South Bay Couple Sues San Francisco Over Presidio Terrace

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- A San Jose couple who purchased a street inside a gated San Francisco community with the plans to charge residents rent is suing the city after it rescinded the legal purchase. Tina Lam and Michael Cheng, who purchased the Presidio Terrace street for $90,000, launched a GoFundMe page asking the public to support their efforts.

Lam and Cheng purchased the street in the affluent community in April 2015 after the city put it on the auction block when the homeowners association failed to pay property taxes for 40 years. An attorney for the homeowners, who had owned the street since 1905, said the mistake was attributed to the tax collector's failure to make efforts to track down the property owners.

After learning that the street was sold, the homeowners filed a lawsuit challenging the street's sale in 2017. San Francisco supervisors voted 7-4 to rescind the sale in November.

Now, Lam and Cheng are suing the city, stating they purchased the street legally.

"Rather than follow the law as clearly stated by the San Francisco Treasurer-Tax Collector, the Board of Supervisors chose to help the ultra-rich neighbors around Presidio Terrace by trying to steal our street and giving it back to them at no cost," the couple wrote on the GoFundMe page.

"Stunningly, Supervisor Mark Farrell, who initially recommended the sale in 2015 and got the unanimous approval of the Board of Supervisors, changed his mind once he saw who bought the street. Very publicly, he called us 'bottom-feeding pirates' and 'out-of-town speculators' as apparently we weren't rich enough or white enough to own this street that he just wanted to dump in an auction at a public tax sale."

The couple asked for support in fighting the city after "grueling six months."

"This fight is not just about the street. This is about defending property rights for everyone who is not super wealthy or doesn't look a certain way," the couple wrote.

As of Saturday, the couple has raised more than $3,000, but they hope to raise $50,000.

--Bay City News contributed to this report; Photo via GoFundMe/Tina Lam and Michael Cheng

Also See:

SF Supervisors Rescind Tax Auction Of Private Street