nothingugly

I’m signed off, my house is finaled, my case is closed, and I’m finally done with the City of Oakland - this round.
  For obvious reasons, I’ve been pretty happy to not revisit the pain of dealing with CEDA’s compliance department, but I think it’s important to talk about how the process went, and how it finally ended for me. Heaven knows there are others fighting the same battle, and they could probably benefit from my experience, such as it is.
  So, I should probably post a timeline.

July 7th, 2008 - Michelle Newman, my long suffering title agent, starts trying to contact the city of Oakland to get an explanation of the liens involved, and a path to resolution and release of title.

July 15th, 2008 - No response from Oakland. Aurora bank, the title holder, also starts calling city of Oakland.

July 28th, 2008 - Michelle ccs me: "Several weeks ago we had faxed over a demand request for the above referenced property.  As of today, we have not heard back and would like to get this file closed before the end of the Month. Also, it is my understanding that there are 3 liens that recorded in error but I do not see them released as of yet. Please advise."

July 28th - 2008 - first response from the city: "If you faxed a demand it should have gone to City Wide Liens (510) 986-2728.  Inspector Nguyen spoke with someone last week, I’m not sure if it was your office and explained that the property is declared Substandard Public Nuisance.  A notice went into the mail today to the Owner.  Please contact Inspector Nguyen at 238-6269 or kguyen@oaklandnet.com. "

July 30th, 2008: "Hi Kim, I left you a voicemail regarding the above referenced property.  I have been trying for weeks to get an answer out of the City regarding the liens that are showing on my title report. I have obtained a print out for several of the liens from the listing agent, but there are still 3 that were recorded in error along with the perspective lien.  Can you please contact me with status on this property?  We are moving forward and trying to get this closed as soon as possible. These liens are the only things holding us up."
August 1st, 2008: from Michelle: "I hate them!!!! I am still going around and around. I do have an indemnity for you to sign regarding the perspective lien and will email over. We are moving forward at a very, very slow pace. :-("

August 5th, 2008: Lacking a response from the city, and armed with my compliance officer’s name, I visit CEDA myself. I meet with inspector Kim Nguyen, who informs me that in order to release the title, I have to sign a compliance plan and post a $2000 bond in my name. I point out that I don’t own the house - so what happens if I sign the bond and the transaction falls through for some other reason? "Happens all the time. Not my problem. Don’t buy this house, it has lots of problems."

August 5th, 2008 - Signed the compliance plan, post $2000 bond with my own cash.  Initial deadline is 10/19/08 (90 days). This is to include new foundation, roof, new electrical, new plumbing, new front stairs, new mechanical, repair siding, replace all windows, new floor, new drywall. (Apparently, I’m superman).

August 7th, 2008 - I am informed that I own the house. Pulling records, the title shows that I owned it on the 4th - the day before my conversation with the city. Wish I could explain that, but I can’t.

September 12th, 2008 - Permit issued

October 10th, 2008: I’m granted an extension until 2/19/09. I asked for more time, but was denied.

February 10, 2008: Granted an extention until July 19th, 2009. I asked for more time, but was denied.

Week of August 3rd, 2009: CRAP! I lost track of which month was which, and I blew my deadline. My deadline passed 15 days earlier. I go in to see Kim Nguyen in person. I am informed "You signed a legal doucment. you missed your deadline. You have lost your bond. " Me: "Okay, what’s my next step?" Kim: "No next step. Now, fines come." Fine. I immediately place a request to speak to Isaac Wilson, who promptly emerges from behind the counter to talk to me. I ask him what next. "Well, you’re past your deadline (at this point I’m 9 months into a project that would take an experienced builder at least a year). Your bond is forefit, so now you’re in violation. If you can show me you’re making progress, we’ll just sloooow…it…down." I immediately get my mechanical inspection (8-12-09).

October 12th, 2009: Final inspection passed.
—————
In the meantime, we have this little side drama - I wrote to my supervisor, Nancy Nadel:

Dear Ms. Nadel,

  I'm a recent homeowner in West Oakland - and quite happy and pleased
to be here. I'm currently rebuilding XXXX Magnolia street, and I plan to
live here when I'm done. I'm just a hop, skip, and a scramble from
Alliance Metals, so it's shopping cart central, but I'm happy with my
decision. However, during the course of trying to buy and fix the place,
I've run into a persistent roadblock at city hall. I can't imagine that
I'm the only one, and it's a real problem.

  The issue is that the city identifies "substandard" dwellings during a
drive-by inspection. Three homes on my block - XXXX, XXXX and XXXX, all
have the same condition placed on them. The problem is that the
inspector who is in charge of "resolving" the issue is very hard to work
with. Right now, XXXX is up for sale. It has been empty for months, and
it's in desperate need of rehabilitation. Just this morning, I spoke to
a couple who is hoping to purchase and fix it. Having been through the
process myself, I know that once you come out the other side, you have
to post a $2,000 bond, pay a few thousand in fines (incurred by the
previous owner), and apply for permits and commit to a schedule. This
inspector - Kim Nguyen - informed the couple that it "could be a lot of
money- $20,000". She refused to calculate the fees, and told the couple
to think "Three times" before purchasing the home. Now they're
reconsidering their purchase, and I know that they've got the money and
the will to do this right. I had similar problems when I bought my
house, which took six weeks (!).

  I've written a little about the problem here:
http://www.nothingugly.com/wordpress/?p=115
  (The first two paragraphs aren’t germane to this issue, but it sure is
annoying!)

and also here:
http://www.nothingugly.com/wordpress/?p=84

  I’m not sure where else to go with this one; my neighbor is also
engaged with the city, and he’s in a world of hurt  - he’s experienced
in the trades, but not very good at dealing with the city. It’s not
unlikely that he’ll end up losing his house over this. However, that’s
not my story to tell.

  I’d more than happy to speak to you in more detail. And, to clarify -
this isn’t something that I’m suffering from. My project is proceeding
nicely. This is about Oakland.

-Joe Russack

——–
  Well. 35 minutes after I shoot this little missive off in email, I get a call from an enraged

 Kim Ngyuen. 45 minutes of yelling later, we agree to disagree, and I phone up Carlotta Starks,

 Nancy Nadel's assistant. Apparently she wanted to verify what was going on with the City of 

Oakland, and sent a note to CEDA, and it took 35 minutes to get to Kim, verbatim. 

I thanked Carlotta for screwing my relationship with my inspector, and apparently Carlotta

 followed up with CEDA and chastised them for unprofessional behavior. Kim

 was - and remains - furious with me. I"m sure that explains the behavior on August 3rd. 

————-

Ms. Starks,

  Coucilmember Nadel did read the email I sent, and forwarded it to the

inspector who I named. Needless to say, the inspector called me up,

hopping mad. Unfortunately, this is my inspector for the remainder of

this project. The inspector and I did discuss the issue, and I stand by

my statements - the city is scaring away potential homebuyers. It’s a

combination of a poor policy and worse communication. The policy isn’t

the inspector’s fault, but her communication is, and I don’t believe

that it’s resolvable.

  Any help would be appreciated.

——-

Mr. Russack:

Actually, I forwarded your message to Mr. Fielding with a request for an

explanation of your allegations.  (I mentioned in my reply to you that I was

checking your allegations with Code Enforcement.)

To do that should not have caused the inspector to get angry at you or to

retaliate against you.  If you feel that there is any retaliation, please

let me know immediately so that we can look into it.

Take care,

Carletta L. Starks

Community Liaison/Policy Analyst for

Councilmember Nancy Nadel, District 3

———

Impact on me:

  I really wanted take my time and put my own sweat into this project. As it is, I did spent a full year working on the house, but that’s just a drop in the bucket given that this is essentially a total rebuild. Net net, I had to pay others for work that I would like to have done myself, because of the fine schedule imposed by the city. How much did this cost? I suppose I could break it out, but I’d say on the order of $150,000.00. Plus the $2K bond the city kept.

  In summary:

  You can ask to see any inspector between 8 and 10 am weekdays. Wednesdays are 9 to 11, if I’m not mistaken.

•   There is an appeal process. They won’t tell you about it, and you can’t appeal after you sign the compliance plan. They will pressure you with the threat of daily fines to get you to sign that plan. Those fines, if they do materialize, can also be appealed.
•   If you’re in a compliance plan, you’ll lose your $2000 bond, if you post one. Kiss it off, it’s gone.
•   Stay in regular touch with your compliance officer, especially if you’re going to need an extension.
•   Isaac Wilson can be reasonable. If you’re getting nowhere with your compliance officer, ask to speak to him directly. Don’t whine, don’t be shrill, don’t complain. Lay out the steps you’re taking to rectify the situation, and have proof of those steps - in the form of inspections. Photos, promises, and begging don’t count. The only thing that counts is permits and inspections - show progress.
•   There are currently loans available to repair "distressed housing". I don’t know the details, but I’m led to understand that if your income is under a certain level, you can apply for these loans. Sadly, that’s all I know about them.

  There are "fixers" who will sell their services to you. These people vary in skill level and knowledge. I haven’t met any who aren’t honorable. But they can’t do magic; they’re going to work through the process just like you’ll have to. Their knowledge is of the system - they aren’t leveraging connections within CEDA.

  Good luck!

Finally, the Audit Oakland CEDA page is worth reading. They’ve done an awful lot of digging.

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   It’s a big shop, but it’s a mess. Getting the tools off the floor is key.

 

I’ve finally figured out how to organize a socket set. The metric board on the right is sorted by size - 19mm is the left most column, and side decreases , left to right. Horizontals are sorted by drive size (1/2″, 3/8″, 1/4″), number of points (6/12), and depth. They’re fastened with magnets… of course. And, like the rest of the shop, on a 30 degree french cleat. Turns out that it’s not a bad way to make a shelf, either.

 

  There’s also another sort of generic “heavy tool and screwdriver holder” panel. I’ve upped the magnet size for the larger tools - screwdrivers are hanging from 1/4″x1/2″ (round x length) and the larger tools are on 3/8″x1/2″. The plumber’s wrench is secure.

This probably only matters to you if you’re a Felder owner. Took a while to figure out how to hang it, but it works dandy. Everyone else, move along.

  Stained glass workstation! The table was a quick & dirty, but it turned out better than I had a right to expect. Legs are as simple as can be, 3″x3″ mortice and tenon. The shelf above is made of deck bits, also mortice and tenon. Tools are hanging underneath by - you guessed it - more magnets. The table will end up being built in, and I’ll build it around the edge of the wall. More horizontal space for large projects.

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  How many cops does it take to shut down a party? NIMBY applied for party permits, which the city sat on for weeks. Out of cash and with the party date approaching, they decided to go for it. Their mistake? Asking for permission. This was the City of Oakland’s response.

  What you’re looking at some of the police who were deployed on that warm June evening. They surrounded the entire city block. At least ten officers, doubtless happy to pull the overtime pay, were on station from 6pm until well past one in the morning. Oddly, they weren’t too happy about me shooting pictures. This is in East Oakland, arguably the most dangerous part of the most dangerous city in the United States. They saved us from… San Francisco hipsters?

  Check out the article in the Chronicle; it’s more of the ongoing harassment from the city government. After moving to East Oakland at the encouragement of the community and economic development agency, NIMBY started working towards permits to do industrial work. In an industrial area, zoned for industry. So far? Denied. They’d also like to do periodic events (also legal for the zoning, as long as they pull event permits and don’t do it more than a few times a year). They can’t even APPLY - because the industrial permits have been stalled.

  Small wonder Oakland’s broke.

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  We managed to start a small fire here about a month ago; one of my helpers was smoking, and a spark got into the sawdust pile. It was a very slow burn; I had to track down the fire more by smell than anything else. But the burn pattern was interesting; there was a tiny dot on the surface, and a fairly big fire going on down out of sight.

  That got me to wondering about burning sawdust for heat, and I found that there’s really only one basic pattern for a sawdust burner, and they’re quite efficient. Essentially, take a cylinder, pack it full of sawdust, and hollow out the centre. This makes a chimney which houses the flame. The longer the chimney, the hotter the burn. This is a 36″ long piece of 8″ snap-together ducting. The bottom cap is an end cap fastened with a couple of sheet metal screws, and it has a 2 1/4″ hole bored in it. I packed the sawdust around a section of PVC pipe, and rammed it down with a 2×4. The top is covered in sand, to prevent an inefficient burn from starting from the top down. I carefully removed the pipe, propped the burner up over two bricks, and dropped tightly furled paper down the chimney, and lit from below. It took several pieces of paper to get it going (feeding the paper up from the bottom was basically impossible).

  I made a smaller version of this out of a paint can, but the burn was so slow that there was no flame; it just glowed for hours. These images were taken two hours into the burn. I don’t know how long it’ll last (it’s still going!) but I suspect another four hours, minimum. I was hoping to make an outdoor heater this way, but the sawdust is an excellent insulator, so almost all the heat goes straight up. It’s decorative; I think I’ll make a bunch of these and scatter them around the yard for the next party.

  Some detailed plans for similar burners here and here. Total materials cost for this project was $15.

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I haven’t been putting much up here about the house - mostly because house construction is, well, house construction. If I’m not up to something unconventional, I’m not convinced that it’s worth discussing here. So, that said, here are a few photos from the almost-done state of the house. I expect to final this Tuesday.

  I expect the interior trim and the “real” kitchen to take the better part of an additional year. But the place will be livable as soon as the floors are finished.

-Joe

 

 

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  About 1.5 miles of low voltage wire. Internet, phone, alarm, cameras (6), cable, and fuck me if I didn’t forget the doorbell until the very last second.

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  Well, the concrete is done. Not too much else to say except that this is a shot of the house at night, right before we poured the slab. More walls are up now - framing should be complete this week.

-Joe

 

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Last we heard, our hero had a small fire and had to move all his crap back into his old shop. Oddly, those worms didn’t respond well to being re-canned, so the shop is now just a pile of machines that prevent my long-suffering parents from parking in their own garage. However, over in the increasingly scary land of West Oakland (Thanks, recession!) my house is coming along nicely - an upstairs for me (1000 square feet) and a similarly sized downstairs for all my toys. The basement/ground floor will be done in about a month, and then my parents will be able to park again. A fairly sophisticated alarm system should preserve the toys during the remainder of the construction, which will likely last through July. And ain’t insurance grand?
  NIMBY - we found a place in East Oakland, in boring warehouselandia near the Coliseum. Of course, between building my house and having to tear down and move my shop, I haven’t been able to help much with the nonsense required to fix the accounting, convince the city, convince the new landlords, arrange the trucking, unstack the containers, fix the forklifts, break down every goddamn walkway in the place, etc, etc, ad nauseum. However, it’s all coming together. Now that the archeology has been done on the books, it seems that we need about - as of this writing - about 14K more to move to the new space. That includes the money to fix the old roof, and a lot of other scary details that I’ve successfully kept myself ignorant of.
  Oh, and we’re officially a non-profit. So! For all of you who are still employed and have extra money that you haven’t… oh, say… bought a house with… you might want to consider tossing a little at NIMBY. This is the only solicitation I’ll make, and I’m making it now because I think that it’s highly likely that this will happen.
The easiest way to send money is to paypal it (http://www.nimbyspace.org/ has a link) or - if you wanna save us (them?) 3%, mail a check.
Oh, and I’m doing the design of the new space (!!). Preliminary rendering here: http://www.nimbyspace.org/?p=223
Finally - we gotta get that building totally empty in less than two weeks. Anyone who doesn’t mind doing hard work in a grimy cold warehouse is strongly encouraged to turn up. We have bad beer, too. If it’s any consolation, I’ll be right there next to you.

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There’s really nothing worse than an ugly toilet. Okay, there’s lots of worse things. Anyhow, this toilet had to go. It’s been hanging out in my down-to-the-studs workspace, begging to be smashed by mistake. Sadly, it’s a “Toto”, so this wart is worth about six hundred bucks. My master plan is to make a gift of it to my plumber (and friend) who is the kind of guy who would really value a six hundred dollar shitter.

I’ve been waiting for him to pick it up for 6 weeks - I call him every week or so. Today, they were scheduled to tear off my front stairs, so it really was time. I called Ralph to let him know that it was now or never, and he suggested that we leave it on the sidewalk and he’d pick it up later in the day (Side story: NEVER do this in the ghetto. I leave the results the reader’s imagination).

So, I ask the one of the stairs-demolishing laborers. His English is worse than my Spanish, but he’d far rather carry half a toilet than smash through 8″ of stair-crete. He takes one end, I take the other. When we get to the stairs, the top two steps are already history. During my puzzled pause (How the hell am I going to get this hundred pound pooper down the non-stairs?) he says, “No problemo” - takes the toilet, and heaves it onto the sidewalk.

I called Ralph to let him know that his toilet had died of a translation error.
-Joe

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I’ve lost my shop at NIMBY, at least until we relocate. Details here.

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