>> good evening and welcome to the january 16th, 2013 meeting of the san francisco board of appeals. the presiding officer this

evening is board president chris hwang joined by vice president frank fung, commissioner lazarus and commissioner darryl honda. commissioner hurtado is absent this evening. the deputy city attorney will provide the board with any legal advice i'm cynthia goldstein the board's executive director. we're joined from representatives from the city departments with the cases before us. scott sanchez is here, he is representing the planning department and planning commission. joseph duffy, senior building inspector representing the department of building inspection. john kwong is here and i'm not sure if they are in the room, but i'm expecting representatives from the environmental health section of the department of health. if you could conduct the swearing-in process.

>> the board requests that you turn off all phones and pagers so they will not disturb the proceedings. please carry on conversations in the hallways. the board's rules of presentation are as follows, appellants, permit holders and department representatives each have seven minutes to present their cases and three minutes for rebuttals. people affiliated with these parties must include their comments within the 7 or 3-minute periods. members of the public, who are not affiliated with the partis have up to 3 minutes each to address the board, but no rebuttals. to assist the board in the accurate preparation of minutes, the members of public who wish to speak on an item are asked, but not required to submit a speaker card or business card to staff when you come up to the podium. speaker cards and pens are available on the left side of the podium. the board also welcome yours comments and suggestions. there are customer satisfaction survey forms on the left side of the podium. if you have questions about requesting a rehearing, board

rules or hearing schedules please speak to board of directors staff during a break or after the meeting or call the board office tomorrow morning. the boor office is leb locate [*-fb/] located at 1650 mission street, room 304. this meeting is broadcast live on san francisco government television sfgovtv, cable channel 78, and dvds are of meeting are available for purchase directly from sfgovtv. thank you for your attention. at this point in time we'll conduct our swearing-in process. if you intend to testify at any of tonight's hearings, and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary weight, please stand, raise your right hand and say i do after you have been sworn-in or affirmed. please note, that any member of the public may speak without taking this oath, pursuant to the rights under the sunshine ordinance in the administrative code. thank you.

anyone else? okay. do you solemnly swear or firm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing, but the truth. >> i do. >> thank you. >> thank you. president hwang, commissioners we have one housekeeping issue in record to item 8, this is an appeal of a penalty imposed for work permitted without a permit at 965 mission street. the appellant is ill and has requested that this matter be continued to the board's february 13thing, 2013 meeting and the department of building inspection has agreed. with a vote we can move this to that date. >> i will move its continuance to that date. >> thank you. is there any public comment? seeing none, mr. pach echo, if you could call the roll. >> we have a motion from the president to reschedule item 8

to february 13th. on that motion vice president fung? >> aye. >> thank you. commissioner hurtado is absent. commissioner lazarus? >> aye. >> commissioner haabed honda? >> aye. >> thank you. the vote is 4-0 and that appeal is rescheduled until february 13th. >> item 1 is public comment for anyone who would like to speak to the board on an item or a subject that is not on the board's calendar this evening. is there anyone here who would like to speak under "general public comment?" seeing no public comment we'll move to item 2, which is election of officers, article 1 section 169 board's rules states that the president and vice president shall be elected at the first regular meeting of the board held after the [#1wr5-/]th day of january each year and tonight is that board's meeting. as such the election of officers is on the board's calendar. and just if i could take a brief moment for proceeding

with the item. i want to take of the opportunity to thank president hwang and vice president fung for their service. it's been a pleasure for me to work in this capacity with each of you and greatly appreciate what have you done in these last months in your office >> thank you. >> so typically the board starts with the office of vice president and ask if there are any board members to nominate a colleague or themselves for this officer? >> commissioners, if i may start? i would like to nominate commissioner lazarus? she has served in official capacity before and i know she will be able to run the meeting in the absence of the president quite well. >> thank you. commissioner lazarus has been nominated foyer office of vice president. and is there any other nomination? >> i would second that nomination. >> okay. it has been seconded. is there any public comment before the board votes on this? eseeing none, if you could call the roll on the nomination of

the vice president? >> okay. we have a motion from vice president fung to elevate commissioner lazarus to the vice presidency of the board of appeals. on that motion, president hwang? >> aye. >> commissioner hurtado is absent. commissioner lazarus? >> aye. >> and commissioner honda? >> aye. >> thank you. the vote is 4-0 and commissioner lazarus is elevated to vice president. >> congratulations, [ applause ] . moving on to the office of president, any nominations for that office >> if i may speak again. president hwang has only served for a few months. she has not served a full term and it would be my pleasure to nominate her to continue as president of this board. >> thank you, commissioner fung. i would be delighted to accept that nomination.

it's been interesting and i'm not prepared to end this, so i would definitely like to proceed with another term. >> i am happy to second the nomination. >> so the nomination of president hwang has been made and seconded. is there any other nomination for this office? seeing none, before we call the roll, is there any public comment? >> we have a motion from vice president fung to renominate president hwang to be president of the board of appeals for another year-long-term. on that motion, president hwang? >> aye. >> and commissioner hurtado is absent. commissioner lazarus? >> aye. >> commissioner honda? >> aye. >> thank you. the vote is 4--0 and commissioner hwang is president of the board of appeals for another term.

>> congratulations. [ applause ] >> thank you both. >> we'll take item 3, commissioner comments and questions. >> i would like to request that we get through our docket. i'm not feeling well. so i may need to leave early. so in this case, the, i would like to get as much done as possible while i'm here. >> is there any public comment on that item? seeing none we'll move to item no. 4, which is the board's consideration and possible adoption of the january , 2013 minutes. >> i will move adoption of the minutes as submitted. >> thank you. any public comment on the minutes? seeing none, mr. pacheco, if you could call the roll, please. >> we have a motion from our new vice president to adopt the

january 9th, 2013 minutes. on that motion, commissioner fung? >> aye. >> president hwang [stph*-pl/] aye. >> commissioner hurtado is absent. commissioner honda? >> aye. >> thank you. the vote is 4-0 and those minutes are adopted. thank you. calling item 5a, which is a jurisdiction request at 404 jersey street the board received letters from bill pashelinsky, requestor asking that the board take jurisdiction over the denial on august 14th, 2012 of the rear yard variance and the denial on september 5,2012 of bpa no. 2011/12/15, is0758. the appeal periods ended august [#24*-7b8g/], 2012 and separate 20th, 2012 respective and the jurisdiction requests were filed at the board office on october 31, 2012.

the building permit application is to convert existing concrete slab into parking pad with new gate and curb cut. mr. pashelinsky, please step forward you have six minutes. >> i don't think i'll need six minutes. it's very simple. i am bill pashelinsky the project architect and we're not here to review the worthiness or lack of worthiness of the parking pad. we applied for a variance and unfortunately due to a number of circumstances near mr. murphy or i or any representative knew about the hearing, didn't attend and pro forma, as i understand, it it got turned down. i originally applied for the variance mix. i was called by the -- well, i was told by the planner, mr. adrian putra that he had a

couple of issues. i reported that back to my client and my client at that point hired a specialist/consultant who worked on garages. he told us he was working with mr. putra. there was a hearing. mr. murphy came to the hearing for the variance. it was postponed. mr. murphy left for ireland for the summer. as far as we know our consultant was working with planning staff. he was not in contact with me or mr. murphy. a hearing got scheduled, i wasn't notified about the hearing. normally i'm the applicant and i get a call or letter telling me to go down and pick up the poster and bring it out to the site. and that has happened in every case. in this case it didn't happen. my understanding is that a letter was sent to mr. murphy's house. mr. murphy wasn't home during the summer. he was in ireland with his family. the variance was denied based on us not being there. i got a letter in late august.

i called mr. murphy, unfortunately there was a family tragedy at the time i called. my client, mr. murphy it's father-in-law had gotten very ill and proceeded to die. when i called helmet, he was in the process of making arrangements to have the deceased brought back to the united states and to be buried. so it was a series of errors, partly on our fault, on our consultant's fault for not kiping in contact burk we also felt that i was at applicant should have been contacted to pick up the posters and notified by the hearing. thank you. >> mr. sanchez? >> >> thank you, good evening president hwang and congratulations vice president lazarus. there was a duly notified

hearing on the case. the project sponsor did attend that hearing that the time the item was continued one month to the may 23, 2012 hearing. that continuance was at the question of the project sponsor who requested additional time to provide evidence to the department this. is because prior to the hearing the department indicated that we didn't see much strength in their arguments for the variance. we had a hearing may 23, 20 12 however no one attended. we continued the matter two months to allow the project sponsor to attend and scheduled a hearing for july 25, 2012. staff attempted to reach out to the project sponsor, but did not receive a response. we had a hearing in addition, to the fact there was no one in attendance on the project sponsor's side to present the case. i also found there was no merit to the variance request and denied the variance. so i wanted to make myself available for my other questions, but, but president hwang i hope you feel better. >> thank you. >> you had the same thing last

week (yes. >> it's horrible. so we hear from the applicant he did not receive notice about the hearing as he normally would. do you have records showing that you did provide -- is that what your normal course is? >> so the applicant has given a poster to post on property. it's my understanding that that poster was prepared and that a poster was placed on the property and confirmed by staff. >> when did that take place? >> that would have taken place in the beginning of april. >> okay. >> they did meet with the applicant right before the hearing in april a couple of days prior to the hearing. at that time they requested a continuance of the matter. and i believe the appellant, the actual applicant did appear at the hearing. i went back to review the tapes and we confirmed and he confirmed and stated back to me it would be continued one month to may. so this was my recollection and confirmed by

the tapes. >> were you given any reason for the no-show on the may hearing? >> no. or the continued hearing? >> i haven't heard from anyone. >> thank you. >> mr. sanchez, you indicated for the july that two attempts were made to contact him. what form of con tact was done? >> i believe by phone after the may hearing. >> there was no answer? >> it's my understanding there was no response. >> mr. duffy? no? is there any public ghent? comment? >> good evening commissioners, my name is brocmurphy. >> i'm sorry your time to speak is under mr. pashelinsky time. he is representing you?

>> he didn't take his six minutes, can i take the rest of the time? do you have any record of how much time was left? >> probably half a minute. >> everyone okay with that? >> i'm recovering from what you have. >> everyone want my sympathy tonight. >> i made the mistake of hiring a consultant whoeed is he would work on the summer and for some pathological reason he did knowledgement. as you heard from my architect, i was many in ireland. i was away. the problem here is that from my perspective, i made a mistake. i practiced law for years and i'm very well aware of the doctrine of agency and i'm hung by my agent's mistake.

staff should have reached out to bill pashelinsky. i wasn't in the country. my father-in-law was dieing in ireland all summer. i was in ireland and thought the thing was beinging worked on. there was into way to get ahold of my and i was under the assumption that i left the matter in the hands of my agents. mr. pollard let me down and mr. pashelinsky was the agent of record on this. it's his name that son the poster. now it wouldn't matter, except that i am prohibited from come back to have this looked at again for a year from the time that it was dismissed. and i am not asking minto judge the substance of this. i am willing to go and work on that, but i'm just saying two wrongs don't make a right. there were two wrong ms. this matter. staff should have reached out to mr. pashelinsky and he could