Building collapse// concert fire // History repeats, repeats, repeats

[conarb]

It is beginning to look like this fire was the work of anti-gentrification activists:

After the first fire, Holliday had installed a dozen surveillance cameras and hired a security company to position two armed guards outside the property. He said ATF agents have seized the video footage, and he said guards did not say they saw anything suspicious early Saturday morning when the fire started around 5 a.m.

But the starting point was again inside an unfinished stairwell which “acts like a chimney,” Holliday said. And like last time, the project was in its most vulnerable stage — about 60 to 65 percent complete with the wood frame exposed, but before the flame-resistant sheet rock was added, the developer said.

Holliday said he’s frustrated with the ATF, who painted the first fire as started by a “low-level person,” and never made an arrest.

“Whoever this is, is putting a big pall over getting housing done when it’s the worst housing environment we’ve had in my adult life,” he said.

Neighbors have speculated that frustrations over gentrification along the West Oakland-Emeryville border area may have provided a motive to someone. Holliday’s project however was approved with a large amount of support, he said.

“There’s no evidence there’s any problems with us,” he said. “I don’t think that it has anything to do with a controversial project.”

In 35 years in business, Holliday’s first insurance claim was the July fire and now he’s back at it. But he’s also planning how to rebuild — possibly replacing wooden studs with metal ones or using off-site modular construction.

“One thing I know is I won’t quit,” he said. “I just have to find the smartest way and make sure it’s the last time.”¹

They have videos this time so maybe they'll catch the arsonist, the ATF has been protecting the left-wing activists like Antifa in the past by blaming the last fire there on a "low-level person" (whatever that is) instead of organized activist groups, if they can pin it on an activist group will they even prosecute?


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05...-spot-inside-building-oakland-developer-says/

 

[cda]

Two Charged in Deadly Ghost Ship Fire


Two people have been arrested in connection with the deadly Ghost Ship fire that claimed 36 lives inside an Oakland warehouse last year, authorities said.

Derick Ion Almena, 47, the concert promoter who converted the warehouse into an artists residence and underground concert venue, was arrested Monday morning, according to Alameda County Asst. Dist. Atty. Teresa Drenick. Charges have yet to be formally filed, she said.

The second arrestee was identified as Max Harris, Drenick said. He had been living at the warehouse since 2014 and was the location’s creative director. Harris has previously said he reported electrical problems to the building’s owners and discussed power outages, necessary upgrades and electrical bills with them. He was the doorman on the night of the deadly event

The fire at the warehouse known as the Ghost Ship broke out during a Dec. 2 concert, trapping scores of attendees inside. All of the victims died of smoke inhalation, according to coroner’s reports. They ranged in age from 17 to 61.

The deadly inferno has opened the city up to rampant criticism, as public records revealed police and fire officials had been called to the building several times amid mounting evidence it had been converted into an illegal residence.

Oakland officials have repeatedly denied that fire and building officials were aware of the danger within the heavily cluttered 10,000-square-foot warehouse. The fire chief has insisted that the department never inspected the location or responded to a dispatch call there in more than a decade, and that city officials believed it was used as a warehouse, not as a concert and living space.

A city building inspector who visited the address just prior to the fire was unable to gain access to the warehouse, officials say.
But public records released by the city in February show the building had been subject to at least 10 code enforcement complaints. City officials also visited the warehouse numerous times in the years before the deadly blaze.

The warehouse was one of several properties owned by Chor N. Ng. Her daughter, Eva Ng, 36, has said the building was leased as a studio space for the art collective and was not used as residences.

Almena, the last lessee on the building, had advertised the building on Craigslist as a “hybrid museum, sunken pirate ship, shingled funhouse, and guerrilla gallery.” He lived in the Ghost Ship with his girlfriend, Micah Allison, and their three children. They were not present the night it burned.

In a disjointed interview on NBC’s “Today” show conducted just days after the fire, Almena offered an apology, but bristled when asked if he should be held accountable for the deadly blaze.

“I’m only here to say one thing: I’m incredibly sorry and that everything that I did was to make this a stronger and more beautiful community and to bring people together,” he said. “People didn’t walk through those doors because it was a horrible place. People didn’t seek us out to perform and express themselves because it was a horrible place.”

Calls to Almena’s attorneys seeking comment Monday morning were not immediately returned. He is being represented by attorneys J. Tony Serra, Jeffrey Krasnoff and Kyndra Miller. The litigators have previously said the officials investigating the case have a “conflict of interest” because they were likely to face civil suits in connection with the fire.

The families of the victims filed a civil suit naming Ng, Almena and PSE&G as defendants earlier this year.

———

©2017 Los Angeles Times

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com

 

[conarb]

Uber, a startup that has never made a dime is trying to remodel an old Sears building and residents are already fighting it.

OAKLAND — Worried Uber’s arrival will change the rapidly gentrifying city of Oakland for the worse, a handful of local activists on Monday launched a campaign called “No Uber Oakland” hoping to pressure the ride-hailing giant to be a good neighbor — or stay out.

The activists say Uber must change before Oakland residents will welcome it into the city’s Uptown neighborhood, where the startup plans to move several hundred employees into the old Sears building in the summer of 2018. The campaign, which demands that Uber make promises such as hiring diverse Oakland residents, supporting local minority-owned businesses and investing in affordable housing, comes as the city’s expanding tech sector is driving up residential and commercial rents, displacing longtime residents and leaving local leaders struggling to maintain Oakland’s eclectic character.

The world’s most valuable startup has scaled back and delayed its initial arrival into Oakland — Uber originally intended to move up to 3,000 employees into the Sears building this year — and Uber says it’s taking its time in part to ensure a smooth transition into its new neighborhood. For now, Uber intends to lease most of the 380,000-square-foot, seven-story building to other tenants but plans to eventually fill the space. Uber also is building a new headquarters in San Francisco’s Mission Bay.

“People worry that a major employer in Oakland that will have a lot of clout with City Hall and doesn’t share Oakland’s values and views will further lead Oakland down a path where people don’t want to see us going,” said Orson Aguilar, president of Oakland nonprofit The Greenlining Institute, which is spearheading the “No Uber Oakland” campaign. “People want to see Oakland (as) a diverse, creative place where progressive values are cherished, and people are worried that Uber will disrupt that.”

The cost of renting the most desirable commercial spots in Oakland’s downtown and Uptown neighborhoods already has jumped from $23.16 per square foot per month in 2012 to $56.52 in the first quarter of this year, according to JLL, a Chicago-based commercial real estate services firm.

But Aguilar says Uber hasn’t done enough to show its commitment to Oakland, and on Monday his campaign was scheduled to release a list of 10 demands online at NoUberOakland.org, where local residents also can add their names to support the cause. The activists say Uber must make concrete commitments to invest in programs to train local students and adults for jobs at Uber and other tech companies, contract with local small businesses owned by women and minorities, invest in affordable housing and public transit, and support local artists. They also want Uber to establish a community advisory board that meets regularly with CEO Travis Kalanick.

Uber plans to fill the Oakland office with a mix of existing employees and new hires, and has become more proactive about recruiting in Oakland, Medina said. And the startup is still working on choosing the retail partners it wants to move into the first floor of the old Sears building but says they most likely will be local businesses.

Several local organizations in addition to The Greenlining Institute have endorsed the No Uber Oakland campaign, including La Familia, PolicyLink and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.¹

Notice the statement: "invest in affordable housing and public transit, and support local artists.", local artists are the people who populated the Ghost Ship, as a whole they don't have any money to lice and work in code legal buildings, unless they can use political pressure to make outfits like Uber provide them with free space.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/06/05/oakland-group-uber-shape-up-stay-out-our-city/

 

[cda]

What are you people in Moon Beam land doing???



There is plenty of desert land to live on.


June 6--Fire crews had to contend with numerous obstacles when battling a blaze at a single-story residential structure west of downtown Modesto from late Monday into early Tuesday. A resident and two firefighters were injured in the incident.

The dispatch at 11:23 p.m. was to a home on the 200 block of North Emerald Avenue with a large addition divided into several apartment-size living quarters, said Modesto Fire Department Interim Chief Alan Ernst, who was among those responding to the call. First crews on the scene found heavy fire in the structure.

Access proved "extremely difficult" and fire suppression was delayed because of it, Ernst wrote in his incident report. A narrow walkway, fenced on both sides, made it hard to get hose where it was needed. Awnings in front also impeded hose placement.

There also were a number of gates and fences, he said, and most significantly, each unit built into the property had only one entry/exit door, he said. Firefighters could not go from room to room as in a traditional home, but rather had to keep going outside.

Ernst said he's requested that the city building department and Fire Prevention Bureau follow up on the property Tuesday. "I have concerns about whether it's legal the way it's divided up -- it certainly isn't safe," he said. "We couldn't find a working smoke detector in any room."

The initial attack was from the exterior to stabilize the fire and protect an adjacent home that was threatened. Once firefighters were inside, Ernst said there was a point that he wrestled with whether to pull them out for their safety. But the only two injuries to firefighters ended up being rolled ankles because of the many potholes on the property, he said.

One resident was taken to a hospital for anxiety and treatment of smoke inhalation, he said.


The entire structure was left uninhabitable. At least a dozen people were displaced, Ernst said. Red Cross provided assistance to six adults and four children, while two other residents declined assistance, he said. There were a couple of other rooms whose occupants apparently were away at the time, he said.

There were several pets, including two service dogs, living in units, Ernst said. Only one dog has not been accounted for and may have run away during the fire, he said.

It was about 3:30 before crews were done at the scene, Ernst said. Early estimate of the damage was set at $100,000.

Five engines, a truck and two battalion chiefs responded.

Deke Farrow: 209-578-2327

___ (c)2017 The Modesto Bee (Modesto, Calif.) Visit The Modesto Bee (Modesto, Calif.) at www.modbee.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

[ICE]

"and most significantly, each unit built into the property had only one entry/exit door"

This is some big surprise to the FD? I would think that the FD would be prepared for this every time. I usually am and the building isn't on fire.

 

[conarb]

This on the front page of the local newspaper today, now it's the evil building inspectors, even evicting a guy in a wheelchair!

OAKLAND — Just over a month after a horrific fire ripped through an East Oakland warehouse, killing 36 people, Mayor Libby Schaaf made a promise that city staff would work cooperatively with property owners to make their buildings safe without evicting the artists who live there.

Instead, it appears city inspectors are doing just the opposite. In the months since the fire, they have issued inspection reports explicitly stating tenants cannot reside in the buildings, while offering only vague instructions on what violations the owners or tenants need to correct, or throwing up bureaucratic road blocks to getting work done. At the same time, tenants of cultural and entertainment venues have complained about a heavy-handed approach that has made it difficult to stay in business.

On Feb. 21, city staff identified 18 properties in a report to the City Council, saying it had already begun the process of reaching out to property owners to craft compliance plans — a list of work that needs to be done and a timeline in which to do — so the city could bring the spaces up to code. But Darin Ranelletti, the city’s interim director of planning and building, admitted this week that the city had not in fact entered into a compliance plan with the owners of any of those properties.

But the Ghost Ship fire’s fallout is affecting permitted spaces, too. At Qilombo, a legal community space in West Oakland, David Keenan, another member of the Safer DIY Spaces group, said he had to fight an invalid inspector’s report that said the space had people living in it, despite the fact there was no evidence of habitation. The inspector based his report on a complaint and verified it when he couldn’t access one room during an inspection.

After a lengthy email exchange, the inspector, Wing Loo, agreed to change the report, but he still cited them for a missing structural support pole for an interior loft structure, as well as problems with a rear staircase that was built before Qilombo occupied the space. When Keenan tried to pull a building permit to fix the staircase, he couldn’t, because of the existing violation.

“You admit that nobody lives there but verified (the habitability complaint) because of some other structural condition that needed to be repaired and because you did, you actually blocked me from fixing the thing you are citing,” Keenan said of his interaction with Loo. “I don’t know how much more Kafkaesque you can get.”

In an email, Loo wrote to Keenan, “I am surprised you are applying logics [sic] to the City Of Oakland. I will reply within the next day or so. Have a good evening and continue to dream.”
¹

Wing Loo needs to be replaced by our own Tiger, he'd tell them to get their a$$s out.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/06...eave-livework-spaces-despite-mayors-promises/

 

[cda]

I guess how can the city approve residential use, when they already had one disaster.


Do not need another London, and London had past fire history and also knew of complaints prior to a fire

 

[Mark K]

In California a building that is used as a residential occupancy but not permitted as such is a substandard building. This is established by state statute, not the building code, and not local ordinance. Thus local jurisdictions are not able to adopt lesser standards.

When a building is deemed to be a substandard building the city is compelled to take action.

 

[conarb]

I'm just republishing what the public thinks, why do mayors say things like this: "Mayor Libby Schaaf made a promise that city staff would work cooperatively with property owners to make their buildings safe without evicting the artists who live there."?

 

[cda]

Election coming up soon??


Everyone gets a trophy??

 

[conarb]

We've come to the point that progressively increasing codes and regulations are making impossible for any but the wealthy to even afford housing, from the starving artists here top even Google employees who only average about $125,000 a year in salary, Google is trying a workaround with modular housing:

Google’s employees can’t find affordable housing in Silicon Valley, so the company is investing in modular homes that’ll serve as short-term housing for them. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has ordered 300 units from a startup called Factory OS, which specializes in modular homes. The deal reportedly costs between $25 and $30 million.

Modular homes are completely built in a factory and assembled like puzzle pieces onsite. This method of construction can reduce the cost of construction by 20 to 50 percent, the Journal reports. These apartments can also be put up more quickly to address dire housing needs. In one case the Journal cites, tenants saved $700 a month because of reduced construction costs.

Google is based in Mountain View, California, and already, the company owns nearly all the available office space in North Bayshore. Plus, its own plans for a new, cutting-edge headquarters stalled because of a property dispute with LinkedIn. Needless to say, if offices are hard to find, affordable housing is even more difficult. Reports, year after year, indicate that San Francisco has the highest rent prices in the world.

Earlier this year, CNBC published a piece that detailed the difficulty tech companies have in trying to convince possible employees to move to San Francisco, especially when they live abroad. In response, some startups are establishing offices in other cities, like Chicago and Seattle. The other option is to out-tech the housing crisis, as Google appears to be doing with its modular home investment.¹

"Out-tech the housing crisis" BS, we all know that modular housing can be produced much cheaper not because of technology but becasue it doesn't have to comply with codes. What I don't get is how they are going to get the City of Mountain View to approve modular housing in their zoning regulations.


¹ https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/15807762/google-factory-os-modular-housing-san-francisco

 

[cda]

So how much does material cost for a simple three bedroom house?


How much is the labor to assemble same said house?

 

[conarb]

So how much does material cost for a simple three bedroom house?


How much is the labor to assemble same said house?

I have no idea since I haven't built "simple" for over half a century, there is no money in it unless you have huge volume, but that's not really the question, the question is how to legalize the arts collective so the people there can afford to continue to live there? That's the low end, climbing on up how can your average Googler making $125,000 a year afford to live? Now they are scattered all over the employee parking lots and the city streets in campers, pickups with shells on the back, and motor homes, to begin with a simple lot is $3 million to buy a tear-down, that's because the environmentalists won't let them build up in the hills where they want parks, they won't let them fill the bay where they want wetlands, so Google has found a way to take some industrial land and proposes stacking modulars on it to give them a place to live. But isn't Google doing the same thing the arts collectives are doing, taking commercial/industrial zoned land and placing inexpensive housing on it?

What would be instructive is take your simple 3 bedroom house and somebody take the time to bid it to the 1952 UBC, then bid it to the 2017 CBC at today's material costs and labor rates. Let's be honest, there is no way you can legalize that arts collective or Ghost Ship to today's codes and the occupants can continue to afford to live there.

 

[cda]

Why do they have to live there??

I cannot live in the office I work in.

Or is their art an excuse to live there vs actually making money

 

[conarb]

I have to agree, what they do I do not consider art, particularly that crazy music and drug fueled dancing. Somehow they've convinced people they are artists, as far as I'm concerned they are druggies, if they die in fires it will probably save the County a lot of money in welfare and other payments.

 

[mark handler]

So how much does material cost for a simple three bedroom house? How much is the labor to assemble same said house?

nahb 2011

 

[cda]

Yea thought about going to hd or l and buying a few boards at a time, wire, hardware accessory, and after awhile would have enough material

To diy!!!!

 

[conarb]

CDA:

In the Bay Area of California where both the live/work communities and the Google housing are located those number wouldn't buy the permits much less build the buildings. When I see $189,000 I have to remember when I got bids for fire sprinklers in a 4,000 square foot house that ran $200,000.

 

[Paul Sweet]

Mark's prices are a 2011 national average. The Turner Construction cost index has increased 25% in those 6 years.

 

[mark handler]

Mark's prices are a 2011 national average. The Turner Constructioncost index has increased 25% in those 6 years.

Turner Construction does not build SFD. It maybe in their index?
2011 was the latest, reliable, numbers I could find.
I could always make up stuff like others do....

 

[Mark K]

In California factory built housing does have to comply with the codes. The difference is that the plan checking and inspections of the work done in the factory is under the jurisdiction of the California Department of Housing and Community Development

 

[CityKin]

Off the top of my head, those numbers look slightly high for SW Ohio. The lot would be 35-40 not 67k and the sales price would be $175-250k instead of $310

 

[fatboy]

Another deck....last week.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/06/1...collapse-at-montana-lodge-during-funeral.html

 

[mark handler]

Off the top of my head, those numbers look slightly high for SW Ohio. The lot would be 35-40 not 67k and the sales price would be $175-250k instead of $310

As the chart says "National average" not Midwest