It’s the city’s fault that a rare earthquake shack is almost gone

As many are aware by now, the earthquake cottage on Valley Street has been illegally denuded of its walls:

The easy way to view this long saga is to blame the real estate speculators who initiated this project—first John Schrader of Nova Design Build, and the new owner to whom Schrader sold this boondoggle, Benjamin Steiner of The Citadel Property Group. And, of course, they deserve every epithet that you can imagine.

But the real tragedy here is that the city officials whose job it is to protect historical resources like the Valley Street Earthquake Cottage facilitated this act of destruction, even though they are now posing as the shack’s defender.

For years, the preservation community and the neighbors pleaded with the Planning Department staff and the Planning Commission to leave th