SF artists get eviction notice amid crackdown

Nathan Cottam stands inside his room at an artist's collective warehouse on Peralta Street in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday, Dec. 16, 2016. The group was handed an eviction notice several days after the deadly Dec. 2 Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland. less Nathan Cottam stands inside his room at an artist's collective warehouse on Peralta Street in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday, Dec. 16, 2016. The group was handed an eviction notice several days after the ... more Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close SF artists get eviction notice amid crackdown 1 / 13 Back to Gallery

Nathan Cottam stood in a cold commercial warehouse in the shadow of Highway 101, peered over a ledge that dropped 11 feet to a concrete floor, and thought to himself, “This is where I want to live.”

That was in 2014. And over the next two years, the ballet dancer and choreographer did just that in a cozy room he built out of that empty space in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood. It was a place, he thought, that would let him pursue his dance career on a tight budget.

Now Cottam, 42, is facing another perilous drop-off: He and his fellow tenants have received an eviction notice that gives them 30 days to leave.

Video: Oakland Artists Express Concern for Future of Collectives

When he moved in, he did what he could to make the space homey. He covered the walls and painted them with various shades of blue and gray. He laid cork on the dusty floors, and added a bed, some couches and a rug. To top it all off, he built a mini ballet floor out of reclaimed poplar wood, where he could practice his art, whenever he wanted, free of charge.

“It was the only thing I could afford,” Cottam said inside the warehouse that he now shares with seven people.

After two years of tinkering with the space — adding a funky painting here, a pool table there — Cottam and his fellow tenants are now part of a long list of artist groups around the country whose habitats are being closely scrutinized in the wake of the Dec. 2 Oakland warehouse fire.

“If I have to leave, I won’t look in the city for a place to live. There’s no way I can afford it,” Cottam said.

The eviction notice contends that the warehouse was being used only for business — most commercial leases in California can be terminated with 30 days’ notice — and not a living space, as its dwellers say has been the case for years. Under California law, residences, even illegal ones, are given protections against evictions that business tenants are not.

The warehouse is also the site of a planned 49-unit apartment complex valued at $7 million. Its developer applied for a permit in July, leading the people who live there to claim their landlord is trying to get them out to make room for the new building.

“It looks like the landlord’s motive here is to get the tenants out, so he has an easier time to demolish and build the 49 units he wants to build,” said Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a member of the Housing Rights Committee, a San Francisco tenants-rights group that has worked with the renters.

The eviction notice was signed by Joanna Kozubal, an attorney for the owner of the property. Kozubal and the owner of the building could not be reached for comment.

Adding to the tenants’ suspicions: The eviction notice arrived on Dec. 12, the same day as a letter from the city attorney’s office. The city letter said that the office was aware that the property “continues to be used as an unlawful dwelling space,” adding that officials from multiple city agencies will inspect the space Wednesday.

City officials have been quick to refute the idea that they are cracking down on artists’ collectives throughout San Francisco. Instead, they say, the intent is just to avoid another disaster like the fire at the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland, where 36 people died. That space, occupied by artists and musicians, lacked lifesaving features like sprinklers and adequate exits. People attending an electronic music party there were trapped on a floor reached by a makeshift staircase.

Jeremy Pollock, an aide to Supervisor John Avalos, said he has been working as a liaison between the occupants of the property and the city attorney’s office, trying to find a commonsense solution. (The building is outside Avalos’ district, but the supervisor has supported other measures to protect tenants.)

Since the Oakland fire, the scrutiny there and on other similar spots has grown more intense, making the issue increasingly urgent to address, Pollock said.

“Overall, it seems like people are trying to do the right thing and avoid evicting people, where at the same time they’ve got legal liability and the city has to make sure things are safe,” he said.

The neatly kept warehouse space, tucked away in a corner of Bernal Heights, has been on the city’s radar for quite some time.

A spokesman for the San Francisco city attorney’s office, John Coté, said it wasn’t clear what specifically prompted the upcoming inspection, though he noted the complex has a history of complaints — including ones involving San Francisco’s police and fire departments — that date back to at least 2009.

There were also two more recent complaints, city records show: one on Monday and another on Tuesday, alleging that multiple people were illegally living there.

Eight people live in the brightly painted building, which is a menagerie of bedrooms, a sound studio and a dance studio. Some of the tenants built a massive shower with mosaic tiles and a kitchen, which always has a pot full of coffee in the morning. Guitars and pieces of pyrography hang on the walls of the multiple common areas with couches where the residents frequently hang out together.

Mark Alverson, 36, uses the space as not only a home, but also as a music, art and photography studio.

“You name it, and I can do it here,” Alverson said. “It’s the perfect space, and having a low rent helps me do the stuff that I actually want to do.”

In the wake of the Ghost Ship disaster, San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection and several other agencies have identified about a dozen suspected illegal properties in the city, many believed to be warehouses converted to residences like the Ghost Ship, a city spokesman said. The Peralta Avenue building was not on that initial list.

Cities in the Bay Area and nationwide have put a close lens to warehouses and other buildings adapted for use by artists, fearing that more might be in dangerous condition.

In Baltimore, the residents of the Bell Foundry arts building were evicted last week after city officials condemned the building. And the Cyclecide Swearhouse, a building housing an artists’ collective in Bayview-Hunters Point, less than 2 miles from the Bernal Heights warehouse, received a city inspection Thursday amid an ongoing dispute between its tenants and their landlord.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday urging a plan to address safety concerns in such spaces while minimizing displacement of their occupants.

“It raises the question of, ‘Is the city attorney’s office going to follow the resolution that was passed by the board this week?’” Avicolli Mecca said.

Regardless of the answer, Cottam and his fellow tenants are hanging off a ledge, waiting for answers.

Trisha Thadani and Michael Bodley are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com and mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @TrishaThadani and @michael_bodley