Comments on: Got Falling Real Estate? An Oakland Eyesore

By: Alison

Alison — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:31:12 +0000

Here is the East Bay Express Article
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/news/the_hill_from_hell/Content?oid=430089

Here is an Oakland Tribune Article

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_/ai_n16511809

I could not find the Chronicle article..

By: Alison

Alison — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:13:20 +0000

SC: hmmmm…well, while this disaster is pretty bad, I would disagree with you that Rockridge is disgusting. What gets me is the fact that the folks who live underneath the landslide have been fairly powerless all these years due to all the complications Oaklander points out; although I think they were able to win about a good chunk of cash through last year after years of a legal battle.

SMHSIT: lol! Yes, that would work. Unfortunately, the homes have been falling down for I think at least 6 years, and are still not done.

Oaklander: thanks for all your comments. You are right to point out that there is much more–WAYYY MORE— to this story. I found a great article published by East Bay Express here; will post it up soon.

By: oaklander

oaklander — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:29:45 +0000

Oh, and the issue of the buildings falling down vs. being demolished is that, though you can’t see it in this photo, there are three intact houses on the street that runs *under* these homes that will be crushed if they continue to slide down the hill, so the cost is to take down the homes and stabilize the hillside to save the homes below.

By: oaklander

oaklander — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:27:46 +0000

Please. This is California. Landslides aren’t unique to Oakland (and in fact they’re pretty uncommon in Oakland, considering the number of hills). While this particular one is frustrating because it hasn’t been dealt with in a timely manner, if you read the full story on it (the Chron or the Trib did a story last summer), it’s basically a case of people fighting lengthy legal battles over who should pay, each suing the others, so no one can do much till the multiple suits are settled. The city reasonably waited to see what the resolution of that would be in the hopes that they would not get stuck footing the multi-million dollar bill for the work, since the owners and insurance companies are supposed to cover that. While I do think they ought to have stepped in earlier from a blight perspective, there are a lot of complicating factors—insurance companies, banks, others involved. (Interestingly, the bank foreclosed on one of the sliding homes when the owner quite reasonably walked away after learning his insurance didn’t cover landslides—but when the city informed the bank it had to take down the home and pay the fines, the bank “rescinded” the foreclosure not once but twice, giving the home back. Gotta love our banks, helping to make sure that people don’t lose their homes!) The only thing really unique to this part of Oakland is that this land isn’t worth millions of dollars, and thus no developers were chomping at the bit to jump in and clean it all up, which is what would have happened in San Diego or LA or Marin or even Montclair.

By: San Mateo Home Sellers in Trouble

San Mateo Home Sellers in Trouble — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:21:54 +0000

No need to demolish these buildings if they’d just fall down on their own.

By: sc

sc — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:49:36 +0000

The only place I have ever seen anything like the disasters in these photos is a 3rd world country. I cannot believe what a scum pit Oakland is…even the nice neighborhoods like rockridge are disgusting.

Since the city is practically bankrupt, cutting jobs, and opting to discontinue public park maintenance, Im wondering where they will get the money to demolish these homes?