On Wednesday night, two men allegedly paid by Mission realtor Louis Cornejo were given a task: move seven giant planters away from the western gate of the disputed strip of land, Lot 36.
It was not an easy job. Each planter, installed at the site by the green space advocacy group Mission Greenway, weighed hundreds of pounds. A local resident saw the couple use a pick-up truck and wooden ramps to drag the planters about 30 feet northeast of the gate. Several planters appeared to have broken in transit, and the bottom of one appeared to have partially collapsed.
The next morning, drag marks in the mud showed where the planters had been pulled. Lara Hanna, a Mission Greenway member who helped install the garden, was not impressed.
“This guy thinks he’s above the law,” Hanna said. “That’s what’s so disgusting.” Hanna called the incident “illegal displacement and vandalism.”
Cornejo’s nocturnal plantation escapade was the latest escalation in tensions between Mission Greenway and a group of aggrieved neighbors bordering the controversial 23,522-square-foot parcel. The land, which cuts a diagonal strip through the block at 22nd and Harrison streets, has unclear ownership but is fenced off for the exclusive use of nearby businesses. In October, Mission Greenway cut the chain on the fence, created a chain lock to access the site and planted a garden inside. A handful of neighboring businesses have since hired lawyers to make their claim public on the site, and relations between the two groups are fractious.
Cornejo is the realtor of the Heinzer warehouse, which abuts Lot 36 and uses the land for loading dock access. The warehouse has been for sale since the artist tenants were evicted last fall. Cornejo declined to comment directly on the incident, but referred to the statements of attorney Stephen Preonas, who is employed at the warehouse and other businesses surrounding the strip of land.
“We are not aware of any damage,” Preonas said in an email. “The owners may have relocated the planters disrupting commercial operations.”
In a video recorded by Hanna the day after the planters were moved, Cornejo said the land is “private property” and the gate is needed for trucks to get in and out. Where the planters had been placed, one of the large double doors on the west side could still be opened, but the other was blocked. “It’s malicious what you’re doing,” Cornejo said.
“I wasn’t involved and I don’t know anything about it,” said James Heinzer, owner of the warehouse.
Despite the mention of owners and private land by Preonas and Cornejo, the ownership of plot 36 is not at all clear. A representative from the assessor-recorder’s office told Mission Local that Southern Pacific was listed as the owner of the land until 2017, but that company has not existed since 1996. Treasurer and tax collector records appear to show that no taxes were paid on the land between 2008 and 2018, which would normally have prompted the city to auction the land — it’s unclear why that didn’t happen.
According to the Assessor-Recorder’s Office, the parcel was divided into three sub-parcels in 2019. One of the subplots was assigned to the John Center Co., a long-defunct company founded by a 19th-century land baron of the same name. Another was awarded to long-deceased members of the Wehr family, according to Elizabeth Creely, a former Mission Local contributor and Mission Greenway member who has researched the site extensively. No tax has been paid on any of these sub-parcels since creation. The third subplot was largely granted to members of the Crimm-Ready family, who have since paid taxes on the land. The assessor-recorder’s office said that the family’s request dates back to 1910.
Despite these complications, Santiago Lerma, assistant to Supervisor Hilary Ronen, said that since the city granted the site to taxpayers, the land is not up for grabs. “The group continues to insist that no one owns the land,” Lerma said. “But the city has found people who need to be assessed to pay taxes. And the tax on one of the plots is current.”
In any case, companies bordering the land do not claim ownership. In late November, Preonas sent a letter to Tree Rubenstein, a half-century greenspace activist and de facto leader of the Mission Greenway group, arguing that the company’s historical use of the land meant they had “prescriptive easements” on the land.
A prescriptive easement is a legal right of access to another’s property when that property has been used, without express permission, for more than five years for a specific purpose. In this case, the companies say that because they used the land for parking and as a “Right of Way,” they have a legal right to continue using it. The letter does not specify any contractual servitudes in business acts.
“They’re asking for an easement,” Creely said. “But until and unless it passes judicial review, no rights can be said to have been established.”
Preonas’ November letter also expressed a desire “to open a dialogue with Mission Greenway” to discuss land uses that are “consistent with the owner’s right-of-way rights and the health and safety of the neighborhood.” This ultimately led to a meeting on January 6th between, on the one hand, representatives of the Heinzer Warehouse, the affiliated Mission Kids Co-op preschool, and a local resident with, on the other hand, Mission Greenway member Jorge Romero.
Romero is a civil engineer who has experience with green space projects in his home neighborhood of Bernal Heights. He characterized the meeting as “relatively professional and civil,” but said the Greenway mission was unable to accommodate several requests. One request, he said, was that members of his group stop accessing the site until visiting hours can be mutually agreed upon. The second was for the group to move the planters closer to the road at the west gate and for the group’s public event planned for January 14 to be cancelled. (It didn’t.)
Romero told Mission Local that restricting access to the site indefinitely would make it impossible to maintain the garden. Moreover, the ultimate goal of Mission Greenway is to make the area public, not to divide it between groups. At the meeting, Romero said, he promised to discuss the requests with the rest of the Greenway mission. Since then, there have been no formal meetings between the two sides and no agreements have been reached.
“For me, I’m done. I don’t want to go to another meeting,” Romero said. “Unless there’s some indication that we can actually be cooperative, I don’t think there’s any point in us meeting.”
Heather Lubeck, director of Mission Kids Co-op, declined to comment for this article, but emailed an earlier statement with the co-op’s position.
“The security of lot 36, as it is located right next to the children’s play area, is crucial,” the statement said. It goes on to say that “Mission Kids supports the creation of public green spaces maintained by SF Rec and Park or a non-profit organization such as the SF Parks Alliance” and welcomes “community-at-large input into the future use of Parcel 36.”
On top of these safety issues, preschool parents routinely use Lot 36 for parking when picking up and dropping off their children and when volunteering at the co-op. Rubenstein said the planters placed closest to the west gate — the ones that have since been pulled — were there specifically to prevent parking. On Thursday afternoon, the spaces were again filled with cars.
Despite these points of contention with the preschool and the Heinzer warehouse, Rubenstein said opposition to the greenway comes from a minority of voices.
“I don’t think there’s a growing tension between all the neighbors,” Rubenstein said. “I know for sure the realtor is the main person who’s upset.”
The group has many supporters. As she borrowed a chair from the garden to put her child’s shoes on Thursday afternoon, one preschool parent said she “loves plants.” And an online petition in support of the greenway has attracted more than 900 signatures in the past few weeks.
However, their detractors are not limited to neighboring business owners. Adam Feibelman, an artist who had a studio in the Heinzer warehouse until all tenants were evicted in the fall of 2022, said the Greenway Group was not considerate of the neighbors’ wishes. He said he and his fellow artists sought assurances about the possibility of a break-in with an open fence, but were not convinced Mission Greenway would take adequate precautions. He added that the current use of the site by the pre-school and warehouse should be respected.
“This is not how you win a political debate,” Feibelman said. Last summer, artists voted overwhelmingly against supporting the Mission Greenway. Many artists in the warehouse also used the lot for parking.
Feibelman said that despite his opposition to the group, he was opposed to towing and damaging the planters. “I don’t like the fact that their stuff is broken,” he said. “I think the plants are just beautiful and very well maintained.”
Rubenstein said that while “the temperature might be a little high” at this point, he’s optimistic that Mission Greenway and previous parcel users can continue to have more conversations. However, the veteran green space advocate emphasized that he would rather talk to neighbors directly than through a lawyer.
“We thought about lawyers in our group,” Rubenstein said. “But we’re not sure if a lawyer can really help resolve this situation.”
Mission Greenway is holding a public event at the lot today from 1 to 4 p.m., with live music and food. More information about the event can be found on the group’s website.