A Part of the Chen Family Identity......Gone

This afternoon, I received this text message from my sister:

"Dad sold the station wagon for twenty five bucks today. Evidently it only drives forward with no reverse. It still is in the driveway though. End of an era."

End of an era. So true. I remember the first day we owned the car when my Dad drove it off the Bill Pierre Ford dealership lot in 1975. In its 31 year life span, the station wagon and the Chen family saw the arrival and departure of around ten cars. For those of you who aren't familiar with the car that became the symbol of the Chen's of Seattle, here is a picture that I stole off the website LTD World. Yeah, it really does exist. Further proof that the internet is an amazing thing.

A near perfect match for the Chen Family Station Wagon

YES, it was a woody. The family station wagon, which I fondly named "Lucinda" after the take no shit matriarch on the soap opera As the World Turns, was brown with wood paneling. The interior was also brown.

This was the car that was always taken on family vacations. It was in this was the car both my sister and I learned how to drive with our Dad in the passenger seat. This car was what I drove throughout high school and the car my sister did as well. It was a trusted friend because it always started and could always be counted on to haul all of my sister's and my friends without having to drive multiple cars.

The car simply was unable to go above 75 miles per hour and unable to get more than 20 miles to the gallon. Truly a legacy of the excesses of the United States of the middle of the 20th century.

As the years passed, Lucinda was retired from many of her duties. With my sister and I gone off to college, she didn't get driven more than once a month when my Dad loaded her up to take stuff to the dump. After our family moved to a new house in Seattle, we found that for some reason Lucinda was the only vehicle of four that was able to get us up the hill that separates our home from the rest of Seattle. Lucinda also pinch hit when my grandmother was to be transported because it didn't ride so high like the SUV's we see so much of today.

Unfortunately, she was eventually relieved of these pinch hitting duties and sadly sat in the driveway unloved. Still sitting in the driveway, she contributed to the family. One time a friend of mine from college was to come and visit me. He had a vague idea of where we lived but when he saw Lucinda, he knew he had found the right place. Truly, the car was integrally linked in the history of the Chen family.

My father has gone through all the family photo albums and scanned every picture that had Lucinda in it. I present to you a short history of Lucinda. An added bonus is the chance to see Ernie, Marlene and our cousin Henry in younger years.

Canadian Rockies 1978 (by the way, ironically, I'm wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt in this photo)

Lucinda covered in a dusting of ash from Mt. St. Helens eruption 1980

Lucinda with Marlene, Mom and me at Bryce Canyon in 1981

Lucinda parked in downtown Seattle. Pictured are a 9 year old Marlene and 8 year old cousin Henry.

Lucinda parked in line waiting for the return ferry from Orcas Island in 1982

Lucinda serving as bike carrier in background while Ernie is accosted by the Mariner Moose at Gasworks Park in 1996

Lucinda parked in her traditional spot in the corner of the driveway. In the foreground is the Subaru Legacy Wagon I now drive. The Legacy was one of ten cars that came and left the Chen family all within Lucinda's 31 year life

Lucinda shown recently in the middle of the driveway because it was discovered she is unable to go in reverse

Lucinda at the lot of PullApart to whom she was sold for $25

This truly feels like a posting about the loss of a family member. In many ways, Lucinda was a true constant in our family's life.

"You should expect a call in 9 months"

No No No, I'm not pregnant. Besides, don't you know it's (at this point in time) biologically impossible males to propogate the human species? In fact, this is what the woman at the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection told me as I submitted my application and fees to have the building in which I reside inspected as part of the condominium conversion process.

What's that you say? It's the two year process that I, and the couple that owns the other unit in our building, have embarked on to legally separate our homes. Currently, our two unit building must be sold as one entity and thereby can have only one mortgage. Because of the high cost of housing in San Francisco, purchasing a home as part of a Tenancy-In-Common (TIC) is a standard practice. I have thrown my hat into the home-owning game with another couple and the three of us are financially tied to one another. Every legal document pertaining to the building that is 121-123 Cortland Avenue has all three of our names on it.

The city of San Francisco does, however, have a method to turn a building such as mine into two legally separate residences. As a lawyer friend of mine tells me that ownership of this type is called "free, clear, simple". Right now I have a 54% stake in the building. Even though I don't intend on moving and needing to sell the place, my desire to get on this process started and completed as soon as possible is because there is always rumblings about changing a certain portion of the condo conversion law from which my building mates and I currently benefit.

Because San Francisco is a city with such a high percentage of its residents being renters, the tenants rights advocacy groups are a strong political force. Every condominium conversion that occurs represents, in most cases, units that will be occupied by homeowners (DUH) and thereby reducing the supply of apartments. The law currently states that only a certain number of units (200 as of this time) can be converted into condos within a calender year. A lottery is thereby run to determine which units in the city will change from apartments to condos. At this time, all buildings with three or more units must go through the lottery. Two unit buildings are exempt from the lottery and bypass it. An unlimited number of two unit buildings can be converted every year. Just this year, Mayor Gavin Newson vetoed legislation that had been passed by the SF Board of Supervisors that would have made it harder for two unit buildings to bypass the lottery. Because of this, getting the process became imperative.

The ultimate benefit is not any physical and/or material improvement to the building, but it lies in a huge gain in resale value. A condo that you can purchase that is "free, clear, simple" is much more attractive than a building in which you are tied at the waist to others who are, at best, friends and business partners.

This condo conversion process is no easy task nor inexpensive. There are lawyers in this city who deal completely with condo conversions. To tell you how crazy the world of real estate is in San Francicso, my partners and I have what we call "the bible" which is a 35 page TIC operating agreement written by THE lawyer in town who specializes in TIC agreements.

Our first move was to retain the services of a firm to help us initially with the application to the city and to coordinate all the minutiae of the process. $3,200 right off the bat. Next, we had to hire a Deed Company (free but there is an unspoken quid pro quo to use them when the new deeds are to be issued upon completion of the condos) and a surveying company ($6,000). This surveying company will take all the measurements inside and outside the builing and of the lot itself. The surveying company then produces the "mylar" sheets that will be submitted to the Planning Department.

$480 for the city inspection which will occur sometime 11 months from now. The city requires a fee of $8,600 for the process of condo conversion. I didn't mean to fixate on the costs, but because these have all been up front, they have tended to have a multiplicative effect in my mind.

So for the next couple years, you'll occasionally be updated on this process and be amazed at the glacial pace this will occur.