be eliminated, but a home win over Minnesota would allow the Niners to jump over the Vikings and give them a meaningful win for potential tiebreakers across the board. San Francisco follows with games against teams on the wider edge of the NFC playoff picture, then it meets the Seattle Seahawks on December 5th and the Atlanta Falcons on December 19th.

While all of this might look a bit too far ahead, the Niners have identified and, at least for now, corrected the issues that wiggled them to a 3-5 start.

“It was pretty low after that game in Arizona,” said coach Kyle Shanahan. “We were embarrassed about how we looked and when we looked at the tape we saw a lot of things that we thought we could fix. It wasn’t as daunting as it was during this game. I was happy with the guys When they got discouraged, they looked at the tape and saw what we could improve. It’s an honor for the guys and the coaches that they didn’t come down when it was easy to come down. They just focused To getting better and practicing and trying to get things into detail and I think we’ve done better in the past two weeks. “

A run into the postseason will depend on whether the 49ers of the past two weeks keep showing up.

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The corner lot on 17th and Ord Streets in San Francisco’s Tony Corona Heights neighborhood doesn’t look like much. A nondescript, gray, three-story building stands next to a yard with a chain-link fence covered with poorly cared for ivy.

But this property has become a major focal point in San Francisco’s battle for housing – how much of it this city needs, where it should be, and who decides what will be built. When the owner suggested adding four more houses to the site – including two that would be affordable – the usual battles for neighborhood character, sunlight and diversity began.

The saga turned residents against each other with nasty emails, screaming matches and neighbors who no longer speak to each other. Call it the “real San Francisco homeowners,” and you could be producing a reality television show.

But the real bad guy isn’t the neighbors trying to block more apartments on the site. It’s the city’s outdated zoning regulations that turn small projects into explosive battles in a city with major housing problems.

Rich Hillis, the city’s planning director, also agreed with the assessment that the city’s own rules are to blame, which despite increased demand, a large homeless crisis, and a fleeing middle class severely restrict new housing construction in large parts of the city and dwindling diversity.

“There was a lot to like about that proposal,” said Hillis of the original plan for 4300 17th Street. “But our 1960s code doesn’t allow us to approve it.”

The drama began two years ago when Scott Pluta, a lawyer who worked in the Obama administration and now works for Google, bought the property. He lives on the third floor of the house with his wife Rosalind Pluta, who also works at Google. A tenant lives in a unit subject to rent on the second floor, while the garage, laundry room and workroom are on the ground floor.

Pluta examined his neighborhood and learned that it was 84% ​​white, had an average home value of nearly $ 2 million, and had no affordable housing units. He quickly forged ambitious plans for the property.

He suggested adding an affordable unit on the first floor of his building and adding three units in the garden, two at market prices and one at affordable prices. Both affordable units would be permanently handed over to the Mayor’s Office for Housing, and qualified tenants would be selected through the city’s lottery.

He wanted his property to serve as a kind of laboratory where an experiment could be conducted to find answers to the housing crisis in San Francisco. He knew adding four units was just a tiny piece of the city’s huge housing puzzle – the state has ordered San Francisco to build 80,000 new units by 2031 – but he hoped others could replicate that.

He envisioned six people or families living in small units nearby – maybe a public school teacher, he said, and families of color. It could become a paradise home to people who could have afforded the beautiful neighborhood just a short walk from Muni Castro train station. It could be a model for similar projects in a city that says that it relies primarily on transit, needs affordable housing and wants more diversity.

Scott and Rosalind Pluta’s property, which is currently two units, is located on the corner of 17th Street and Ord Street in the Corona Heights neighborhood.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

“I wanted to do something that was in line with my progressive values,” said Pluta. “The ability to say, ‘I’ve built affordable housing in San Francisco.’ I know it’s cheesy, but it’s meaningful. “

For some of its neighbors, the garden is already a paradise, an open space that gives the surrounding houses more sunlight, air and a view. Pluta’s proposal is hellish in her opinion. Build too big and destroy the character of the block. And some of them say that Pluta pretends to be a social justice fighter when really he’s only there for the money. He said he would not make any money on the project.

At an irritable hearing in November, the planning commission continued the project, saying Pluta’s plan was not possible under the city’s current rules. So he scaled it down. It also lost an affordable unit.

At the request of Corbett Heights Neighbors, the hearing on the new proposal has been postponed for about six weeks and is expected to take place in mid-October. The group said it needed more time to consider the new proposal but was also strongly against it.

Bill Holtzman, president of the neighborhood association, has just returned from the Paris apartment he and his wife own in Paris and said he was still in the process of catching up on the new proposal. But he said it was already clear that according to city rules, the new version was still devouring too much of the garden.

“Our association will always choose trees, grass, and shrubs because that’s what makes San Francisco San Francisco,” he said. “We consider backyards to be inviolable. Until the city or the state changes these rules, we will live by these rules and we will reject any violation of the codes. “

These codes are likely to change – one way or another. Hillis said Pluta would have a far better chance if he waited for Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s proposal to allow quadruples on corner lots to be passed.

This law should be heard by the Planning Commission next month. A separate proposal from Mandelman to allow fourplexes on every single-family lot is not there yet.

Some other housing promotion policies are well received by the state legislature, and other ways to approve Fourplexes are being pursued by regulators other than housing legislation and election action.

A public hearing notice will be posted at Scott and Rosalind Pluta’s property at 17th and Ord Streets. Two of the units would be affordable housing.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

Mandelman remains largely neutral on Pluta’s proposal, although it gets to the core of what he has been advocating all year round. He said the project could end up on the board of directors, and there isn’t much he can say about it without looking biased ahead of that vote.

“This is the type of housing that I would like to see more of in the district,” he said, adding that his office would like to act as an intermediary between the belligerent neighbors.

Maybe he wants to put on armor first. Pluta and several of his neighbors seemed to clash on both personal and political levels. Pluta thinks they are hypocritical NIMBYs. “It is this cartel that has restricted supply in order to maintain and increase the value of their properties,” he said.

His neighbor Casey Rando said Pluta initially outlined a much smaller proposal than the one he actually made. When Rando saw the plans, he lost his composure.

“I yelled at him and told him he lied to us,” he said. “He hasn’t been communicating with me since then.”

Rando, a gay man who moved to the neighborhood because of his proximity to Castro, said he hates being indicted by Pluta on “all of San Francisco’s racial problems” while Pluta has the money to hire a lobbyist and send one Create website.

“We’re literally three blocks from the rainbow flag and you won’t be lecturing gay men and women on diversity,” Rando said.

Pluta said he will keep trying the planning committee, but he doesn’t know if his shrinking project will ever fail. He never intended to make any money, but now he doesn’t know if he can break even. He could get approval, divide up the property, and hope the buyer would develop the garden.

Laura Foote, executive director of housing association YIMBY Action, said uncertainty is the problem. The outdated rules of the city lead to individual decisions, breaches of neighborhood and far too little living space.

“You could sit on the planning committee all day and those are all stories like this,” she said. “It’s all rich people yelling at each other and it’s the system as it was designed.”

It may be a popcorn worthy look, but it will never help us weather our housing crisis.

Editor’s Note: In an earlier version of this story, the number of units in the existing building was incorrectly stated.

The San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf

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And while many large hotels have been vacant for over a year, a few smaller ones took advantage of state and city incentives to house around 2,000 homeless people in rooms that used to go to tourists. Now there is taxpayers’ money to buy hotels and use them to permanently house the homeless – which will cost millions of dollars. Is it a possible way forward in solving our homelessness crisis?

To answer the question, we decided to visit one of the hotels to take a look at the program, the people and the challenges that lie ahead of us.

In a story you’ll only see on ABC7 News, we took an exclusive look inside one of those former tourist hotels that have been converted into homeless shelters.

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In return for access to this hotel, which is just a few blocks from Union Square, we were asked not to provide details of where it was located. It was a real eye opener. Before the pandemic, rooms at this hotel ranged from $ 200 to $ 300 a night. That was then. These days you know from the first moment that this is not your average Union Square hotel.

Wand security checks and temperature controls are required of anyone entering.

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It’s one of 25 hotels across the city that closed when San Francisco was shut down by the pandemic and was later rented by the city with federal COVID emergency funds to shelter thousands of people at the peak camped on the streets during the pandemic.

79 of the hotel’s 96 rooms are currently occupied.

“It’s a come-and-go situation, people are switching in and out, but we also need rooms on each floor for an office,” said Steve Good, CEO of Five Keys, the nonprofit that runs the hotel.

“It’s all part of a coordinated access system in San Francisco,” says Good.

“When the pandemic really started to take hold well over a year ago, the city had to act quickly to get as many of the 6,000 or so homeless people off the streets and it was a win-win as you had the tourist season completely Thrown off the cliff, we had caterers and food service folks out of business so we had a huge problem with the fear of the COVID threat so the city responded in May and opened a number of hotels and location 35 became one of the Accommodation in the hotel, “says Good.

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What do you get when you come to a hotel like this: “You all get a private room, some hotels are different from others, but each of these rooms has at least one double bed. It has a TV, a sink, and a full bathroom, “says Good.

Site 35, as they call it, provides food, laundry, and medical care to residents. Everything on site.

“All the rooms that you see are marked with different notations, once a day wellness check, from 9:00 p.m., how many guests are in the room, whether there are special needs such as medical needs, physical needs or dietary restrictions or whether there is a pet, “says Good.

Well said “Site 35” is actually one of the quieter homeless hotels.

But it still has problems.

“Guest disputes. Sometimes there are couples who live together in larger places, sometimes there can be noise at night, something like in every household or apartment, it’s not really different. ”Gut says.

There are also psychological problems and drug problems.

“Unfortunately it’s pretty high. You know drug and alcohol problems aren’t the cause of homelessness per se, but now with Covid and hotels, more than 80 percent suffer from one or the other or a combination of” the two, “says Good.

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What about drug overdoses?

“Unfortunately, that’s a real problem.” Good says.

Drug overdoses are trending to break new records in San Francisco. 700 people died in 2020 and more than 250 people this year. Health officials say it is a by-product of a fentanyl crisis that is gripping the country. The opening up of these hotels to the homeless has likely resulted in them overdosing on the streets.

“We saved 155 lives,” says Good. But they also lost about 20 people to overdosing from 8 locations in San Francisco.

Violence is rare, the staff here are trained in de-escalation techniques. When they need help, they called the police.

“The big thing is trust and respect. They are people, ”says one employee during his meeting.

For the residents here, a roof over their heads is better than being exposed to the street

“It’s beautiful – they really treat us – it’s a blessing to have these people,” said one woman who joined the program after 10 years on the street.

For them and the others there is now a home in every former hotel room. A home that many do not want to leave – even if it means having their own apartment.

Good estimates suggest that only around 30 to 40% of current residents will ever have the sole destination.

“And that could be an optimistic guess,” says Good.

Means a hotel room – can be the best long-term solution to a short-term problem.

The result: the hotel program costs roughly the same as the $ 200 to $ 300 a night a tourist would spend per night.

But “we also provide care, we offer help and support around the clock,” says Good.

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Desi Danganan had a clear vision when redesigning the former parking lot at 967 Mission Street in San Francisco. Filipino community activist and SoMa resident who is a driving force behind the area’s cultural district, SOMA Pilipinas, envisioned an active space with a basketball court, food trucks, and surrounding murals.

Then COVID-19 arrived. “Full contact sports were basically illegal at the time, and crowds were illegal,” he recalls. “We have decided not to fight COVID and only to design the space for COVID.”

The result is Kapwa Gardens, which opened this April with lots of greenery, techno-colored meeting rooms and a redesigned jeepney bus (which will be converted into office space and a sound booth) painted with a giant bird’s head. It is designed to help the neighborhood “recover from the devastating psychological, physical and economic effects of COVID-19,” according to the website. It’s also the latest offering in a growing cultural district that is anchoring a Filipino trade corridor on Mission, an up and coming block of the city.

The city recognized SOMA Pilipinas in 2016; The cultural district honors and presents the 120-year history of the Filipinos in San Francisco. Danganan, who is part of a SOMA Pilipinas working group and who founded the local non-profit incubator Kultivate Labs hosted a series of night markets and holiday pop-ups known as UNDSCVRD SF to highlight the area.

He saw a great opportunity in Mission 967, which had been a parking lot for decades. As part of a massive real estate development nearby, the city acquired the 8,777-square-foot lot and published a tender in fall 2019 to activate it. Kultivate Labs had already built and activated a two-month meeting room and basketball court called the UNDSCVRD Court on city-owned property just blocks away. The city gave Kultivate the tender to build a more permanent common room here.

The UNDSCVRD court was taken into account an early prototype for Kapwa Gardens. (Kapwa in Tagalog roughly translates to “neighbor”.) Kultivate Labs, in collaboration with CAMO Studio, also led community engagement with residents, seniors, and a local school to develop potential designs.

COVID-19 paused community engagement, but with few public meeting rooms in the neighborhood, the team didn’t want to give up. “We couldn’t do what we were going to do, but we had to do something“Says Marcus Owens, co-founder of CAMO. “It was supposed to be much more of an active pre-COVID space, with an adventure playground and basketball hoop, and it became a completely peaceful, serene calamansi grove.”

The team opted for plenty of green – calamansi trees are native to the Philippines and are considered medicinal plants – versus bright colors for the room and the surrounding works of art. “Calamansi trees are very special to a lot of people because we don’t have the space to grow them in our own four walls,” says Kimberley Acebo Arteche, who curates the artistic component of the garden. As for the giant bird painted on the converted school bus: “It’s a Sarimanok, a kind of mythical creature that interweaves everyone’s wishes and dreams,” she says.

There were also design and programming considerations for security. Kapwa Gardens was designed for 56 people who are socially distant and the team grew internal contact tracing for visitors.

With a limited budget, Kultivate Labs organized a team of volunteers who built the space over several months. “It was part of a mental health reduction to give people a safe place to gather and focus on something other than zoom,” says Danganan. The request for volunteers was well received – about 350 people helped build the garden, who traveled as far as San Jose. 65 percent of the volunteers were non-Filipino, according to Danganan. “It shows that our work doesn’t only appeal to Filipinos,” he notes.

Kapwa Gardens opened with limited entry in April to maintain social distancing, temperature controls, contact tracing, and hand sanitizer throughout. It also hosted weekly COVID-19 tests. In addition to quiet meeting rooms, an open space offers socially distant activities like yoga, dance, and self-defense classes. There were no associated COVID-19 outbreaks here throughout the expansion and opening, according to Danganan.

Kultivate Labs also wanted to pay attention when San Francisco moved out of its housing mandates. When the city’s mask restriction was lifted, the team interviewed community members about the lifting of mask restrictions in Kapwa Gardens. (Masks are now optional.) Kultivate will increasingly host food trucks, vendors, and programs as part of the economic recovery for Filipino business owners. “We have to do it really slowly, as a recreational space”, Danganan says. Still, he adds: “We see Kapwa Gardens as part of the recovery of SOMA Pilipinas.”

Ideas and programs for the future cultural center of the region are tested in Kapwa Gardens, Balay Creative. It won’t open until 2025, but Danganan believes the lessons of designing, building, and opening a common room will go down strongly during the pandemic.

“Everyone’s talking about the San Francisco exodus … our church, we’ve made a decision to adapt,” he says. “It’s just part of the DNA of the Philippines, and that resilience is part of the Filipino-American culture here.”

Emily Nonko is a reporter from Brooklyn, New York who writes on real estate, architecture, urbanism, and design. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Curbed, and other publications.

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