the west extension and the deck stair pulled back, we will not have to talk to you again until the next project. [laughter] commissioner garcia: that is the motion. the findings would be based upon the consideration of what is good for the neighbors. are those sufficient enough items, or do we need something more complete? president peterson: not as long as the light well is compliant with the rdg's/ >> could you reiterate the language? we are overruling the permit. commissioner garcia: right, with the sights set back to be as originally proposed to the planning commission dr, and the

steps to remain as altered by conditions imposed by the planning commission at dr. commissionger fung: do you want to reference that particular drawing? it is really a combination of one representing the set back, and when they made an alternative plan. that was moved inward. >> we have that motion. it is to overrule the denial and grant that department with those conditions. president peterson: it is on one condition that the project sponsor's original design for the west side be accepted but the other design issue regarding

the stairs was not accepted. >> on that motion, commissioner fung? commissionger fung: aye. vice president goh: no. president peterson: aye. commissioner hwang: aye. >> it is overturned. president peterson: moving on to item 8. colorado that item, please. . call that timeimtem, please.

>> the property is 2311 california st.. it protests the issuance on may 24, 2010 to alter a building. >> this is a representative of the appellant. >> good evening. i am here on behalf of paul wermer. i am here with the project architect. the contractor is also available to answer questions. this in my opinion is an extremely unique set of facts. it is one of those situations that certain things -- we have two adjoining buildings, where one building, ms. unterberger's building, get structural support from the other building.

we did not know that intel the remodel. it was a perfect stone. it revealed that things ms. unterberger had done it -- her building is attached structurally to the upper level to paul and carol's house. this is about a permit for work that was issued without plans. dbi began -- there was much made by paul in his reply belief -- his reply brief. we believe the issue with the plans is what is appropriate in this situation. it is not an extraordinary thing we are seeking. it is what they do to protect buildings. we are not asking the board to substitute its judgment for that dbi. we understand they are the technical experts. we're simply asking for the board to condition.

we want ms. unterberger to complete the renovations. but we believe without transparency the risk to both buildings is heightened. all of them are benefited by that, as is dbi. with a plan, there is a road map. there is a way to know what has been affected by this work. the appeal is not about code enforcement. the appeal is not about whether ms. unterberger has or has not done things. it is getting done now. we simply want a mechanism by which everyone involved knows exactly what is happening going forward, so there is a clear record. we are minimizing damage to both properties. the goal of the appeal is really to obtain code compliance for both buildings and insure there is a record to be clear that abatement occurred. i think when we come before this

board we are looking to balance the equities and hardships. if you look at the equities and the hardships, the only hardship by not granting the condition we are looking for is on the wermers. they have tried to work with ms. unterberger over the past 5.5 months. it escalated. but as we showed in our opening brief, it was done. the walls are open and we now know what we are aware of. please work with us. we are willing to renegotiate a property walt agreement. we are willing to extend that shall we have a repair and maintenance agreement. many of us here in sentences co are on top of each other. -- here in san francisco are on top of each other. when that failed, we were looking for some way to move forward with preparing the code violation. one of the main ones we have shown in our papers is -- her

laundry shed is attached to paul and carlo'ol's house. when she does her laundry, their house shakes. now the building is open, you can see all kinds of water damage. i want to be really clear the lawsuit was filed for access. it was not to do the work that is being requested by ms. unterberger under the permit. it was to gain access so they could complete the remodeling. as to miss unterberger, the plans are to her benefit. it sets a clear record for herself and anybody who buys the property what is going to happen. she can build on that. it also insures the contractor is involved the work is done properly. part of the problem we can talk about is that it looks like some of the work was done fly by night and haphazardly.

you need to have plans also because the scope of work is not just minor. it is structural. we are really asking dbi to do what it does best -- which is to inspect. they insure the safety of joining buildings. plans are the rule, not the exception. we are not asking you to supersede the dbi. we just want you to review this permit and condition it. they are narrowly tailored to the situation. the scope of work is already in the record. the kids transparency that benefits ms. unterberger, paul and carol, and the building department as to maintain permit records over the years and make sure what is there. the purpose and the goal is simply to insure the integrity of both buildings and enable both property owners to understand what has happened.

then the work at the house can proceed and we get the benefit of a code compliant home. thank you for your time. >> good evening. my name is paul wermer. i filed the appeal. i have spent a lot of time in san francisco working to try to find constructive solutions. i am gone through the pacific heights residents' association. usually it is possible to work successfully with people. there are a couple of letters testifying to my doing so. we have tried to work with ms. unterberger since before starting the project. unfortunately, we have been in -- we have been unable to have her sit down and address specific concerns, either hurts or hours.

this is very stressful. her building is intimately attached to ours in various places. there are issues of dry rot. there are issues of beetles, and damage in areas attached to our building. without talking to her, without agreeing on how to move forward, we cannot fix these problems without unacceptable damage to other property. thank you. -- unacceptable damage to either property. thank you. >> good evening. jeremy paul. this needs to go to the computer, please. we have a grouping of old houses

in a row that are attached and associated with one another. the way in which they are interacting is not altogether clear. where the property lines are between them is definitely not clear, and what is and is not an encroachment has never yet been established. it seems that the appellant wants to make the decisions about what is an encroachment, what is not an encroachment, what is his property, and what is her property without establishing the record of what that really is. the situation that they are in now began soon after the wermers started work on the property. there was considerable asbestos removal from the rear of the property and sally's contractor

was at the house at the time and commented that the proper abatement steps were not being taken. he instructed her to call the department of building inspection about that. that was addressed. the building department stopped the work and required that the asbestos removal procedures be implemented. that was done. then a level of rancor or developed a following that -- a level of rancor developed following that that has spun out of control. following the first demand letter from their attorney that made this lawsuit, sally unterberger has not been a healthy woman. she has gone to a series of surgery starting in early january on her shoulder and hands such that she was never able to give the attention to

her house that she needed to give to her recuperation. it is unfortunate that her ability to be responsive to her neighbors' remodel -- she just was not physically able to do it at the time and the schedule that the remodel seemed to demand. so in order to push ms. unterberger to do things in the way they wanted them done, the requested that the district building inspector come in and have a look. noticing what appeared to be deteriorated, dilapidated conditions, the district building inspector wrote a notice of violation. the notice of violation is very clear and very specific that the complete investigation -- the violation description was that the dilapidated conditions on

the east side of the building in crashed into the neighboring property. this is the actual language that is on this notice of violation that is written by a district inspector. ms. unterberger's contractor has spoken with the inspector that wrote this, and he said he had discussed the language he was riding with the appellant before it was finalized. -- he was riding with the appellate before it was finalized. the description was in detail and the corrective action required was in detail. what was not part of the corrective action specified on the nov were plans or penalties for these violations. it was just fix them. it was very clear we had begun to fix it.

sally's contractor has created this list that he has discussed with the district inspector and has agreed that this complies with the intent of this notice of violation. where the requirement for plans would come in would be if she was trying to legalize a shed that holds her washing machine that is clearly attached next door. that is going to be removed. there is no attempt to legalize that shed. so we do not need to file plans for an exterior alterations. what we need to do is what the building department asked us to do and repair the dilapidated conditions. it is an undue burden on the neighbor to require her to go to extraordinary measures at additional expense because your neighbor is in the middle of a remodeled.

the building inspector was very clear about what needed to be addressed. she is prepared to address those things. she complied with the time line given to her for issuance of the permit. it was appealed right away. it kept her from doing this. if this had not been appealed, this work would already be done, the work on this notice of violation. there is other work in other portions of the house that may be addressed in this lawsuit. i am not her attorney. i do not really know what their intent is with this lawsuit. but the fact is that what we are doing here tonight affect that. and we cannot ignore the fact that the department of building inspection and the board of appeals is being brought into this disagreement between these two property owners. it seems to me that if there is an encroachment been alleged and ms. unterberger needs to picks

-- needs to accept expenses pertaining to that, the property line is going to need to be shown clearly before the project sponsor, the appellant, could require that their neighbor make changes to their property. thank you very much. president peterson: thank you. mr. kornfield. >> lawrence cornfikornfield with the department of building inspection. i agree with everyone. i think the appellant is right. i think the permit holder is right. let me give you a little bit of history and tell you where the building department seems like it fits into this. actually, we are being dragged

into this in some ways. it is a private dispute about the property line. this was a single building that had three town house structures or units in it. sometime, i think in 1953, the owner of the building, or the owners, chose to subdivide the building. they subdivided into these three separate buildings. if he were to subdivide such a building today, we would say you have to meet the code section. each is an independent building with its own lines -- its own walls. but the way this was done in the '50s, there is a single wall in the middle of this building. that is what we have today. we have separate "buildings" with a single partition. they are truly sharing walls.

we do not see that often. we have a few here and there, but we do not see it commonly. when people do it these days subdivide come up we would require protection to separate the walls, although we do let them share foundations these days. when they did this in 1953, as best i can recreate the history, i am going to show you the plans. there was an agreement between some of these parties that is not really about a party wall at all. the agreement is about maintenance of gutters and overheads, it eaves, and downspouts, telephone lines, utility lines, and so forth. it is not about party will maintenance, although perhaps it could be interpreted that way. also, i have not been able to see the record of where the lot

line is. we have the separate properties. is the property line in the middle of the wall, on one side, or on the other side? the permit holder, mr. wemer rmer, and his attorney have told me where they believe the property line is. the appellate says they do not know where the property line is and need a survey to understand it. truly, i do not know where the property line is. i am not sure the building department wants to get into the middle of the argument about who owns half of a stud wall that is 5 inches wide. it is claimed to wiggle as the buildings moved around. also in 1953, the parcel that is

under the permit that we are talking about here today had a permit applied for to legalize two units. this is important because this is part of the problem that we have before us today. they had a permit in 1953 to legalize two units, to convert what was a ground floor business into a residential unit. that permit work was never completed. it was never signed off. that conversion never took place. so it continues to be a single family home until sometime, and i have a permit here from 1993 for this very building, where there was a lot of work underway to provide an off-street parking space. and the building department plan czech staff said, "you never

really showed you did a conversion to two units. you have to prove to us you have two units or get a permit to legalize the second unit." the permit we have a will put up on the overhead. -- i will put up on the overhead. it shows in 1993 going from one unit to two units. there is a permit to install a parking garage on the ground floor on a voluntary basis. it also puts a number of other things that have led, in some ways, to the problems we have today, which i am sure you will resolved easily. [laughter] i am going to move it up because the captions are right over the important part.

ok. maybe this will do a little bit for us. here is a picture of the building for which the permit is being appealed. this is the first floor plan. here is the front of the building. here is california street. that is a stairway to the floor above. it shows a new garage being proposed in 1993. it shows an existing entry, a storage room and existing kitchen area, and also shows an existing studio unit and an

existing bathroom, a shower, and a closet. all this stuff is shown as existing. having gone out to the building yesterday and looked at it, it is clear that in this pink line is, to me, where the original building was. sometime prior to 1953, when they filed the permit to legalize the dwelling, i think perhaps -- it is hard to say exactly what happened -- somebody built this big addition and filled in part of the light well. it is hard to say when it happened. there used to be a yard back here. this opened directly to the rear yard. they fill that in and put a bathroom in the previous yard, and a shower and a closet. it is all haphazard. it is not built the way people would normally build

construction. i suppose it meets minimum standards for construction. when the permit was signed off, as it was in 1993, somebody would have looked at it i suppose. but really the permit is for legalizing this for russia and the unit. the rest of this stuff that seems to have been done without permits previously washed along with the rest of this permit. now we have this large existing previously undocumented area of being shown as existing. it has been there for over 50 years, we think. something like that. it has been there for a long time. the issue seems to be -- there are a few issues. it seems to be this little area along in here where the original building ended. there is a single wall. this property has now nailed its

interior finishes in to this existing wall, and mr. we rmer's building is completely open. this part of the building is totally gutted. there has been a lot of remodel work that has come to a complete stop until we can resolve this, which is really unfortunate for everyone and the city. as he opened up this wall, you can see that the plumbing is sticking to the wall. i do not know whose property it is, but the plumbing is sticking right throughout the wall. nails are coming through the wall. you can see dry rot over here. there are leaks in this whole area. so there is some problem related to the way the buildings are attached to each other. it is this whole area that causes the big problem. i will note that the notice of violation talks about a deterioration.

in fact, the back of the studio unit over here and is in very bad condition. it is rotted. things have fallen off. it is in very bad condition. can i take another minute or am i taking too long? commissioner garcia: can you answer a question? >> i would be happy to serve. commissioner garcia: would you like a glass of water? [laughter] >> i will wrap it up quick, but i am sure you will be interested in the details. that to my overhead. here is the floor above. i outlined once again in pink the original building as i think it was, perhaps. and the original court or yard

was underneath -- this is the second floor you are looking at. this is where the bathroom was built on the ground floor. there is this big plastic skylight built in that area. it was probably not built with a permit. there are not parapet walls and so on. that leads me to believe that was part of the previous work. then back here on the second floor there is a shed that has been built and nailed to the next-door building. i do not know where the property line is, but there is a legend attached to the building. it is nailed in, a makeshift shed with a washer and dryer. it is tacked together. apparently, they are choosing to remove that shed. that was part of the notice of violation. then there is a deck that sits above that lower floor studio apartment on the ground floor. the deck has deteriorated.

i had to be careful i did not falter some of the floors. there were completely rotted. it was hazardous. just to finish up our grand tour here at the top floor, it is a little bit unusual. the original building wall seems to land right in the middle of a bedroom, so i do not know quite how that happened. a couple of comments. having tried to explain this complicated condition. plans were not -- the appellant is saying this is a building department issue, and they are appealing because they think the building department should have required plans to resolve this problem. that is the basis of the appeal