Mark Zuckerberg:Neighbors feeling squeezed by work on Mark Zuckerberg’s S.F. home

Neighbors feeling squeezed by work on Mark Zuckerberg’s S.F. home

Updated 9:55 pm, Sunday, September 21, 2014

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  Neighbors unhappy about construction zone outside Dolores Heights home of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Photo: Andrew Ross, Andrew Ross, SF Chronicle

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Welcome to Fort Zuckerberg — the $10 million Dolores Heights “fixer-upper” thatMark Zuckerberg and his wife have turned into a massive construction encampment that has some neighbors feeling under siege by the Facebook founder.

Their problem goes beyond the rash of “no parking” signs on 21st Street near Dolores Street that have kept them from parking outside their own homes these past 17 months.

Dozens of construction workers, using backhoes and jackhammers, are busy installing everything from a new kitchen to bathrooms and decks — and tearing up the sidewalks for new fiber-optic cables that will connect to the home.

And it’s all being overseen by round-the-clock security.

“This is nothing short of a fortress,” said one homeowner, who asked not to be named to avoid a public kerfuffle with the new Facebook neighbors.

Assessor’s records show that contractors for Zuckerberg and his wife, UCSF physicianPriscilla Chan, have taken out no fewer than 10 permits for millions of dollars in construction work to the 1920s-era home — located just a block and a half from hipster central Dolores Park.

One permit lists a $65,000 remodel of the kitchen and six bathrooms — a figure that appeared to be so small that one real estate agent called it “a joke.”

Other permits:

•$720,000 for an office, media room, half bathroom, mudroom, laundry room, wine room and wet bar, plus a new second-floor half bathroom and remodel of the second, third and fourth floors.

•$750,000 for an addition to the rear and side of the house, reconfigured landscaping and window restoration work.

•$25,000 to make the fourth floor legally “habitable,” add a bathroom and turn part of the roof into a deck.

There’s also a new basement garage, complete with a turntable pad so cars can get in and out more easily.

One neighbor privately complained to us about the steady noise and hassle getting out of a driveway. Another said the problems are real, but that “it’s hard to talk about it without sounding whiny or like the wealthy need to be punished just because they have money.”

A man in a hardhat identifying himself as the prime contractor, but who wouldn’t give his name, acknowledged that there have been 40 to 50 workers on the job daily since work began in April 2013.

But he insisted the construction commotion wasn’t out of the ordinary for a big job, and that crews have gone “above and beyond” to keep neighbors informed and the sidewalks clean.

“If this was over in Pacific Heights, people wouldn’t be saying it,” he said of the complaints.

Supervisor Scott Wiener, whose district includes the home, says he has received e-mails from some neighbors unhappy about the lack of parking and construction disruption and has referred them to the Department of Public Works.

Wiener himself is steering clear.

“It’s a common concern by neighbors because so many construction projects are going on everywhere in the city,” Wiener said.

Teaming up? It was a rare sight indeed — A’s co-ownerLew Wolff, Raiders ownerMark Davis and their advisers in the same room with members of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority, talking about building separate stadiums on the Coliseum site.

“At this point I’m not ready to say anything more than we are meeting and talking,” said authority chairman Nate Miley.

While the headliners were Wolff and Davis, everyone also noticed the other heavyweight in the room — former Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb, whom Miley had flown in from Washington to work as a consultant on the possible projects.

Noticeably absent was anyone from Mayor JeanQuan’s private Coliseum City group, which has spent upward of $4 million in city money trying to put together its own stadium and ballpark deals at the site.

In the air: A second group of labor leaders has met with Mayor Ed Lee to press its case for the San Francisco Airport Commission’s seat held by Larry Mazzola - but unlike theSan Francisco Labor Council delegation, this batch did not demand an unprecedented sixth term for the embattled plumbers union boss.

The latest group, mostly trade union types, simply urged the mayor to keep it a labor seat, no matter the occupant.

Apparently not all the union bosses were ready to go to the mat for commission President Mazzola after he was outed for trying to swing an airport job for his nephew, who had been fired from another job at San Francisco International Airport for having porn on his work computer.

“Some of us were concerned that this shouldn’t be an ultimatum” for the mayor to reappoint Mazzola, said one labor leader in attendance, who would talk only on condition he not be named. “What’s most important is that this position be preserved for labor and not for any individual.”