California

Swanky San Francisco Street Sells For $90,000

Residents of multimillion-dollar homes may soon have to pay for parking in front of their own houses

One of the swankiest streets in San Francisco has been sold to a private real estate agent. That's right: An entire street in the City by the Bay was purchased.

And now residents of Presidio Terrace are being told they may have to pay rent to park in front of their mansions.

The private street is one of 181 in San Francisco, but Presidio Terrace is among the fanciest. Sen. Dianne Feinstein lived in one of the multimillion-dollar homes on the street when she was running for governor.

The land in front of those 35 mega-mansions sold for a paltry $90,000 to Michael Cheng and his partner.

Cheng, speaking via Facetime from Florida on Monday, said he and his partner are thinking about either renting parking spots or possibly putting up meters.

"Our initial goal was just to buy it and hang onto it for a while," Cheng said.

Somehow payment of the $14-a-year property tax on the street was overlooked for decades, and that led the city to sell the street for taxes and a little bit more.

The last time a house went up for sale on Presidio Terrace, the asking price was $16 million.

Most of the homeowners only found out about the sale of their street in the newspaper Monday morning. The city had been sending tax bills to an accounting office at 47 Kearny St., which is now a Pilates studio. An attorney for the homeowners said no one working for the homeowners has been at the address for 30 years.

Peter Michael is a tech mogul turned winemaker who lives on Presidio Terrrace.

"It’s negligence on the city’s part not to post it," he said.

The homeowners have filed a lawsuit against the city Office of Treasurer and Tax Collector for failing to notify the property owners. But a spokeswoman for the office said everything was done according to the law.

"It’s uniform in every county in California, how this happens, and it’s really the property owners' responsibility to be up to date on their taxes," spokeswoman Amanda Kahn Fried said.

The homeowners are appealing to the Board of Supervisors, and a hearing is set for Oct. 31.

Contact Us