It was last August when an under-construction Hayes Valley building caught fire, with many speculating that people camped just outside the site caused the fire. Construction has gone nowhere since, and neighbors are alarmed that squatters appear to have moved in, and it could just burn again.
It was just about a year ago — the morning of August 1, 2023, actually — when a four-alarm fire consumed a building under construction at Oak Street and Octavia Boulevard, displacing eight people and damaging five adjacent buildings. Neighbors immediately told the press they’d been sounding the alarm for months that the sidewalk around the construction site had been rife with encampments and people starting their own campfires there, insisting the city and developer weren’t doing enough about this. But the Chronicle reported in April that investigators could not determine the cause of the fire, and maybe never would.
Now a year later, it’s déjà vu all over again for those neighbors, as the developer appears to have flat-out abandoned the property. The Chronicle reports on a Tuesday director’s hearing at the Department of Building Inspection on apparent encampments at that 300 Octavia Boulevard building, which in that paper’s words, currently has “clothing, furniture and a make-shift lean-to [which] indicate that the abandoned property appears to continue to attract trespassers.”
“As of this morning the fence is still open and there is evidence of people living inside the property,” Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association David Robinson said at the DBI meeting, saying the property “remains abandoned and unsecured, providing opportunities for additional fires and safety concerns.”
Squatters appear to have moved into the ground level, which is a concrete podium on top of which all the wooden construction burned. The Chronicle reports that fencing around the property is easily permeated and clearly has been.
But the developer Greenview Planning, who bought the property in 2020 for $3.1 million, did not have a representative at Tuesday's meeting. They have apparently fielded numerous complaints from city inspectors and neighbors, though have given little response. The Chronicle actually called them on the phone, and a representative who answered simply said “We don’t do business in San Francisco.”
A search of the DBI website shows active complains against the owner, including a July 17 visit that “confirmed cut opening in chain link fence and graffiti,” and an August 5 update of “Over 15 days no action.”
The district’s supervisor Dean Preston said in a statement to the Chronicle that his office "shares the frustration of the neighbors that the project remains stalled and that the site isn't secured and have urged departments to push the property owner to be a better neighbor."
Image: @SFFDPIO via Twitter
