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Let's talk about 4016 E. 15th St, Oakland. A land use disaster, yes, but also a great example of how the city's tax assessments are full of holes whenever you dig into the details. You see, the tax bill on this 5200-square-foot lot is $0, and always has been. (thread)
Why is this property untaxed? The assessor codes it as "Exempt public agency". But unlike other such property, the official mailing address of 4016 E. 15th is not Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland. No, the mailing address is 4028 E. 14th, what we call 4028 International Blvd. now.
As you can see, 4028 Intl. Blvd. isn't an exempt public agency, either. It's this body shop. From 1955 to 1994 it was called Automotive Engineering Company. The address was also used as the mailing address of Automotive Engineering Company of Sacramento, with the same officer.
If the mail for 4016 15th goes to 4028 Intl, where goes the mail for the latter? It goes to box 17070 at the post office. P.O. boxes are often dead-ends, but sometimes there is a connection. The same box is the registered address of yet another body shop in Berkeley.
The real address is 1337 San Pablo but the customary address is 1375. Someone using this mailbox pulled a permit under the name "AECO Management Enterprises". AECO → American Engineering Company?
AECO's "principal executive office" is way out in BFE, San Joaquin County.
But their "principal business office" is 4016 Intl. Blvd., Oakland, next-door to our body shop. For what it's worth, they also own the radiator shop on the corner, the muffler shop behind that, and the junkyard next door.
So what do we have? A little auto repair landlord empire in Oakland, where the same owner holds five adjacent parcels, but one of them fell right through the cracks of the assessor's system decades ago. Not a big conspiracy, just failure to manage government affairs. (fin)
