>> can everyone take your seats? we are about to begin the abatement appeals hearing. good morning. today is wednesday, november 21st. this is a meeting of the

abatement appeals board. i would like to remind everyone to please turn off all electronic devices. the first item on the agenda is roll call. president clinch? >> here. >> vice president melgar is excused. commissioner lee? >> here. >> commissioner mar? >> here. >> commissioner mccarthy? >> here. >> commissioner [speaker not understood]? >> present. >> [speaker not understood]. >> present. >> we have a quorum. item number b is the oath. all those persons giving testimony today please stand and raise your right hand? do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth to the best of your knowledge? yes. >> thank you. item number c is approval of the minutes, discussion and possible action to adopt the minutes for the meeting held on september 19th, 2012.

>> move to approve. >> second. >> okay. all those in favor? >> aye. >> okay. i'm sorry, do we have any public comment on these minutes? did someone have any public comment on the minutes? okay. the minutes are approved. we can now move on to item d, new appeals, orders of abatement, case no. one is case no. 6765, 118 taylor street. the owner of record is laleh zelinsky revoc, a revocable trust, 172 golden gate avenue. i'd like to remind everyone that the department has 7 minutes to present its case, then the appellant has 7 minutes.

then we will have three minutes for rebuttal and discussion and public comment. so, we have [speaker not understood] first. >> thank you, members of the board. good morning. this particular property was built in 1906 and is a residential hotel. it has 63 guest rooms, residential, 25 are [speaker not understood] falls within the hotel conversion ordinance. it is classified as a residential hotel. the issue here before you today for this building, it has three floors of occupancy over commercial. and i'd like to show you a photo that is [inaudible].

so, while we're waiting for the picture to show up on the screen, the issue before you today is that there is a provision in chapter 5 of the san francisco housing code which is retroactive. that requires a minimum number of public or common abating facilities and sanitation facilities per floor. this particular provision has been, as it is today, in the housing code since 1995, and it has been reaffirmed by this -- by the building inspection commission and the board of supervisors over the years. the history on this is it used to be that these public bathrooms had gender labels for men and women. and the code was changed back in 1994, 1995 because the city saw that there was a greater demand for men in these rooms and yet there were women in the

residential hotel that didn't have any bathrooms. so, the code was changed to a schedule that requires at least two of these facilities, a water closet, a bathing facility and sink if the laboratory sinkses aren't in the rooms, tub shower, tub shower combination. at least two for every floor of occupancy that has two to 20 rooms. and from 21 to 30 it goes up to 3 and, 4 and 5 as we go in increments of 10. in this situation for this particular building we've got 19 guest rooms on the first floor, 22 guest rooms on the second, 22 on the third. so, of that, there are some private bathrooms. the first has 8, the second two have 9. you essentially have at least 11 guest rooms with no bathrooms on the first floor of occupancy and 13 on the second two. so, obviously this falls within the 2 to 20 range so you need at least 2. now, what i'm going to show you

next is a schematic. i want you to focus on the area where [inaudible]. this is actually taken off of the hotel's emergency plan. so, it will due to show you what's going on. this is typical of all the floors. as you can see we have the water closets and there is the one shower room. that is typical for all of these. and they need a minimum of [inaudible]. now, it is irrelevant to this code section that this building was built in 1906. it may or may not have had these because the board of supervisors and the commission and the mayor have determined that the minimum standard given the occupancy load of this building is a minimum of two. the housing code has the authority under local law and under state and [speaker not understood] statutes to be able to be retroactive. and indeed there is a whole list of retroactive provisions and this code section is one. they're listed in chapter 2 of the housing code. and indeed the inaugural

structural engineer on this commission had, when we were going through changes, had each of those descriptions of what those sections are listed. so, this is on there. it is retroactive. all other buildings built at this time also were required to put this in and there may be a handful of properties out there that for some reason we haven't seen that they're not in compliance in this particular instance. our code enforcement outreach program, one of our vendors, ben ing, actually brought this to our attention. we went out, took a look at it, saw they were in violation, wrote a notice of violation. we have done the typical process here that is required by code, the notice of violation goes to the property owner. and on-site we're dealing with the lessee. as far as trying to work with them it see what are the solutions, in this instance because there are private bathrooms in some of these rooms, one of the options that they have is to make one of those rooms -- to take that

particular bathroom or shower and create access into the public hallway and that would require a building permit. that's what the notice of [speaker not understood] said. now, some of these rooms are occupied. as i found from discussions with my field inspectors, there is a transient nature to the occupancy of this building. and, so, as such, some of these rooms that have the vacant bathrooms are going to come up for vacancy. and, so, then the property owner would have the opportunity to do this. we need to give the property owner time to work this out, but we strongly feel that the two -- a minimum of two bathrooms, that that is the minimum as far as health and safety and there's really no equivalent for a bathing facility. so, from that standpoint there is really not an equivalency here. what you essentially have happen, a person would have to go up to the floors above and compete with everybody else trying to use that one shower.

the other thing to consider is that of all the items that the housing division and the building inspection department get as far as complaints and residential hotels, problems with the bathrooms, not being properly maintained or being available is constant. so, that is the other reason why you need at least two because inevitably you have one down. for whatever reason. so, in a situation like that, if this shower is down and everybody is competing, everybody in the rest of the hotel is competing for two showers. and you're looking at quite a few of them. so, if there are any questions, i'm happy to answer them. and i also believe there are some people from outreach [speaker not understood] the building to speak today. >> great. >> can we do the public comment first or can we ask questions of rosemary now? >> you can ask questions. >> rosemary, i have a question for you. >> sure.

>> this was passed in 1995. i know it was a long time ago, but was there a timeline the properties had to comply with the ordinance when it was passed? >> i'm glad you asked. i wasn't the chief at the time, but i was asked to write the [inaudible]. when we first did the first schedule, we were actually had -- it was more than two. so, we realized there were way too many buildings out of compliance. it was dropped down to what the city felt at the time was the absolute minimum. and we worked with the property owners on that. so, we didn't write notices of violation initially. we gave them the opportunity to, as rooms became vacant or whatever, to be able to put these in. and, so, pretty much everybody has complied with that. as i said, buildings that were built at a similar time. and in this instance we're more than happy since it's come to our attention, to give the property owner time, but we do have people living in this building. they're competing for three showers. it needs to be reasonable. >> it sounds like there wasn't

a time allowance -- >> there were. >> commissioner mar. >> i wanted to know how long is this violation been in effect? >> well [speaker not understood] you have in front of you? >> yes. >> it was issued august of this year. so, now, what you have is a situation where [speaker not understood] the property owner to go away before you. you are sitting in the shoes of what would be the hearing -- the director's representative. >> rosemary, i have a question. if the nov was issued in august, when was the first time our department found out about it? was the complaint -- >> generally as we do inspectionses, we would see that these situations occur, one of the things i'd like to show you is that in your packet you can see some photos of some of the doors. and as you walk by, unless

those doors were open, the garbage room may have been [speaker not understood]. so, in this particular instance it came to our attention that they were not in compliance when we wrote the notice of violation in august. >> the date -- so, our department found out about this in august? >> that's when we wrote the notice of violation, yes. >> okay. >> as i said, when you walk down the hall, if the doors are closed, there is not a specific complaint about that. we would not necessarily have known. but pretty much there may be a handful out there that may not be in compliance because a lot of these buildings we've done room to room inspections and, so, we found them out and worked with the property owners to bring them into compliance. so, this is one of those instances where the current enforcement outreach program is crucial to help us in these situations. keep in mind also -- and i'm not saying that's the case here, but generally when we saw the requirement, usually there is alteration without permit. so, that affects the situation as well. but there's no evidence of that

here. >> through the chair, sorry, i have a question. so that i understand this, traditionally, why wasn't [speaker not understood]? is it your experience that they want to have a hearing -- >> there is a provision in chapter 1a of the san francisco building code that allows a property owner, when they get a notice of violation and we schedule them for a director's hearing, or if they wish they can ask that that be waived and come directly to you. and we receive that request in writing from the property owner's representative, mr. karnilowicz. >> is this hotel operated by the owner or is it a leased hotel? >> i believe there is a lessee inr. -- involved. [speaker not understood] has been the lessee in the past. so, on the notice of violation is issued to the property owner, on-site [speaker not understood] we're having a discussion about what the possible options are with the

lessee if that's who is in control of the property as far as what their options are. so, we communicate with both. >> but who would go to the hearing, for example, if there was a hearing? >> if it's the property owner or lessee's representative. i believe mr. karnilowicz could clarify that for you. >> okay. so, we don't have the lessee or we don't have the owner here with us today, we just have a representative? >> i believe -- is the owner here? just his representative. >> okay, thank you. >> okay. are we ready for the appellant? good morning, commissioners. i represent the lessee of the hotel as was said a little while ago. this building was built back in 1906. i tried to find the original codes for it which i couldn't find from records management. i think it's [speaker not understood] permit. it didn't even say how many

rooms there were in the hotel. i think you folks probably are aware most of these hotels were for traveling salesmen, they weren't meant to be lived in. so, they never really had all the facilities a usual hotel would have. [speaker not understood] travel for a day, a week, whatever, would move on. and, so, the current floor plan is the same as the floor plan from day one when it was built. i can't argue with the fact [speaker not understood] came through and this requirement. i do know a lot of these hotels -- i work frequently with the owners of these hotels. it's not unusual to see hotels that do not have the two bathrooms that she said. and currently this hotel does have -- many of the rooms do have private bathrooms and [speaker not understood] two toilets and a shower. we're asking for an exemption from this because we feel this

hotel was built, the floor plan hasn't changed. it's not much different from many residential hotels in the area. so, that's our position. it would take away the private bathrooms from people that have them right now, and that would be something that those [speaker not understood] would object to and possibly file a claim with the rent board and prevent us from doing that. so, that's our position at this time. >> time for questions. commissioner walker? >> thank you. should one of these next time become one of the private rooms that have a bathroom, should one of those become available, is the owner willing to convert that to public access? ms. walker -- commissioner walker, i think we would have to do that.

quite frankly, [speaker not understood] i believe it's going to come out of his pocket, not the owner's pocket. and we'd like to see if we can avoid doing that. as you know it's nice to have a room that has a bathroom, better quality of life for those who have it. on the other hand you have a room that doesn't have [speaker not understood]. >> i hear you. thank you. [speaker not understood]. >> any other questions? >> it's kind of related. 25 of the rooms are tourist hotel rooms. so, there's quite a bit of turn over there because they're not staying there very often, very long at all, right? do those tourist rooms have private bathrooms, some of them? commissioner mar, it's how the hotels were set up. when they came up with this s-r-o audience, from what i believe is what the city did

their room to room hotels and asked people, how many rooms are occupied by people more than 30 days and how many are not? that's how they came up with tourist rooms and residential rooms. primarily these hotels are not run as tourist hotels. they're really run as residential hotels. it's pretty hard to rent out rooms in these residential hotels to tourists because the clientele that are there. and, so, that's not usually how it's done. >> but there are tourists in some of those rooms? not really, no. >> okay, thank you. >> other questions? time for public comment or rebuttal first? do rebuttal? okay. do you want to do rebuttal? >> no. >> no. any public comment?

>> public comment is three minutes. hi. we're doing like a mini presentation, but we'll be quick. so, my name is [speaker not understood] and i'm an organizing coordinator for city center [speaker not understood] by the huntington clinic. we work with -- we are funded with dbi to work with dbi inspectors and have issues with the tenderloin and south of market. what i'll do is briefly give the framework of what we do, and my coworker here is going to talk about specific issues in [speaker not understood] hotel and we have tenants who are going to address the issue. so, what we do is we have tenant outreach program. we have tenants who become [speaker not understood] and they do [speaker not understood], talk to tenants about tenant rights, how to address an issue. what we do is [speaker not understood] issue in one

particular building, we try to have a tenant meeting where we can address the issue, we can figure out what are the different issues [speaker not understood]. we try to send a letter to the landlord and say, here, we found these issues. we would like you to work on these issues. we give them [speaker not understood], 7 days, 14 days to figure out how to work and receive any [speaker not understood] from the landlord to fix the issue. landlord or lessee to fix the issue. if they don't then we call dbi inspector out and we work with [speaker not understood]. work with dbi inspector or talk with the landlord directly. so, we are like the go between. we are like the folks that come to us in order to address the issue. so, we've done this with welfare. that's what we do here with some of my coworkers and also from the tenants how this is going. thanks.

hi, good morning, appeal board. my name is ben. i work with [speaker not understood]. we are with the organizing department at [speaker not understood] and i am the program coordinator for the code enforcement program. adjust mentioned like how we got involved with the building. to provide you with a framework of how we were working with tenants, i want to give you some common issues that we face on a daily basis or tenants face on a daily basis. so, just to give you some quick facts. so, there has been a -- so, within the last two years, we've been dating back to 2010. so, from 2010 to present there's about 29 novs that have been issued to the work field. and there's about 9 that are still -- there are 9 issued this year.