Prison will be her new home

And here you thought your landlord was a crazy asshole.

Just be glad they're nothing like ex-SF landlords Kip and Nicole Macy, ages 38 and 37, who pleaded guilty to a slew of crimes yesterday, including stalking and burglarizing their tenants during a housing dispute from 2005 to 2007.

The couple, who was recently extradited from Italy, reportedly wanted to evict their tenants from an apartment building on Clementia Street in SOMA. So they devised a malicious plan so brazen that it could easily be the plot to a horror movie, said District Attorney George Gascón.

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via YouTube

Yesterday, San Francisco police raided the Hayes Valley site now known as the Gezi Gardens, arresting seven tree-sitting who have been occupying the site of the former Hayes Valley Farm. Today, those same protesters are planning to march right back to the site, which they turned into an eco-village of sorts, and take it over.

According to a press release sent out last night, activists have attempted to contact Supervisor London Breed, with no response. So instead of waiting around for politics to work, the group is reconvening today at 6 p.m. to take over the land.

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Mike Koozmin/SF Examiner

The eco-village pre-raid

Update 12:16 p.m.: Sgt. Dennis Toomer gives more details about this morning's raid and what happens next. Read update at the bottom.

Original Story 7:09 a.m.: The cops were busy last night. About an hour after responding to a double homicide in Sunnydale, San Francisco police raided the former site of the Hayes Valley Farm where tree-loving occupiers have staged a protest since early this month.

The cops arrived at about 1:30 a.m. to break-up the tree-sitting occupy protesters who have blocked the city from removing trees there to make way for new 182-unit housing complex. Seven people were arrested, and one person was injured after jumping from a tree, said Sgt. Dennis Toomer.

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Richmondsfblog.com

Even if you're lucky enough to rent it, you'll still have to deal with city bureaucracy

There's that one dreaded spot we've all experienced alike in San Francisco: an open house.

It's those Saturday mornings you spend next to 50 San Franciscans shoving past you with their credit reports and pay stubs, vying for the city's last 500-square-feet of squalid paradise.

It's as depressing as the housing market itself.

But we're here to point out that (very thin) silver lining to this dark reality. Lovely, the latest app in apartment hunting, has done some research, analyzing data from 80,000 rental listings to determine which neighborhoods you're most likely to score your next pad.

See Also: Teeny Tiny Tree House Shows How S.F. Can Get Creative With Housing

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Tony Powell/SF Chronicle

Rio, the teeny tiny landlord of the teeny tiny tree house

We already know the landlord (the city) is a pain in the ass to deal with, but the squatters/designers of the charming teeny tiny tree house in Golden Gate Park have proven to be two pretty cool dudes.

In other words, we're guessing they'd throw some chill teeny tiny parties.

We're delighted to introduce readers to the 47-year-old Tony Powell who talked to the Chron this week, giving the paper, and thus the world, a little history on that little door that's made Golden Gate Park all that more desirable. Powell, who lives on a sailboat in the bay, explained that he and his 6-year-old son, Rio, took a trip to Golden Gate Park in December where they had a "special feeling" about one of the trees lining the concourse outside the de Young.

See Also:
Teeny Tiny Tree House Door Replaced With Crappier Teeny Tiny Tree House Door
Teeny Tiny Hoarder Lives in Golden Gate Park's Teeny Tiny Tree House

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It's one frustration after another when dealing with the city.

After flustering the masses by removing the adorable tree house door from Golden Gate Park, city officials promised they'd replace it, and replace it they did. As richmondsfblog.com astutely noted, the city screwed in an untreated imitation door that'll almost certainly lower property values.

Richmondsfblog.com

This is bullshit

See Also: Teeny Tiny Hoarder Lives in Golden Gate Park's Teeny Tiny Tree House

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Naturally, it was city bureaucracy that resulted in the sad and abrupt departure of the beloved teeny tiny tree house in Golden Gate Park.

According to ABC, it was the rigid folks over a the Recreation and Parks Department who removed the small door hinged to a tree in the park; city leaders claimed the miniature mouse pad had "damaged the tree."

But alas, Democracy rules -- and city leaders claim they will return the adorable door to appease the people of San Francisco.

Richmondsfblog.com

What a head trip this has been

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Readers have been amused (as were we) by the extra small, possibly rent-controlled, tree house in Golden Gate Park. So who's living behind this mystery door, you ask? A compulsive hoarder, that's who.

Richmondsfblog.com revealed some disturbing images of what life is like inside this teeny tiny tree house:

Richmondsfblog.com

Hoarding is a real-life struggle

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A nice place to live...

Earlier today, we ran an article about the GOP harnessing the seemingly limitless hatred of Nancy Pelosi within its membership to turn the occasion of the House minority leader's 73rd birthday into a "RETIRE NANCY" fund-raising bash.

Slate's Matthew Yglesias was puzzled by Republicans' visceral hatred of all things San Francisco, stating the only problem with San Francisco is that that "there's not enough San Francisco."

Cavalcades of people should be moving here, he continues, "But in fact total population growth in the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas has been rather slow, since for people to move there we'd have to build more houses. Zoning and other permitting restrictions have tended to make that quite difficult" -- thus jacking up housing prices.

That makes a lot of sense. But, counter-intuitively, it's not entirely true.

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The current structure at 125 Crown Terrace, in yellow, and the plan for a "remodeled" home seven times its size

Readers may recall a December SF Weekly article about the surreal city rules builders exploit to blow up small homes into mansions, and blow away what's left of San Francisco's dwindling affordable housing stock.

That article turned out to be Exhibit 17 in a hearing last night at the Board of Appeals.

At issue was a central example cited in our December article: a home at 125 Crown Terrace owned by developer, former Building Inspection Commission president, and Port Commissioner to-be Mel Murphy. He hopes to "remodel" it from 854-square feet to 5,139 square feet; previously, Murphy had been denied a demolition permit when he only hoped to expand to 4,019 square feet.

The complaint, pushed by Murphy's next-door neighbor Ramona Albright, involved gripes about blocked views and felled trees of the sort you'd expect in an upscale enclave like Twin Peaks. But it also brought into question the city's reading of a statute that allows savvy builders to demolish the very elements of a building they retained to avoid being classified as a demolition.

See Also: Bringing Down the Housing: How Builders Game the System

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