Beautiful Walkable City

As fascinating as the sewer system is, today I am looking forward to a walk date with a dear old friend, and feeling the joy of our fair cities Walkability. I am not the only one. In this article about "Bruce Almighty", the Giants manager,  he attributes much of his relaxed style to long rambling walks he takes after games, here and away. I love that his wife "is a fast walker, so she keeps (him) at a good pace".

Walkonomics

Dolly Lenz, real estate queen, was here last week, and was raving about how beautiful it is here and how "you can just walk for miles and miles". There's a not so new app called Walkonomics, which "uses ‘Open Data’ and ‘Crowdsourcing’ to rate the pedestrian-friendliness of over 14,000 streets in San Francisco". I don't always agree with the rankings, or criteria, but the data is interesting so it's worth checking out if you have an iPhone and like to walk.

It's a great day for a walk, and if you go briskly enough, you'll have time to smell the roses...

What's Underneath the City and Why You Should Care

As a renter you can blithely assume the obvious parts of the home you live are all you need to know about. As an owner, if there are issues with the flow of your household plumbing, including the line to the street, you will be dealing with them. And paying to repair them if necessary. These are not repairs that can be postponed without consequence.

The city (San Francisco Public Utilities Commission- SFPUC) is doing a lot of sewer repair work on the city lines, but property owners are responsible for their lines ("sewer laterals") from the building to the city lines, and for replacement of the sidewalk squares that have to be removed for repair and/or replacement.

Old clay pipes shift as the earth does in our seismically alive neighborhoods, so if you can actually pull off an inspection contingency in this market, (or better yet, pre-inspect) a sewer lateral inspection is a really good idea. It's kind of cool, they run a tiny video camera down the line, and you can watch if you are not squeamish. Though as a buyer you don't have much leverage for repairs or credits these days, it is so much better to know up front what you are getting into. Sewer line and the corresponding city sidewalk repairs can range from a few hundred to many thousands of dollars.

Peony Sighting in Cole Valley!

Yes! It IS possible to grow them here. No need to move to Sonoma or Oregon.

Imperiled Bernal Garden

This sweet garden is on the market, but the house needs to be brought to code- so it needs someone with a romantic garden heart, and the initiative and dollars to work with the city, OR a contractor/developer to start over. Which would probably mean the garden, created with love over decades, would be toast.

See that 30+ year old rose! and citrus trees! and jasmine climbing the fence! Such a sweet oasis in the city. Please if you know gardeners on a house hunt have them call or email me...

And/or go look at it!

Settlers and Location Location Location

Inspired by today's open house on the sunny hidden culdesac of Houston Street in North Beach (er, technically Russian Hill), I am thinking about microclimate and historic settlement.

JK Hendricks

Did you know that Washington Square in North Beach was Jauna Briones's corral? She spent much of her youth in the El Polin Springs area. She and her husband moved to that funny little indent in the Lyon Wall on the east end of the Presidio- when her husband proved abusive, the resourceful Jauna moved to the east to farm in the sheltered valley near Yerba Buena Cove (which was closer to the water at that point) and later moved her ranch to the sunny climes of the Los Altos/Palo Alto area, which were more suited to ranching once the gold rush hit.

google books

To find the friendliest local microclimates, one can often look to the very earliest buildings. Once the boom and bust cycle hit San Francisco, real estate speculation encouraged construction beyond the most salubrious locations, but since the earliest settlers (unlike the soldiers in the Presidio) had the choice, they chose sunny sheltered relatively level spots near water. At Point Reyes, where real estate speculation was stopped by creation of the national park, you'll find the old homesteads, and remnants of homesteads, in beautiful sheltered dells.

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