SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A coalition is demanding from a San Francisco neighborhood that a building burned down in a deadly fire be reconstructed and kept affordable.
A coalition of groups, including the Housing Rights Committee, met Friday in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood to demand that the city restore homes and a business destroyed in a fire that took place more than a year ago.
The coalition said since the fire, the building has deteriorated due to recent El Nino storms and has been ordered to be demolished. But if that happens, those people who were living in the building would lose rent control rights.
The coalition is asking people be allowed back in the building, and they want charges to be filed against the landlord, who they said did not keep the building up to code.
“You do not lose rent control rights on a building when there is a fire until the building is reconstructed and the landlord applies to the rent board for an exemption. And there’s a very complicated process that happens at the rent board to determine whether a building has lost rent control or not,” Tommi Avicolli Mecca, with the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco said.
Supervisor David Campos, along with representatives from Causa Justa, and the Mission Economic Development Agency met Friday.
The group also is asking that the city use eminent domain on the property in the interest of the public and that the district attorney file criminal charges against the building’s owner for failing to have the building up to code after allegedly being issued over 100 violations from the Department of Building inspections, the group said.
According to the coalition, the owner was seeking to sell the building for $20 million.
“This landlord has failed this community. This landlord for many years has made a lot of money and forced these people to live in some pretty horrible conditions, to the point that one person actually died. And this landlord refuses, since the fire happened, to actually rebuild this building as he has a moral obligation to do,” Campos said during the conference.
Back in April, fire officials concluded that the fire, which killed 40 year-old Mauricio Orellana of El Salvador, was most likely caused by an electrical fault.
Following the fire, residents were able to get temporary affordable housing, provided by the city, with many staying in Treasure Island.
Milagros Rodriguez, 38, had lived in the building for 12 years prior to the fire, and said she’s not too happy with her temporary Treasure Island home and wants to return to the Mission.
“I don’t like it, it’s very far and since I work here, it’s too much of a journey,” Rodriguez said. “I’m used to living here, so for that reason I’m hoping that it all works out and that we can return to the building.”Bay City News contributed to this report