The SF Board of Supervisors just approved a $6.75 million settlement from PG&E, after a 2016 incident where the utility’s faulty gas line work caused six Sherwood Forest houses to slide down a hill.
Hey, new homeowners have structural problems with their properties all the time. But few homeowners have a problem as exasperating as a Sherwood Forest homeowner on Casitas Avenue, who back in 2016, had to demolish his house before even moving in because it was sliding down a hill. KPIX reported at the time that the home “slid 14 inches down a hillside over four days.” Even ABC News’ World News Tonight covered the story, and reported “No one knows what triggered the slide.”
My @WNTonight story about an SF dream home, demolished: https://t.co/liz2WKLS1r
— Aditi Roy (@AditiRoy) January 31, 2016
Well, fast forward to a year and a half later, when then-SF City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued PG&E for triggering the slide. By that time, the home was already demolished, and five other suffered serious damages from sliding.
“City officials allege the January 2016 landslide between Casitas Avenue and Miraloma Drive occurred after PG&E relocated gas lines from under sidewalk to under Casitas Avenue, directly next to a city water main and perpendicular to lateral connections,” KPIX reported then. “The lawsuit alleges that PG&E filled the trench with the wrong material and failed to properly compact it, putting stress on at least one water lateral at 234 Casitas Ave. and causing it to break.”
“PG&E’s shoddy work caused this problem, but the company is trying to shirk its responsibility,” Herrera said in an October 2017 statement.
This story finally ends today, more than six years after the original landslide. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a settlement deal where PG&E will pay $6.75 million for the damages.
We’ve embedded some time lapse photos from Google Street view at the property from over the years, and the above image just taken two months ago shows that the place is now a dream home. But as you see from the other photos, it was a nightmare getting there.
Images: Google Street View
