Parkmerced residents deal with many issues
For six months, the man who lived upstairs in the garden-style apartment at 403 Gonzalez Drive terrorized his Parkmerced neighbors.
Erick Rosemon banged on one resident’s door and threatened to shoot his wife, according to interviews with tenants and police reports. Armed with a knife, he threatened two other residents and a letter carrier. When an ambulance showed up on an unrelated call, he vandalized the vehicle with his knife and stole an iPad from the front seat.
In addition to filing police reports and taking out restraining orders, residents Coni and Sara — whose last names are being withheld, in accordance with Chronicle policy regarding safety concerns — both complained over and over to Parkmerced staff. Coni witnessed him “screaming at someone that he was going to shoot them in the head,” and, on March 23, “he was banging on my window shouting, ‘You’re going to die, you’re going to die,’ ” she said.
When she attempted to bring the problem to the attention of Parkmerced’s management, they said they couldn’t do anything and “ping-ponged me back and forth to the police,” Sara said.
“They kept saying, ‘Call the police, keep us in the loop,’ but they were not very helpful,” Coni said. “They really dropped the ball. Sara would call. I would call. There were emails. It finally raised up to the level of what happened on the eighth — it was terror on Gonzalez Drive.”
Finally, on April 8, after banging on Sara’s door with a knife and threatening to kill her family, the 47-year-old former Marine was arrested following an eighthour standoff with police. Rosemon is being held on weapons charges as well as resisting arrest, threats of violence, burglary, vandalism over $5,000 and other charges.
While the disturbances represent an extreme example, residents of the 3,221-unit complex say the ordeal, and the handling of it, reflect a financially strapped property owner who seems to have cut back on security and maintenance. Regular complaints include broken elevators, lack of lighting in public areas, mold and mildew, leaks, car break-ins, rodents, overflowing dumpsters, and squatters taking over vacant units, according to tenants and public records.
For staff of Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who represents the neighborhood, handling Parkmerced-related issues has turned into a near full-time job.
“We have had numerous complaints that management is slow to respond,” Melgar said. “That is when we get involved. My staff spends more time on Parkmerced than any other neighborhood.”
There have been 46 complaints with the city’s Department of Building Inspection since the start of last year that have resulted in notices of violation. Half of those are still open, according to the agency.
“Tenants deserve hot water and heat in their units and light in their building’s common areas,” said Patrick Hannan, community director for DBI. “These aren’t optional amenities but legal requirements.”
The steady stream of issues is putting pressure on the Taraval District police, which serve the area and are also understaffed, according to Melgar.
“There have been a lot of complaints about the change in perception and feeling of security,” Melgar said. “The police have not been able to keep up.”
The flurry of complaints comes as the owner, Maximus Real Estate Partners, is facing escalating financial pressures.
On April 16, the Chronicle reported that the ownership group is at risk of defaulting on its nearly $1.8 billion mortgage. The owner has requested the transfer of the mortgage to special servicing, a move that often leads to foreclosure, according to a report by the financial services firm Morningstar.
The loan originated in 2019 when Maximus sought to start construction on a long-approved redevelopment of the property, which would expand it to 8,900 apartments, from 3,221. Instead, the pandemic decimated the property’s revenue stream. Many of the tenants, young workers and students at San Francisco State University, left the city as classes and work went remote. Meanwhile, rents fell more than 25%. At one point, the property had close to 40% vacancy rate.
Morningstar said the current occupancy rate is about 83%, and cash flow is “well below” what is needed to cover debt payments.
Bert Polacci, director of government relations for Maximus, rejected the notion that the landlord has cut back services. He said the company spends $10 million annually on maintenance at the complex “and has done so for nearly 20 years.”
During the pandemic, when the city was scrambling to shelter unhoused people, Polacci said his company went above and beyond to provide housing to vulnerable residents. In a statement, Polacci said Parkmerced was “clearly the largest single provider of housing in the City, (which) materially impacted our ability to enforce community guidelines for nearly three and a half years,” he said.
“Since the (shelter-in-place) has lifted, we have been enforcing the community guidelines as we did for 15 years prior,” he said. “Maintenance was fully staffed for the entire SIP period and also residents were clearly sensitive for a long time to allowing access to their apartments. We respected that at all times.”
He called Parkmerced “the largest provider of subsidized housing in San Francisco and also the largest provider of Good Samaritan housing.”
“We receive no credits or tax breaks from this,” he said. “We remain committed as we have always been to providing resident service and interact with emergency services whenever required.”
But interviews with more than a half dozen residents paint a different picture. Susan Suval and David Spero, two longtime residents who both are in wheelchairs and live in different apartments in the tower at 405 Serrano Drive, said one of the elevators in the building was broken for four months.
Occasionally, the second elevator would break down, leaving residents stranded. At one point, Spero couldn’t get up to his 11th floor unit for six hours.
“It’s the lack of communication on the part of Parkmerced that has been my ongoing issue,” Suval said.
Sperosaid the maintenance workers “have always been good to me” but the buildings are getting older, leaks are getting worse and the wear and tear is showing.
“There are people in management who really care about the residents and look out for us — and others just talk,” he said. “They are just in it for the money.”
In a lawsuit against Parkmerced Owners LLC, the maintenance company Planned Building Services, or PBS, said it was owed $2.9 million by the landlord. The original contract called for Parkmerced Owners LLC to pay about $185,000 a month to clean and maintain common areas, including the lobbies of all 11 towers and the property’s 44 laundry rooms, according to court records.
“PBS has repeatedly demanded payment under the terms of the written agreement, but Parkmerced has failed to make payment, forcing PBS to bring this action,” the lawsuit states. “Parkmerced repeatedly promised to pay the sums due only to fail to perform on those promises.”
Parkmerced has not responded to the lawsuit.
Melgar said the owners have repeatedly said they have struggled to get the elevators fixed because of a shortage of parts and elevator repair personnel.
“What they keep saying is we are having trouble getting the permits or the parts — well, that only goes so far. After a while it’s like, ‘Come on guys, it’s the law,’ ” she said.
Beyond the elevator issues, complaints filed with the Department of Building Inspection include reports of “numerous units … that have boarded up windows and doors that people are living in.” Another claims “there are tenants that keep heaps of trash outside their units which is attracting rodents.”
One open violation inspectors are looking into is on the same cul-de-sac of garden-style apartments that Rosemon lived on. There, after tenants reported that they had no hot water, maintenance workers had seemingly solved the problem by running extension cords from a vacant unit at 415 Gonzalez Drive to the boiler room. The electrical cords were “hot to the touch,” according to the tenant Sara, who said the vacant unit sits between two households with small children.
“By reporting this we know this will likely result in the loss of hot water once again,” she wrote to Melgar’s staff. “But we really shouldn’t have to choose between having hot water and risking a house fire.”
A week later, after DBI inspectors came, the extension cords were gone. She now has hot water but said the exterior lights are still not working.
Angela Testani, who has lived at Parkmerced for 27 years, said she was attracted to Parkmerced’s around-the-clock security, village-like neighborhood feel and manicured lawns. She worked the night shift as a nurse at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion, and the well-lit carport and patrolling security made the place feel safe.
She said she still enjoys the community and socializing with her neighbors. But now she no longer parks in her designated spot in the carport because the lights have been out for months, and cars there are frequently broken into.
“Now I park my car on the street,” she said.
To be sure, any urban housing complex with more than 3,200 apartments is going to have more than its share of blight and problematic tenants. Polacci said the maintenance team at the complex consistently receives “five stars” reviews from residents. In 2023, Parkmerced staff handled 35,120 service requests, according to Ramon Godinez, who is in charge of maintenance.
Several tenants and public officials said they felt the staff at the complex were doing their best, but were shorthanded.
“Bert Polacci always picks up the phones and always listens, but I’m not sure he has the resources to address the issues that need to be addressed,” Melgar said.
Sara, who spent parts of her childhood at Parkmerced, said the place has changed and not for the better.
“It never felt dangerous. There were never security concerns or car break-ins,” she said. “My grandmother’s friend lived in the towers, and it was the pinnacle of class to us as a kid because it was so fancy and well-kept. Now it’s the polar opposite of that.”